Oscars

Almost final thoughts Posted on 03:19 PM

It is time for the final thoughts on the Oscar predictions. Tuesday Jan 25th, in the morning, the official nominations will be announced and this part of the game will be over. This year I decided not to attempt and predict the nominees in the foreign film, shorts, documentary or technical categories. While they are not necessarily harder to predict, I will resume to commenting on the choice of nominees rather than try to spoil them. So here are some hopefully final thoughts, although I reserve the right to make some last minute changes Monday night.

The meta-questions that need to be asked this year are: did the voters love Eternal Sunshine...?; did they hate Closer really? (missing some guild nominations); did they like Kill Bill?; did they all see Hotel Rwanda (and fell for it)?; will we have like last year recognition of foreign movies in the main categories?...

Oscar Nominations 2004 - How did I do? Posted on 11:18 AM

When will I ever learn?

The nominations were announced about 2 hours ago, and I just finished tallying my predictions. Overall I was 29/40... Pretty bad :). The good news was that I was 5/5 in the Best Picture prediction, but so was every other Oscar watcher out there since this race was indeed the most predictable. I was also 5/5 in the Best Actress category which was somewhat less set in stone. On the other hand, the Original Screenplay category tricked me with only 2/5 correct predictions.

Now, to the moral of this year (wasn't this the same moral two years ago and last year?) - wild-guesses do not work! And when the wild guesses are actually wishful thinking, then they most certainly will not work! In 3 categories I scored 3/5 because I included my favourites (Mike Nichols, Javier Bardem and Cloris Leachman) which, of course, didn't make it, and I picked the wrong likely candidate out of the rest. If I count the "almost" right predictions (including my immediate substitutes) the balance would be 37/40 with the only big surprise being Mike Leigh's nominations for Vera Drake. But enough about my predictions. You can check my final predictions in each category with some more comments on the particular nominations. I also color-coded the correct predictions, the almost correct ones and what I didn't anticipate at all.

Coming soon, comments on the actual nominations.

Oscar Nominations 2004 Posted on 03:06 PM

This morning the Oscar nominations were announced. There were some surprise nominees, there were perhaps some surprising ommissions, but overall the expected leading movies of the year received the expected acks. Leading the group, is The Aviator with 11 nominations, followed by Million Dollar Baby and Finding Neverland with 7, Ray with 6 and Sideways with 5.

The most obvious surprise nominations are for Mike Leigh as best director and best original screenplay for Vera Drake, a movie that received good critical support, but very little Oscar buzz except for leading actress Imelda Staunton. As a result Finding Neverland is the only best picture nominated movie without a best director nomination.

The Ballots are Out Posted on 05:08 PM

According to the AMPAS press communicate, fnal ballots for the 77th Academy Awards were mailed today to the 5,808 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Listed on the ballots are the nominees in 19 Oscar� categories. Separate ballots for 5 award categories (foreign language film, short and feature-length documentaries and animated and live-action short films) will be distributed after verification of mandatory member attendance at screenings. The completed ballots should be returned to PricewaterhouseCooper tallying committee by Feb 22nd, 5 days before the ceremony night on Feb 27th.

As such, I created the entries for the 2004 nominees. So far the entries contain only the lists of nominees but I will add my comments and predictions shortly.

Screen Actors Guild Awards Posted on 01:02 PM

The SAG announced their awards last night. The winners in the movie categories were:

Best Actor: Jamie Foxx, Ray
Best Actress: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator
Best Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby
Best Ensemble Cast: Sideways

BAFTA Winners Posted on 08:00 PM

The British Academy of Film and Television announced their winners on Saturday. No surprises in any of the movie categories:

Best Film - The Aviator
Best Director - Mike Leigh (Vera Drake)
Best Actor - Jamie Foxx (Ray)
Best Actress - Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake)
Best Supporting Actor - Clive Owen (Closer)
Best Supporting Actress - Cate Blanchett (The Aviator)
Best Original Screenplay - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Best Adapted Screenplay - Sideways

Time to make up our minds Posted on 05:26 PM

The academy members made up their minds a few days ago, as their ballots are due tomorrow for the official counting. However, our task here is a bit trickier because making up our mind about who we want to win it's quite easy. The question is who did they vote for?

You can view my quasi-final predictions. The race is quite open in a few of the main categories including Best Picture and Best Director and also in many of the technical categories. Will it be a year where voters think of past history and reward those that are due? Did they vote for who they thought are the truely deserving performers in the movies nominated this year? We shall find out next Sunday. I will check my predictions one last time Saturday and make last minute adjustments. :)

The Animated Short Nominees Posted on 10:53 AM

It would be really nice if the short movies competing at the Oscars would be available online... But I'm afraid that's not likely to happen although I am not quite certain what the market for short movies really is. How do they actually make money? I firmly believe that having at least the 15 short Oscar nominated movies available online can give a serious boost to the branch and to the producers themselves. With more exposure, the sales of dvds containing collections of short movies might raise to an interesting level.

Anyway, for now all I could find is the usual overview from the Animation World Network Showcase which includes short clips from the five nominated animated shorts. So... given the movie length, in some cases you get to see about 10% of the entire film :). Enjoy and let me know if you find any places showcasing the short docus or action films.

Oscar 2004 Final Predictions Posted on 05:58 PM

The time has come for the final predictions. I have made minor changes in the technical and standalone categories, the main one being Finding Neverland for Original Score. Voters are likely to vote for the score that they remembered best out of the movies that they saw, and Finding Neverland will likely benefit from his Best Picture nomination there.

Now onto the real thing - the big 8. You have a few choices: The overwhelming majority of the usual Oscar predictors go like this: Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood, Jamie Foxx, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Cate Blanchett, Sideways, Eternal Sunshine. The bookmakers still lean towards Aviator so their predictions seem to be: Aviator, Martin Scorsese, Jamie Foxx, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Cate Blanchett, Sideways, Eternal Sunshine.

So... where do I stand? My wishful thinking predictions would look like this: Ray, Martin Scorsese, Jamie Foxx, Imelda Staunton, Morgan Freeman, Natalie Portman, Motorcycle Diaries, Eternal Sunshine.

My final predictions...: Aviator, Martin Scorsese, Jamie Foxx, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Natalie Portman, Sideways, Eternal Sunshine. Why this line-up? Read on...

First count Posted on 12:24 AM

Another ceremony wraps up and really the only surprise is that there were no surprises. At least not for the usual predictors who all saw Million Dollar Baby's surge in popularity and were one step ahead of the bookmakers and of the dreamers (like myself) who thought that the Academy will finally reward the legendary Scorsese. However, it was once more Eastwood's year. But more discussion later. For now let's do some counting:

Total wins among feature films: Aviator - 5, Million Dollar Baby - 4, Ray, The Incredibles - 2, Finding Neverland, Motorcycle Diaries, Spiderman 2, Lemony Snicket, Sideways, Eternal Sunshine, The Sea Inside, Born into Brothels - 1.

My predictions: 5/8 (62.5%) in the top categories and 17/24 (71%) overall. Not too bad considering that 3 of my misses were in the short categories where my predictions were nothing but pure guesses. This makes it a 17/21 (81%) in the feature film categories. Check out the winner list marked according to my predictions: predicted winners, 2nd choice winners and surprise winners. Some immediate comments are also added here and there on some categories.

The never-changing Academy (Oscars 2004) Posted on 01:52 PM

So... what did you think of this year's Oscars? In my case, let me just sum it up by saying that the only surprising wins came in the shorts categories! Those, and the best song which unexpectedly went to a Spanish song: Al otro lado del Rio from Motorcycle Diaries. That is something to appreciate and I appreciated even more how Jorge Drexler went up on stage to accept his award and just... sang a bit of his song! That was not necessarily targeted at Antonio Banderas's performance a few minutes earlier (although it is fun to see it as a "That's how my song should be performed" statement) but rather at this year's show producers who did not allow non-music stars to perform their own songs! That would also explain why Beyonce had to perform 3 of the 5 nominated songs, spending the entire evening changing outfits, make-up and voices. And while I believe she's a great performer, she managed to completely ruin my favorite nominated song, Vois sur ton chemin, which was supposed to be just a beautiful choral piece, not a solo piece with chorus backup.

Speaking of the producers, the "refreshing" ideas of bringing all of the nominees on stage for some of the categories was funny at best. They did it mainly for technical and standalone awards where the nominees were largely unknown. I'm not sure if this was viewed as a way of giving them more recognition or only as a way to rejuvenate the show, but the main effect was to cause confusion, as in the case of Best Sound Mixing award when Jamie Foxx in the audience was looking around with a clear confused look of "Is it us?", not being able to figure out at first if the names called belonged to Ray or some other movie.

Chris Rock, on the other hand, was a fun presenter, with a solid opening, pointing out hillariously, among other things, the difference between what people watch and what the Academy nominates. He even managed to react to Sean Penn's complete lack of humor and/or intelligence. Penn started "defending" Jude Law, who was the target of some of Rock's earlier jokes, and then tried to lamely tie it into the presentation of the Best Actress award: "Jude Law is a great actor, and for every great actor in a movie there are 5 phenomenal actresses...". Huh?

Now about the awards themselves...

Censorship at the Oscars Posted on 06:48 PM

There was one particular moment at this year's Oscar ceremony that I did not completely understand at the time but it slipped my mind until last night when I was watching Jay Leno's Late Night Show with Robin Williams. As Williams appeared on stage at the Academy Awards to announce the nominees for best animated feature, he started by ripping off a piece of duct tape off his mouth...

New Academy Members in 2005 Posted on 10:11 PM

It's about time to start looking ahead towards the 2005 Academy Awards and to start off let's see who are some of the 112 new members invited in June to join the Academy and who will be officially welcomed with a big party this Wednesday.

Among the invitees are actors Gael Garcia Bernal, Thomas Haden Church, Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Sophie Okonedo, Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgard, Imelda Staunton, Ziyi Zhang.

Also invited were directors Alejandro Amen�bar, Marc Forster, Andy Tennant Joel Zwick as well as writer Paul Haggis.

Important Dates for the 2005 Oscars Posted on 10:37 PM

The Oscars move back to March, but only to the beginning of the month. Here are the most important dates of the 78th AcademyAwards:

January 21st, 2006 - Nominations polls closing
January 31st, 2006 - Nominations Announcement
February 28th, 2006 - Polls closing
March 5, 2006 - Awards Ceremony

58 Candidates for 2005 Best Foreign Film Nominations Posted on 06:30 AM

Last week the list of countries and films in consideration for the Foreign Language Film Award category were announced. The lists contains a record fifty-eight countries from four continents, including new entrants Costa Rica, Fiji and Iraq. Let's see how many of these movies do we get to watch before January 31st 2006 when the 5 nominations will be announced.

10 Films for Best Animated Feature Film 2005 Posted on 07:35 PM

Ten movies are competing for nominations in the Best Animated Feature Film category for the 2005 Oscars.

• Chicken Little
• Gulliver's Travel
• Hoodwinked
• Howl's Moving Castle
• Madagascar
• Robots
• Steamboy
• Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
• Valiant
• Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Out of the ten movies Hoodwinked and Indian produced Gulliver's Travel have yet to open in US theatres. According to the Academy rules, a maximum of three movies will be nominated in a category that contains at least eight but less than sixteen eligible entries.

AFI Awards 2005 Posted on 12:14 AM

The American Film Institute announced yesterday their movies of the year official selections.

• Brokeback Mountain
• Capote
• Crash
• The 40 Year-Old Virgin
• Good Night, and Good Luck.
• A History of Violence
• King Kong
• Munich
• The Squid and the Whale
• Syriana

The selection was made by a 13 person jury and acknowledges the creative ensemble of each movie and their contribution to film history.

63rd Golden Globe Awards Nominations (2005) Posted on 07:43 AM

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their nominations for the Golden Globes Awards, the main Oscars precursor and also the main rival show, being considered by many more balanced, less political in their choices and more classy in their show than the Academy Awards.

The nominees for best picture are, as always split into two categories:

Picture - Drama

• Brokeback Mountain
• The Constant Gardener
• Good Night. And, Good Luck.
• A History Of Violence
• Match Point

Picture - Musical Or Comedy

• Mrs Henderson Presents
• Pride & Prejudice
• The Producers
• The Squid And The Whale
• Walk The Line

Here are the nominees in the other movie categories:

Jon Stewart to host the 78th Academy Awards telecast Posted on 07:15 AM

Producer Gil Cates announced yesterday that Jon Stewart has been set to host the 78th Academy Awards telecast which will be held on March 5th 2006 and will be broadcast live from the Kodak Theatre by the ABC Television Network starting with 5pm PST. Host of Comedy Central's award winning The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, it is the first time that Stewart will host the Oscars. He was chosen after reportedly Billy Crystal turned down the chance to host for the 9th time the show due to previous engagements. Last year's show was hosted by Chris Rock while Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show 2 and 4 times respectively in the past years. Stewart commented saying "As a performer, I’m truly honored to be hosting the show. Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can’t help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal.".

With Jon Stewart's known slyness, sarcasm and uncompromising comments, this promises to be a very interesting show.

63rd Golden Globe Predictions Posted on 11:49 PM

Predicting the Golden Globes is quite a different game than predicting the Oscars, but it can nevertheless be fun. So, in preparation for tomorrow night's ceremony, let's have a quick look at the nominations. That might also give me the opportunity to review the movies that I have yet to watch.

Guild Nominations Posted on 06:38 PM

As you may already know the most important precursors in determining what movies have the best chance at an Oscar nomination (and later on at the awards) are the Guilds. The reason is quite simple - while the voters in the guilds are a much larger number than the "elite" few that are also Academy voters, there is definitely some osmosis in the preferences a certain branch shows in their voting.

Either way here are the nominees that the guilds selected as their favorites of 2005:

Golden Globes 2005 Winners Posted on 08:09 PM

The show is on and here are the main winners along with whatever brief comments added while watching along:

• Best Drama: Brokeback Mountain
• Best Comedy/Musical: Walk the Line
• Best Director: Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)
• Best Actor (Drama): Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)
• Best Actress (Drama): Felicity Huffman (Transamerica)
• Best Actor (Comedy): Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line)
• Best Actress (Comedy): Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)
• Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney (Syriana)
• Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardner)
• Best Screenplay: Larry Mc Murtry & Diana Ossana (Brokeback Mountain)
• Best Foreign Film: Paradise Now (Palestine)

Rounding up the 2005 Oscar Nomination Predictions Posted on 11:32 PM

With the ballots already in the mail and less than 10 days left until the nominations are announced it is finally time to count the awards and precursors and take my best shot at guessing which names will be announced early morning on the 31st.

You can check out the all the 2005 nomination predictions or individually from the menu on the left.

And the 2005 DGA Winner is... Posted on 06:28 PM

... Ang Lee. Well... there is absolutely no surprise there but, to be fair, there is no reason there should have been one. Ang Lee was in the spotlight once before for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and won the DGA and pretty much all other awards he was nominated for except for... the Oscar, which went to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic (best picture was Gladiator). This is likely to be Ang Lee's year and so far nothing indicates otherwise.

2005 SAG Winners Posted on 09:00 PM

• Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener)
• Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man)
• Female Actor in a Leading Role: Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)
• Male Actor in a Leading Role: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)

• Ensemble Cast: Crash

• Lifetime Achievement: Shirley Temple

Unfortunately the SAG did not create any surprise in the female supporting category by going with Golden Globe winner Rachel Weisz thus reducing even further the chances for a surprise at the Oscars but also potentially reducing Amy Adams' chances for an Oscar nomination. On the other hand they certainly shook things up a bit in the male supporting actor category where they award Giamatti who was probably considered to have the 4th chance in the line-up at best. Will this point towards a shake-up at Oscars? It does cement Giamatti's chances at a nomination after the surprising Oscar snub of last year.

In the female lead category the voters task was easier than there will be at the Oscars, as Felicity Huffman easily won an award for her role in Desperate Housewives, thus noone felt any remorse voting for Reese Witherspoon as best actress in a motion picture. Reese improved her speech since her Golden Globe win, this time thanking and dedicating the rule to June Carter who she plays in Walk the Line.

Final Nomination Predictions Posted on 11:54 PM

My final predictions are in. Overall I can sum-up my picks by not believing in A History of Violence, trusting in Spielberg and Allen and, as always, trying to predict those "surprises" that everyone hopes will happen. What did I change?

First I adapted my Screenplay predictions to reflect Syriana's change of category. It would be sad to have it miss out on a nomination because of the confusion, but I think it will have enough votes to get in nevertheless.

In the Supporting Actress category, the only one I would not want on the list, is the only one certain to be nominated (Weisz). I hope Amy Adams will stay in and I gamble big time on Scarlett Johansson getting nominated as a compensation for her previous snubs. In the men's category, I will hazard guessing that Terrence Howard may pick up 2 noms this year.

Best Actress is where I chose to put my biggest gamble this year. And her name is Q'Orianka Kilcher! No change in my view's on the Best Actor competition although I would not be surprised if Russel Crowe manages to sneak in.

I am also not changing my predictions for Best Director. It is a bit sad to try and guess who the 4 losers are who, in all likelihood, will only be listed to applaud Ang Lee's win. Finally, I also stick with my initial Best Picture predictions for lack of a better hunch.

Now, time to go to sleep and wake up early to hear the nominations.

Oscar Nominations announced! Posted on 09:57 AM

The Oscar nominations were announced about 1hour ago and I ran a quick update through the pages indicating my correct guesses, the ones I had almost right (that means I listed them as alternates or I insisted on predicting a surprise that never happened) and the true surprises.

Actually there were no surprises at all, at least in the major categories. Some minor surprises, such as Walk the Line not getting nominated for Best Picture were predicted by many. Perhaps the only notable surprise is Keira Knightley nominated for her role in Pride and Prejudice. Oh well, welcome to boredom-land. I got 35/40 correct and if I would've avoided predicting surprises I would've been 37 or 38 out of 40...

I will post more comments on each category as I get more time, probably later tonight.

2005 Nominations Tally Posted on 08:49 PM

After adding quick reactions to all the categories that I predicted nominations in, and before moving towards guessing who the winners might be in a month's time, there is just one thing left to do: tallying the nominations.

Brokeback Mountain was the expected frontrunner with 8 nominations, followed by Crash, Good Night... and Memoirs of a Geisha each with 6 nominations. I would add however that none of Geisha's nominations are in the major categories quite properly reflecting that the movie's merits do not lie in acting, directing or the screenplay. With 5 nominations Capote, Munich and Walk the Line round up the leader's group.

Meet the Nominees, Predict the Winners Posted on 07:07 AM

Time flies by and today the final ballots were mailed to the 5,798 voting Academy members. If you want to pretend that you have a ballot as well, check back here as I am building the winner prediction pages. Enjoy and start guessing or stand out and vote on your own.

Final Predictions (2005) Posted on 01:49 PM

The FINAL PREDICTIONS are up and I'm happy to say they haven't changed much from my original attempts. What are the notable races? In the top 8, only the Supporting Actor race between Clooney and Giamatti seems to be really close. Other than that, some are predicting Crash and Amy Adams to produce upsets in their categories, but... although they would be most deserving, it is probably just wishful thinking and the hope that some suprise will shake things up.

There are a few other close races however in the technical and standalone categories. Best Score, Best Original Song and Best Sound Mixing are all apparently very close, while in the Foreign Film category the political backlash against Palestine's entry may have tightened the race.

Feel free to throw in your own guesses and enjoy the show Sunday night!

Red Carpet Arrivals Posted on 05:45 PM

Waiting for friends to show up, for things to start rolling, I'm watching the Red Carpet arrivals. After Isaac Mizrahi's famous fondling of Scarlett Johannsson at the Golden Globes, it is actually kind of funny that E! is throwing jokes left and right about it, while he seems to be almost restrained to keep a 2 meter distance from his interviewees.

Also Ryan Seacrest... he went a long way from geeky American Idol presenter to... geeky Oscar arrivals presenter. However, he took his style and turned it into a trademark and... it works. Nothing wrong with a bit of spunkiness and some self-deprecating humor in the show. After surviving duels with Simon Cowell, nothing can perturb Ryan. :)

The 78th Academy Awards Posted on 08:06 PM

Jon Stewart time!! "Bjork was trying out her Oscar dress and Dick Chenney shot her".

And they're over... Posted on 12:14 AM

Crash wins Best Picture of 2005! When was the last time the Academy pulled a real surprise and a good one on top of things? Crash edges out Brokeback Mountain and draws a riot of cheers, partly also because, as Jon Stewart noted in the beginning, half the audience was in one way or another involved in Crash.

In terms of my predictions I was 16/24 and 7/8 in the big 8 categories. If we consider the 2nd chance (could win) predictions, only 2 wins appear as surprising on my list. Brokeback Mountain, Crash, Memoirs of a Geisha and King Kong have 3 wins each, the first two dueling in the big categories, Geisha winning the visual awards and Kong the audio ones..

What else was there to note tonight?...

Ellen DeGeneres to host Oscars Posted on 04:21 PM

Uh oh, it's been a loong long time since I haven't stopped to write about the Oscars and lo and behold there's only 3 months left until the nominations are announced and the rumors and preditions are already in full motion.

In the meantime the first news about the 79th Academy Awards came at the beginning of September when Ellen DeGeneres was chosen to be the host of this year's ceremony. Lots of puzzled looks over this decision but after not getting a sense of particular excitement over Chris Rock or even last year's Jon Stewart, when the classics: Billy Crystal, Steve Martin or Whoopi Goldberg are either not interested any more or also deemed not interesting enough, one can realize that the producers figured DeGeneres is unlikely to make things much worse than they already are.

I guess we shall wait and see.

61 Foreign Film entries Posted on 05:55 PM

AMPAS announced that a record 61 countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category of the 79th Academy Awards.

In addition to the above, Finland submitted Aki Kaurismaki’s “Lights in the Dusk,” which the director subsequently indicated he wanted to withdraw from the competition. Foreign Language committee chair Mark Johnson has initiated a dialogue with Kaurismaki in an effort to persuade him to reverse that decision.

Here is the list of the 61 entries.

Golden Globes 2006 Posted on 08:04 PM

OMG. The Oscar Nominations are almost due. The Golden Globes are on right now. And I haven't done anything for this year's predictions?

Anyway, here's quick notes from the Golden Globes.

First win, Supporting Actress going to Leonardo DiCaprio! No, wait. That was a joke. Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls. Then Prince won something... heh. I guess they're trying to make the Superbowl half-time show seem more interesting?

Next...

And there were nine... Posted on 10:04 AM

... foreign film contenders. This year the Academy started using a different process for determining the five Foreign Language Film Nominees, using a 2 phase process. The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based members, screened the 61 eligible films and their ballots determined the shortlist.

A Phase II committee, made up of ten randomly selected members from the Phase I group, joined by additional ten-member contingents in New York and Los Angeles, will view the shortlisted films and select the five 2006 nominees for the category.

I just found this out the other day and it comes as a bit of a surprise... On the other hand it could help making sure that even though the Nominees will be selected by only 30 people, at least they would have seen all the 9 "top" choices. And here are the ones that are left, in alphabetical order, by country:

Nominations Predictions Posted on 01:52 PM

We are only days away from the Nominations announcements (Tuesday morning) and I am finally putting up my predictions as well.

Interesting options this year with many categories open for surprise nominations.

2006 Nominees Announced Posted on 09:23 AM

Early morning in Los Angeles, the stars anxiously await the phone calls to announce them the good news... Or they actually wake up and watch the announcements, but they pretend not to after that.

Anyway, the deed is done and we know the 2006 Oscar Nominees. I updated my predictions, as always, marking the correct guesses, the ones I got almost right (being secondary guesses) or the true surprises. There are three main surprises: Dreamgirls misses out on Best Picture nomination in favor of Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima. Leonardo DiCaprio gets his nomination but for Blood Diamond instead of Departed. And Almodovar's Volver doesn't make the top 5 in Foreign Film.

The tally stands as follows: 8 nominations for Dreamgirls (but 3 of them are for Best Song!!), 7 nods for Babel, 6 for Pan's Labyrinth (!!) and The Queen, 5 for Blood Diamond and The Departed, 4 for Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, Notes on a Scandal and Pirates of the Caribbean.

2006 Predictions are up Posted on 12:16 AM

A bit after the ballots were due, my predictions for all categories are finally up.

Of course, as a pundit, I have a few more days to finalize the predictions, especially on the big categories, so look for updates and more detailed comments to sneak into each page up until Saturday.

Final Predictions Posted on 05:07 PM

With a bit over 24 hours left until the awards ceremony, I am throwing in the towel and classifying the current predictions as final predictions. I could reason back and forth between Babel, Departed and Little Miss Sunshine and argue why and how each of them could get enough votes to win. Right now I know I am leaning towards my personal preference, but... oh well.

All categories have some more detailed comments when the race warranted it. Enjoy and tune in for live comments during the broadcast and tally of the results.

2006 Oscars Recap Posted on 09:00 AM

And another one is over. Prediction-wise I was 16/24 just like last year, 6/8 in the main categories. Perhaps I should go with my favorite in the supp. actor category rather than best picture next time :).

The Departed was the winner of the night with 4 wins including Best Picture and Best Director. Pan's Labyrinth won 3 (missing out on Best Foreign Film though), Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine and An Inconvenient Truth had each 2 wins.

What else was memorable?

2007 Oscars Show Posted on 08:42 PM

Yup, that's right. No predictions this time. No reviews for any of the movies either.

But well that makes commenting on the awards ceremony (and later on, on the awards themselves) a whole easier - I won't risk contradicting any previous comment that I may have made on the movies :)