There are a lot of great-looking people in this room. But one of the most outstanding is Kate Beckinsale, whose hair is absolutely a confection. It’s a tower of black glossy curls, and while it has much more volume than her slender face, it all works.

She’s sitting at a table that burst into spontaneous applause as Jerry Lewis finished his acceptance speech.

– Sarah Holbrooke, CNN Senior Editorial Producer, at the Elton John AIDS Foundation party

Editor’s Note: CNN Senior Editorial Producer Sarah Holbrooke is attending the 17th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) Academy Awards Viewing Party at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California. She’ll be filing dispatches from the party throughout the evening.

Sharon Stone just arrived with a great structural hair up-sweep and an elegant long black gown. Certainly not sporting anything from the Gap this Oscars. I will try to find out what she’s wearing — it’s lovely, and so is she.

Three women arriving separately are each wearing cherry-red gowns — different styles but almost exactly the same color. Definitely red is the trend thus far, although of course black dominates.

- Sarah Holbrooke

Stay in tune with the Oscars by coming to the Marquee Blog and watching CNN on Sunday!

CNN.com’s Jacque Wilson is live-blogging from the red carpet starting at 5 p.m. ET, and “Hollywood’s Gold Rush” will air live on CNN Sunday night at 7 p.m. ET. While hosts Brooke Anderson, Kareen Wynter and AJ Hammer look over the red carpet, you’ll have an opportunity to comment on the gorgeous gowns, natty tuxes or out-of-place fashion faux pas. So watch the show and come by the blog — your comment may appear on CNN!

Editor’s Note: CNN’s Jacque Wilson is in Los Angeles for the first time to cover the Academy Awards. Follow her blog updates from the event Sunday right here at CNN.com/marquee.

Michael O’Connor looks over some goodies.

No girl can turn down jewelry. So when accessory style expert Michael O’Connor invited me to observe several of his Oscar appointments, I jumped at the chance — if for nothing else than to be in a room with $30 million worth of “ooooh.”

O’Connor is a liaison of sorts between celebrity stylists and accessory designers. He gathers jewels he thinks his clients will like so that the stylists don’t have to run to a bunch of different designers. In return, they take $34,000 watches off his hands.

In this economy the celebrities are cutting back, O’Connor said. He expects red-carpet walkers to veer away from bling and head toward classic pieces that “can stand the test of time.”

That, of course, means platinum.

For fabric, O’Connor sees less red, more black, white and dark blues. But simple colors don’t mean the process is any easier. Stylists take weeks putting together the perfect outfit for their client. The neckline affects the hairdo, which affects the necklace, which affects the earrings, which affect, again, the hairdo. And then when the celebrity changes his or her mind the day before the event, O’Connor gets a call at midnight.

“Celebrities are just like you and I,” he told me. “They wake up in the morning and say, ‘what was I thinking when I bought this outfit? It makes my butt look fat.’ Or gives me no chest, or height or whatever.”

Funny, I say that about every outfit I wear.

And just when I was about to head out the door, my head spinning from the sparkle, in walked the stylist for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. She knew what she wanted and it didn’t include anything that dangled, had rubies or was too white-diamond. “Angie,” she said, wouldn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t wear that.

Thousand-dollar baubles aside, I’m still shocked that I was in a room with someone who could call Angelina Jolie “Angie.” Can the Oscars on Sunday really top that?

– Jacque Wilson, CNN.com Associate Producer

Sometimes it can be hard to talk to celebrities –- even when it’s your job.

Thursday night I attended the “Australians in Film” event at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. The red carpet was rolled out and I had my questions ready for the “confirmed” celebrity guests, which were to include Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Abbie Cornish and several others. I stood there for a good three hours with my photographer … and talked to THREE people. The biggest celebrity of the night was Jesse Spencer from the show “House.”

But no worries. There was a highlight to my night — I literally saw more celebrities walking and driving in behind us than on the red carpet. Josh Hartnett walked by, and then Topher Grace, and the producer next to me thinks she saw Robert Downey Jr. drive off in his car. At one point, I asked my cameraman to just turn around and shoot the hotel guests behind us. After all, that’s where the action was.

– Carolyn Sung, CNN Entertainment

Every year it’s the same thing: You get together with friends, throw in a few bucks, look over the Oscar nominees list and make your picks.

The person with the most correct answers — or the most points (the Oscar pools I’ve been in give more points for picking best picture than, say, best animated short) — wins the pool. The tiebreaker, of course, is getting the closest to the ceremony’s late-night ending time.

But a clever quartet of bloggers at PoopReading have come up with a twist on the old-fashioned Oscar pool. Call it Fantasy Oscars.

The four listed the 20 acting nominees, drafted each one fantasy-sports style, then cast their performers in movies based on titles provided by the party game Balderdash, making up all the plots.

The results are creative and hilarious. I hope some studio heads are reading — I’d actually pay to see some of these.

– Todd Leopold, CNN.com Entertainment Producer

P.S. And what are your Oscar picks? Send us an iReport.

The Oscars may have just lost a few million viewers.

“The Dark Knight,” which seemed to be gaining ground in the best picture race, didn’t get a nomination in that category. In fact, the only one of the Big Six categories it was tabbed for was best supporting actor, an honor for the late Heath Ledger, who died one year ago today.

It’s a surprise, since the film had done well among the motion picture guilds -– producers, directors and writers -– and had both critical praise and big box office in its favor.

Taking its place, apparently, is “The Reader,” which received nominations for best picture, best director (Stephen Daldry), best actress (Kate Winslet) and best adapted screenplay (David Hare). I haven’t seen “The Reader,” so I have no idea if it’s good or bad or something else, but its inclusion among the best picture nominees would seem to be as much a tribute to its master marketer, producer Harvey Weinstein, as its quality.

Now Hollywood may find out how many people care. Box office success has tended to mean rooting interest, which translates to good ratings.

Last year’s two leading best picture possibilities, “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood,” were terrific films –- but they weren’t huge hits in theaters. Consequently, ratings for the Oscars were the lowest since Nielsen started keeping track in 1974.

This year’s biggies, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” have done well -– “Button” has topped the key $100 million threshold, and “Slumdog” just cracked the top 10 though it’s still in just 614 theaters. So the bigwigs at the Academy and broadcaster ABC are probably hoping their success -– along with the success of the other nominees -– spreads.

So, are you going to watch? What did you think of the nominations in general? Comment below or send us an iReport.

– Todd Leopold, CNN.com Entertainment Producer

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Dark Knight,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk” and “Slumdog Millionaire.” Those are the five films (or, rather, their directors) the Directors Guild of America nominated for its top honor today.

As EW’s Dave Karger has written, this list looks awful familiar.

It should. Just a few days ago, the Producers Guild picked the same five films. It could be that opinion is hardening that these are, indeed, the five films that stand head and shoulders above the rest and that the Motion Picture Academy will follow suit when putting out the Oscar nominations for best picture (and best director) on January 22.

Left out? Director Sam Mendes and “Revolutionary Road,” for one. Clint Eastwood and “Gran Torino,” which will be reviewed by CNN.com’s Tom Charity tomorrow as it goes into wider release. (Spoiler: Tom likes it.) “Wall-E,” which apparently has been shunted into the “it’s just an animated film” box. You can probably reel off some of your own.

Of course, you never know. There always seems to be one film among best picture nominees that, as at least one movie critic used to put it, “directed itself,” with its helmer snubbed among best director nominees. (Last year, Karger points out, that film was “Atonement.”) We shall see …

– Todd Leopold, CNN.com Entertainment Producer

11:13 p.m. PT: The pressroom has been shut down, the winners are off to their afterparties, and I’m finishing the evening from my hotel room. A few odds and ends …

- Daniel Day-Lewis in the pressroom on milkshakes, given that his line “I drink your milkshake!” in “There Will Be Blood” has spawned Internet videos and a “Saturday Night Live” joke: “I’m very much looking forward to all [the] milkshakes I can drink for the next 25 years or so, yeah. … I think it’s fantastic, yeah. I mean, if people absorb something that you’ve done, or whatever your reasons are, it’s not relevant, but that gets absorbed into the culture in such a way that … somebody can make something else out of it, that’s delightful to me.”

- Javier Bardem on his mother, a veteran actress:  ”I said, ‘Mom, I’m nervous.’ And she said, ‘Why? They are not going to give it to you.’ ” He added, “My mother’s been working for almost 50 years, and she knows everything about all this; the ups, the downs, the dark, the light. … [She's] a great companion, to have her on my side, and she always calms me down. She knows the real success is to get a job , trying to fight for that job and try to do it as good as you can every time.”

- Finally, a comment from “There Will Be Blood” cinematographer Robert Elswit that should give us all pause. Asked what the film used to create its “oil,” Elswit said it’s something most of us have imbibed at one time or another: “It was industrial material used by McDonald’s to thicken their milkshakes, and I’m not kidding. That’s actually true.”

“I drink your milkshake,” indeed.

9:12 p.m. PT: Here are the Coens backstage. Roderick Jaynes, their “editor” (actually a pseudonym for the brothers), is “probably not happy” at losing the Oscar to “The Bourne Ultimatum’s” Christopher Rouse, says Ethan Coen. And Scott Rudin, who’s known for producing movies based on renowned books, has now won his first Oscar. “It’s a tribute to Joel and Ethan. … So it’s thrilling,” he says.

9:03 p.m. PT: Diablo Cody says that she has a fondness for naming things in her life, but out of respect for the Academy, she’ll stick with “Oscar” for her trophy. And, contrary to reports, she’s not wearing million-dollar shoes — in fact, she was never asked about wearing the Stuart Weitzman jewel-encrusted brogans by anybody before she saw her name associated with them. It was a publicity stunt, she says. As for her current footwear, “They’re just regular shoes,” she says.

8:50 p.m. PT: Winners usually come back to the pressroom about 10-15 minutes after their win, but several winners have yet to appear (no doubt because they’re still being congratulated up front). I’m looking forward to the Coen brothers’ comedy routine. Perhaps they’ll announce that it’s time they make “Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go” for real. 

8:47 p.m. PT:  Biggest shocker of the night: The Oscars clocked in at 3 hours, 17 minutes. I’ve watched longer Super Bowls.

8:45 p.m. PT: Best picture: “No Country for Old Men.” The Coen brothers didn’t set a record for filmmakers — they could have won four Oscars this evening — but three is an incredible achievement.

8:42 p.m. PT: The Coen brothers win best director. They’re the first pair to pull off the feat since Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise won for “West Side Story” (1961). 

8:34 p.m. PT: Best actor goes to Daniel Day-Lewis.  This was a great category, incidentally. Clooney, Jones, Depp, Mortensen and Day-Lewis? Tremendous stuff.  

8:06 p.m. PT: A question for you movie buffs out there: There’s been a lot of criticism of both “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood” for their endings. Personally, I liked both: I thought “No Country’s” end summarized the film’s themes of chance and fate, and the very end was a beautiful grace note on a brutal movie. And the end of “Blood” put me in mind of “A Clockwork Orange” as the most exuberant sick joke finish in years. But I believe I’m in the minority on both. Without giving things away, what did you think? 

8:00 p.m. PT: Robert Elswit gives credit to designer Jack Fisk — along with director Paul Thomas Anderson and actor Daniel Day-Lewis — for his cinematography Oscar. Hard to argue with Elswit’s expansive work, though Roger Deakins surely deserves something for his excellent work on “No Country” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”

7:52 p.m. PT: Leading winner so far? “The Bourne Ultimatum,” with three Oscars. “No Country for Old Men” has two. 

7:50 p.m. PT: “Once” had one nomination for best song, against three for “Enchanted.” And it’s just won. 

7:45 p.m. PT: Cotillard gets a rousing round of applause for singing a snippet of the Piaf song “Padam … Padam.” Beautifully done. 

7:37 p.m. PT: Cotillard on her best actress win: “There’s nothing hard about this. There’s just joy … and so unexpected. And I love it.” On playing the tragic Edith Piaf: “I dedicated my life to the movie and to Edith Piaf for a few months, so … when the movie was finished I realized … I didn’t exactly know how to go back. But I love my life so, so it was not hard to go back.” She also says she wanted to marry Peter Sellers when she was growing up. Cotillard seems so excited she appears she’s about to pass out from joy: “I’m so totally overwhelmed with sparkles and fireworks and everything that goes boom, boom, boom.”

7:24 p.m. PT: Cotillard is the third actor to give her performance in a foreign language to be honored with an Oscar. The two others: Roberto Benigni (”Life Is Beautiful”) and Sophia Loren (”Two Women”).

7:17 p.m. PT: CNN Entertainment producer JD Cargill points out that, so far, the three main acting prizes have been won by a Frenchwoman, a Spaniard and an Englishwoman — and if Daniel Day-Lewis wins, that means Europeans will have won all four awards. It’s a sign of the international diversity of Hollywood, he observes. (Check out J.D.’s video on that subject.) Swinton agreed, noting that ”Hollywood is built on Europeans!” during her backstage talk. 

7:14 p.m. PT: Swinton is still speaking backstage. She’s entertaining and open and absolutely charming. Oh, the Academy rep just said that was it.

7:12 p.m. PT: Best actress: And the Oscar goes to … Marion Cotillard.

 7:04 p.m. PT: Swinton: Tilda Swinton described her stunned look upon hearing her name announced as best supporting actress winner as a “reverse ‘Zoolander’ moment.” And she asserted that her agent really does look like Oscar, and she’s going to threaten to do “another art film in Europe.”

6:54 p.m. PT: Variety: Watching Kristin Chenoweth sing the musical numbers reminds me of the death of the variety show on TV. Once upon a time, the kind of thing she’s doing was the norm. Now you only see it on awards shows, and it’s usually dismissed. And yet, “High School Musical” and musical numbers in shows such as “The Simpsons,” “Family Guy” and “The Drew Carey Show” are hailed. Go figure. 

6:48 p.m. PT: Adapted screenplay: Could this be the first of several for the Coen brothers? Their competition in this category includes a number of best picture nominees.  ”We’ve only adapted Homer and Cormac McCarthy,” noted Joel Coen.

6:38 p.m. PT: Supporting actress: Perhaps the most competitive category of the night. And the Oscar goes to … Tilda Swinton. So much for my “Lifetime Achievement Award” theory — at least for this year. But a well-deserved award for Swinton, who did so much with a practically silent scene of laying clothes out on her bed in “Michael Clayton,” among other indelible scenes.

6:18 p.m. PT: Bardem: And Javier Bardem wins best supporting actor. 

6:14 p.m. PT: Bird on the line: Brad Bird is in the pressroom to talk about his Oscar. His advice on dealing with people like his discouraging guidance counselor: “[The criticism] did help me. … Life has a way of smacking you down, and if you get up enough times things happen.” And on the lack of animated films being nominated for best picture: Sure, he’d like to see another, “but it’s all good. It’s the Oscars.”

5:54 p.m. PT: Brad Bird does it again: The onetime “Simpsons” contributor and “Incredibles” writer-director wins for “Ratatouille.” Nothing against the current best picture nominees, but it’s too bad there wasn’t room for “Ratatouille” in the big overall category, instead of just animated film.

5:41 p.m. PT: “Does this town need a hug?” : Jon Stewart sums up the bleakness of many of the nominated films — and, later, gets in a knock at “Norbit.” (I would say, though, that any film as terrific as “No Country for Old Men” or “There Will Be Blood” isn’t bleak at all, but thrilling.)

5:15 p.m. PT: “Sort of the Barrymores of Spain”: In the United States, Javier Bardem is recognized for his performances in “The Sea Inside,” “Jamon, Jamon” and — now — “No Country for Old Men.” But in his native Spain, Bardem is simply the latest in a line of acting and directing Bardems, including two siblings, his uncle, his mother and his grandfather. His mother, in particular, has quite a story.

5:00 p.m. PT: REEGE! : Regis Philbin is co-hosting the red carpet arrivals. The man is irrepressible. (Of course, I’ve got a soft spot for the guy.) 

4:48 p.m. PT: (Very) short take: Tom O’Neil, who writes for the L.A. Times’ awards section TheEnvelope.com, reports that if Ruby Dee wins best supporting actress, she’ll have done it for the shortest supporting performance in Oscar history: 4 minutes, 36 seconds. That’s almost 90 seconds shorter than the current record holder, Beatrice Straight’s “I’m your wife, dammit” turn in 1976’s “Network.” (Judi Dench’s “Shakespeare in Love” performance was just over 7 minutes.)

4:38 p.m. PT: Keeping the press well-nourished: There’s an old line about journalists and free food — if you want to keep reporters happy, feed them (and you get between a journalist and his free plate at your own risk) — and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences knows this very well. So, once again, there’s a bounty of provisions just outside the pressroom, a ballroom at the Renaissance Hotel. Among the goodies: pasta, satay, salad, cake, cookies and all the sodas and water you can drink. No wonder many reporters leave the Oscars a few pounds heavier than when they arrived.

4:20 p.m. PT: Red is the color …:Many of the stars, men and women, are wearing black or muted colors. But none of that for Heidi Klum — the host of “Project Runway” knows how to stand out in a crowd. Her dress will be auctioned off after the show to benefit the Red Dress Campaign for Heart Truth. Anne Hathaway is also wearing bright red.

– From Todd Leopold, CNN.com Entertainment Producer

Getting into the Kodak Theatre isn’t easy, even if you have the right credentials. We requested access to shoot “behind the scenes” and it took a few stops and starts — but we finally made it into the hallowed venue to get a glimpse.

Jon Stewart is hosting the Academy Awards for the second time.

The Academy is keeping much of the Oscar telecast under wraps, and made it very clear about what we could and could not shoot. For example, we were able to shoot the placards showing where the stars would sit, but we could not show where the placards were placed in the theater. They did not want people to know where the stars would be sitting in relation to each other and the stage.

The stage itself was also off-limits. “It’s supposed to be a surprise,” the Academy said.

At this point you’re probably wondering exactly what we were able to shoot. Well, we got a surprising amount of material. Brooke Anderson has this guided tour.

– CNN Entertainment Producer Jennifer Wolfe