The Oscar nominee luncheon this year was the "Babel" of celebrity-packed meals.

This became clear to me somewhere between shaking the far-too-gracious Will Smith's hand during cocktail hour and, some two hours later, getting cigarette smoke blown in my face by "Babel" director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu as I walked behind him on a Beverly Hilton hotel patio.

The difficulty of communication is striking here — across languages, across levels of celebrity, across even a simple dining table stocked with wine and sushi.

Below, we examine how some people got their points across amid the frenzied whirl of chit-chat, accolades and stern admonishments.

INTERPRETERS

Around the ballroom where the lunch took place, there was German, Danish, and a lot of Spanish being spoken. Rinko Kikuchi, the Japanese actress who plays an achingly isolated deaf-mute girl in "Babel," brought along an interpreter but it wasn't always much help. She giggled at the difficulty of talking with Luis Manso, nominated for his short film "Binta and the Great Idea." Manso, from Spain, had difficulty speaking English and at one point threw up his hands, saying: "This is terrible! I can't talk to her!"

BODY LANGUAGE

The lunch is "aggressively democratic," as Academy President Sid Ganis reminded the crowd. This meant, at least theoretically, that makeup artists were seated with star directors and invited reporters could chat up certain caliente Spanish actresses. So why wasn't "Letters from Iwo Jima" writer Paul Haggis letting me get my shot at saying hi to Penelope Cruz, who wore a frilly white dress? He put his arm around her waist as they went to get their picture taken and didn't seem to let her out of his sight the entire event. (You're on the outs with me, Mr. Haggis. C'mon! You won a Best Picture Oscar. Do you really need to hog Penelope?)

ETERNAL POLITENESS

Unfailingly polite applause arose from the crowd for every nominee, no matter how obscure. But it wasn't all smiles. John Sinno, Seattle-based producer of the nominated documentary "Iraq in Fragments," told me "it would be bad" if the far more high-profile "An Inconvenient Truth" won the category, as is expected. He drew a distinction between his movie's artfully-shot examination of postwar Iraq and that the film's less complex role as essentially a repeater and amplifier of Al Gore's global warming lecture.

FLAMING LISTS

Oscars ceremony producer Laura Ziskin gave a mock acceptance speech to demonstrate how terribly boring thank you lists can be. When she concluded the first list, in a mini-special effect, it caught fire. She started the next list by thanking "my shirt, my shoes, my pants," and then it too went up in flames. Her message, she told the nominees: "If you bring paper on stage at the Oscars, you will be playing with fire."

NON-VERBAL CUES

Smiling at herself, Helen Mirren gave one of those queenly waves — elbow bent straight, hand moving slowly from side to side — when emerging from the pack to accept her Oscar nominee certificate. She is, of course, a lock to win the trophy for her starring role in "The Queen." Leonardo DiCaprio couldn't resist a high-five with young "Little Miss Sunshine" nominee Abigail Breslin as he bounded down the bleachers to pick up his certificate and pose with the Academy president.

PRESS EXCLAMATIONS

You would think the press would be among the best communicators at this thing. Not by a long shot. The event is dominated by paparazzi-style shooters at the hotel entrance shouting — nay, shrieking — at stars like "Blood Diamond" supporting actor Djimon Hounsou: "Over the shoulder one more time, Djimon!" And when Inarritu was getting that smoke, an overly ambitious correspondent some hundred feet away shouted at him desperately from the pool one level below: "Alejandro! TV Guide Channel! Down here!" He looked bewildered, and kept walking and puffing on his cigarette.

asap staff reporter Ryan Pearson babbled to Will Smith when he met him in person.

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