Keep moving

<i>By Geoff Boucher and Chris Lee, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers</i><br>
<br>
THE red carpet leading into the 80th annual Academy Awards ceremony might have appeared to be a place of barely contained chaos, but upon closer inspection, there are some rules that seem to guide and challenge the celebrities (and mere mortals) who tread on the world's most famous rug.<br>
<br>
Reporters stay behind the hedge, rain drops remain in the clouds, publicists smile even as they dig their expensively manicured fingernails into the forearms of their rivals. And the biggest rule of all, as certain as gravity pulls you down, is the one that says you never stop moving.<br>
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Fresh from the set of the post-apocalyptic film "The Road," Viggo Mortensen sized up the path to the Kodak Theatre entrance and smiled a grim smile. "This road is more daunting than the road in the movie I'm making -- and that one has cannibals."<br>
<br>
Don't eat your own kind isn't <i>technically </i>a rule of the Oscars carpet, so we've managed to compile a few of the more obvious strictures that emerged Sunday afternoon.

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( Andrew Gombert / EPA )

By Geoff Boucher and Chris Lee, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

THE red carpet leading into the 80th annual Academy Awards ceremony might have appeared to be a place of barely contained chaos, but upon closer inspection, there are some rules that seem to guide and challenge the celebrities (and mere mortals) who tread on the world's most famous rug.

Reporters stay behind the hedge, rain drops remain in the clouds, publicists smile even as they dig their expensively manicured fingernails into the forearms of their rivals. And the biggest rule of all, as certain as gravity pulls you down, is the one that says you never stop moving.

Fresh from the set of the post-apocalyptic film "The Road," Viggo Mortensen sized up the path to the Kodak Theatre entrance and smiled a grim smile. "This road is more daunting than the road in the movie I'm making -- and that one has cannibals."

Don't eat your own kind isn't technically a rule of the Oscars carpet, so we've managed to compile a few of the more obvious strictures that emerged Sunday afternoon.