Golden Globe Predictions

I got a new computer yesterday, so it seems that I'll finally be able to find a way to put a few posts together. I've missed blogging, but it's always so difficult to find time to post at work, and my computer had passed decrepit and moved into what I can only really call the computer form of incontinence (when you most want it to stay with you, it just goes).

Fortunately, I'm now endowed with bright, shiny new technology, capable of doing important computer-y things. So far I've used it to look at YouTube and send email, and while you can argue I'm not really getting the most out of it, those were both functions beyond the capability of my old computer.

With the Golden Globes coming up this Sunday, I thought I'd make sure to finally put together a post and give you my predictions. The end of the year is the best time to do posts about films, and amidst all the retrospectives and awards-groveling, it's the time of year when we can finally look back on the year and say, "boy, not much really happened, huh?"

For example, looking at the films nominated for Best Picture at the Globes this year, I can make a legitimate case that any of those films could win. How often is that the case? Usually by now there's a clear frontrunner - No Country For Old Men last year, The Departed and Babel the year before, Brokeback Mountain the year before that. Of the five films nominated this year, none of them has even a small jump on the others. And here's the real trick: I don't think either of the two best films of the year were nominated. Take a look:

MOVIES
Best Picture (Drama): The nominees are Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, Frost/Nixon, Revolutionary Road, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Now, I think moviegoers would agree that The Dark Knight got absolutely robbed in this category, but I also think that the best film this year, bar none, was Milk. These five films are just the best-of-the-rest, though, and it's all guesswork, but I'm gonna go with Benjamin Button, with Millionaire as the wild card. Why? Just a wild hunch. That's all we get this year.

Best Actress (Drama): No big frontrunners this year, either, but logic dictates that things will work out like this (at least, my logic does): Kristen Scott Thomas did the best work this work, but it's all in French, and that weeds out voters fast (especially Globe voters, who, let's just be honest, are a pack of 40-watts). Angelina Jolie was solid but not remarkable, Meryl Streep's here by name rather than performance, and Kate Winslet's going to win Best Supporting Actress for The Reader, so she's out. So that leaves Anne Hathaway, who gets votes because she's finally put together a great performance after a career of middling work combined with flickers of occasional promise. I think she'll definitely take it here.

Best Actor (Drama): Five great nominees this year, there's really not a middling performance in this bunch. While all of these guys here are name actors, none of them are here by name recognition; particularly Mickey Rourke, who's back from the dead to win huge acclaim in this role. I'll rank them like this:

1. Sean Penn, Milk
2. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
3. Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
4. Brad Pitt, Benjamin Button
5. Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road

Best Picture (Musical Or Comedy): Do you know how bad this list is? Mamma Mia! is nominated. I saw it on a plane, and that movie just made me want to tear out my eyeballs. It's - I'm serious here - it's not even a movie. It's just a metaphor for mid-fifties women about how they should feel sexy and young and desirable. It doesn't even pretend that's not what it's doing. Menopause: The Musical had a broader appeal than this movie. I felt physically ill after watching it. Worse, Tropic Thunder is not nominated here, which should be embarassing to the Association, since it once and for all proves they value a sense of propriety over actual quality. So instead, the award'll go to the slightly underwhelming Burn After Reading, just because it's a Coen brothers movie. A better nominee list would've looked like this: Tropic Thunder, Burn After Reading, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Happy-Go-Lucky, and Role Models.

Best Actress (Musical Or Comedy): Meryl Streep is again nominated by name alone, though proper credit should be given to her about being such a sport throughout Mamma Mia! and not, at any point, looking at the camera and saying "this is complete bullshit, isn't it?" I couldn't have managed. She won't win, and if all is right with the world, Sally Hawkins will for Happy-Go-Lucky. Don't count out Emma Thompson, though, since the Association can't be trusted on this front.

Best Actor (Musical Or Comedy): Colin Farrell is, bizarrely, nominated for an award here, along with his co-lead, Brendan Gleeson. Let's discount them both and instead select from the other three. I think Dustin Hoffman takes it here, except that James Franco is nominated here for Pineapple Express and not nominated for a truly stunning turn in Milk, which was gypped across the board in these nominations. Don't discount a sympathy vote.

Supporting Actress: There's two nominees from Doubt, so they'll cancel each other out, but I think the real battle here is between Marissa Tomei and Kate Winslet, who both show their acting chops by getting completely naked. I think that even though it's famously unwise to bet on the five-times Academy snubbed Winslet, I think she takes it here.

Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger. It's not up for discussion. We may one day just call this award "The Ledger."

Best Animated Film: Lessee here, did Pixar come out with a film this year? They did. Have they ever been defeated? They have not. Was the film in question probably the pinnacle of all computer-generated movies? Almost certainly. Is there any point in continuing this paragraph as a series of questions. There is not. Wall-E wins by a landslide.

Foreign Language Film: My gut tells me it's a run-off between I've Loved You So Long and Waltz With Bashir, and I haven't seen either (I actually have't seen any of the nominees). I'm gonna go with Bashir, and I can't say why. I bet that I'm right, though.

Best Director: What David Fincher does not know about directing, I do not wish to learn. Whether or not you thought Benjamin Button was genius or an overlong, wandering tale, there's no question that Fincher combined CGI with good - damn good - performances and gave a fairy tale a surprisingly gritty, realistic twist.

Best Screenplay: I think this has to be the one area that Slumdog Millionaire finally takes home a win. Inventive screenwriting is what wins this category, and Millionaire has that in spades. Once again though, don't discount Benjamin Button.

Best Score: I think that Alexandre Desplat's Benjamin Button score is too good here, but the random Defiance nomination for James Newton Howard's makes me wonder.

Best Original Song: Bruce Springsteen, "The Wrestler." Never, ever - ever - bet against the aging rocker.

TELEVISION
Best Show (Drama): "Mad Men" continues it's sweep. No contest.

Best Actress (Drama): It should be January Jones, especially with her "Mad Men" resume, but the experienced name always carries this. It'll be Kyra Sedgewick again.

Best Actor (Drama): I gotta figure John Hamm gets this - he won last year, and there's no reason from the past season to think that he's any less deserving.

Best Show (Comedy): "30 Rock" will always be a critic's darling, and as long as it lasts, it will always win this award.

Best Actress (Comedy): Tina Fey should win again, though Christina Applegate came back from breast cancer this year, and that deserves something.

Best Actor (Comedy): I'd be happy with either Alec Baldwin or Steve Carrell, and I'm worried it might be Tony Shalhoub again (sigh), though I'm figuring instead it'll be a repeat of David Duchovny's win for his very nuanced "Californication" performance.

Best Mini-Series or Made For TV Movie: Hey, "John Adams" is nominated! I wonder who'll win?

Best Actress (Mini-Series): Hey, Laura Linney is nominated for "John Adams!" I wonder who'll win?

Best Actor (Mini-Series): Hey, Paul Giamatti is nominated for "John Adams!" I wonder who'll win?

Supporting Actress: I dunno on this one. Laura Dern was very, very good in Recount, so I'll go with that.

Supporting Actor: Jeremy Piven always wins this, and so he'll win again. I really wish Neil Patrick Harris would win one of these at some point, though.

I guess that about covers it. I'm hoping that my accuracy on this is superior to my Oscar accuracy, and so, with... 25 categories, I'm hoping to get 14. I can do this! We can build on this this!

Celtics Vs. Lakers

As a Celtics fan, I've been pretty nervous all the way through these playoffs; if you've followed
these playoffs at all, you'll understand. Seven games against the Hawks, seven against the Cavs, six against the Pistons - if the Lakers series goes to six games, it will be the most playoff games played by any one team in the history of the NBA, that's not the path a championship team follows, that's a bizarro world version of Moses Malone's "fo', fo', fo'," and I don't like it.

Still, watching that last game of the Pistons series, I saw, one more time, the Celtics I fell in love with over the regular season - a team that destroyed their opponents with defensive rotation, star power, and sheer determination and force of will. A team I could believe could beat this Laker's team.

With all the talk of how strong the Lakers are and how quickly they're going to stomp on the Celtics, it's fair to point out that the Celtics match up very well against the Lakers. Look:

PG - Derek Fisher vs. Rajon Rondo
Fisher is steadier and more capable, but he's got no upside. Bryant's the playmaker and the man who stays in control of the rock, that's why Bryant's assist numbers are double Fisher's. Fisher's responsibility is to play second fiddle to Bryant and not mess things up - eleven points, three dimes, and a steal a game in the regular season, and his numbers have dropped even further in the playoffs (though his steals are up). He's a good man for the job he's got, but he's never going to step up more than he has.

Rondo might. No one's made more strides over the course of this season than Rondo, and he continues to move forward over the course of these playoffs - his assists are up one and a half per game, and he's hit as many three-pointers as he did over the course of the whole season. He's obviously much more of a wildcard than Fisher and might implode at an inopportune time, but on the flip side, he could also suddenly explode for 15 dimes, and his playmaking continues to take so many strides that his defenders are starting to give him that extra step - even established point guards like Billups. Fisher's no Chauncey Billups.

Advantage: Celtics

SG - Sasha Vujacic vs. Ray Allen
Vujacic is a long-range gunner with no other skills, Allen's a fading superstar with a little left in the tank. Vujacic gives the Lakers 8 points a game on 44 percent three-point shooting but can't be trusted to do anything else, Allen's will get twice as many points, twice as many rebounds, three times as many assists, and for once will not be a liability on the the defensive end as Vujacic is not suddenly gonna become a drive-and-dish slasher.

Slump or no slump, bad ankles or no bad ankles, Advantage: Celtics

SF - Kobe Bryant vs. Paul Pierce - It's closer than people think, but, not much closer, so yeah... it's a dumb question.

Advantage: Lakers

By the way, speaking of Kobe, he's launching his way into becoming one of the top-10 players of all time, but there's a caveat - as great as he is, he's always going to be that player who bitches and whines until he gets his way, even if his way isn't the best way.

Look at it like this: if you were to play a pickup game, two-on-two, you plus any player in history in their prime, with the punishment for losing being death, how high on that list would Kobe be? I'd pick Wilt and MJ first, but after that... I mean, I'd pick him over Bird. I'd pick him over Magic, the big O, West, Russell, Hakeem, Duncan, Shaq - I really think he'd be my third pick in that situation.

Now, let's say that you're building a team that will compete for several seasons, with two superstars, one that will be picked at random and one that you get to pick. You can pick any superstar from history. How far down is Kobe on that list. 10th? 20th? 30th? Further? You would take far less talented players just to avoid the possibility of everything blowing up in your face. Everyone would.

Just thought I'd settle that. Moving on...

PF - Lamar Odom vs. Kevin Garnett
Bad reputation aside, Odom's been strong, both this season and these playoffs. Shooting well, 15 points and 10 boards a game, he's a legitimate third option for the Lakers, a position that fits him much better than second option ever did. If he takes it up a level, it'll negate the effect Garnett has on this series, and likely swing the whole series in favor of the Lakers.

Garnett's still a mystery to me. The whole playoffs, he's been reluctant to establish himself as a force down low, relying on jump shots and high post moves. If he takes Odom to the rim consistently, this matchup is gonna be a lot more important than just the extra five points per game Garnett offers.

Advantage: Celtics

Center: Pau Gasol vs. Kendrick Perkins
The question isn't whether Gasol is better, or if it's even close, but just whether Perk can stand up to Gasol enough to handle him. These playoffs, Gasol has increased his rebounds and assists - he's now averaging an 18-9-4 with 2.5 blocks a game. That's domination down low there.

Perkins is a young guy, he's up and down like most young big men. He'll disappear in some games and come out strong in others. At least once this series Gasol will take him for 28 points and 16 rebounds, at least once in this series Perk will play him head to head. We'll lose Gasol's good game and win Perk's good one. And we better hope he's got more than one good one.

Advantage: Lakers

Bench - Lakers vs. Celtics
James Posey could legitimately start for any playoff team, and there's no one like that on the Laker bench. The Lakers have a talented point guard in Jordan Farmar and a strong big man in Vlad Radmanovic, and no one else of interest. The deeper you go into the benches, the more the Celtics have the advantage - between Sam Cassell and Eddie House, they've always got a backup PG option, plus an experienced big man in P.J. Brown. Plus, some good young big men in Leon Powe and Big Baby Davis that can pound away down low.

Advantage: Celtics

Coach - Phil Jackson vs. Doc Rivers
Heh. Heh heh. Ha ha ha ahaha hahahahahahaha! Ha ha ha!

Hee hee.

Heh.

Massive Advantage: Lakers

So, despite the large coaching gap, that doesn't look too bad, does it? That looks like a legitimate series right there, not some runaway train pounding a sad-sack newcomer? I say yes.

11 Predictions
1. If the Celtics win the series and Pierce is named Series MVP, he becomes a lock for the Hall of Fame, something he wasn't before.
2. Whoever wins Game 1 wins the series.
3. Kobe has at least one game over 40 points.
4. Pierce has at least one game over 30 points.
5. Garnett destroys Odom by a painful degree in one game.
6. Same for Gasol with Perkins.
7. Anytime Ray Allen scores more than 20, the Celtics win.
8. Rondo has one game with more than 12 assists.
9. There will be hundreds of articles trumpeting the even-better-than-expected ratings for the series.
10. Garnett will have one point where he will go so ballistic even the announcers are scared.
11. Celtics in 6.

"The West Wing" as a prophetic guide to this election

I've made comments about this before, so I won't again, but I'm re-watching Season 6 of "The West Wing," a season that foretold with startling accuracy a good deal of the details of this election. For the record, they also did a it's-over-but-the-candidate-doesn't-realize-it story, so that's a new one to add to the list.

The stunner was watching the first speech again from the Obama-like candidate, which turned out to be entirely about Hope, and how we should continue to believe in Hope against all odds. Gave me chills. Someone needs to call up John Wells and ask him if he's the Antichrist.

Grammy Results

I watched as much of the Grammys as I could, and I was… bored silly. With no Golden Globes this year and the possibility of no Oscars (though with the writer’s strike over, that possibility is gone now), the Grammys would have planned to step up their game, particularly since this was their 50th Anniversary show, and they’d put out a very extensive, costly ad campaign starting months prior. But instead we got a bunch of quavery-voiced senior citizens doing medleys – just like every other Grammy award show. Even with every other TV show in repeat, this was the lowest-viewed Grammys in 16 years, and outside of Kanye performing with Daft Punk, had virtually no highlights. However, it certainly wasn't without spectacle...

A Top Ten List of Things You Could Only See On The Grammys:

1. A very, very creepy duet between 1958 winner Keely Smith and Kid Rock with Dave Koz playing sax alongside. Neither one remembered the lyrics but did remember to have an uncomfortable old lady-dirty middle aged man flirtation. I felt so uncomfortable just watching them that I had to go make a trip to the kitchen just to get away from the television.
2. The idea of putting John Fogerty, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Lionel Richie on the same stage, at the same time, on primetime television. The Grammys 2008 - 50 years of excitement!
3. George Lopez coming out onto stage to tell one single, solitary joke that he falls all over. Here’s an exact quotation, I gleefully wrote it down as soon as he finished: “America! The only place where a white woman and a black man can run for President of the United States of America!” Why yes, George, that is correct. Did you see he also did not win Best Comedy Album? Best moment of the night for me.
4. Amy Winehouse giving a shoutout in her Record of the Year acceptance speech to her jailed boyfriend that explained that this was “for my Blake incarcerated. And to London, this is for London because Camden Town is burning down!” Which made her sound weirdly like a cross between Samuel Coleridge and Mick Jagger after a bad night.
5. A long and completely uninspiring gospel showcase featuring Aretha Frankin, the Clark Sisters, and one of the Winans that simply killed the limping show for good. If anyone kept watching after that, it was to see if Winehouse was gonna pass out on stage or not. I got killed in the Gospel section this year because I didn’t realize that a lot of Grammy voters are apparently old-school gospel fans. I can understand Aretha and the Clark Sisters taking home the prize, but Israel and New Breed beating out Casting Crowns? Incredible. It was nice to see Ashley Cleveland win, though.
6. After months of ads promoting the show being about “The Next 50 Years,” the show started with a laughably inept duet between Alicia Keys and Frank Sinatra and proceeded to spend the rest of the show following suit. Absolutely no artist with even the hint of being around for any of the next 50 years was particularly honored, with the exception Kanye and Winehouse, the latter of whom stakes her claim as a 60's-era classically-styled singer and tore up the Grammys accordingly. For pity’s sake, Herbie Hancock won Album of the Year! (Not that I have a problem with that, it’s just that it proves my point)
7. I know that I can go to Vegas and see Cirque de Soleil perform the Beatles “A Day In The Life,” but now I also know, just as much, that I don’t want to. That was bizarre, and the guy playing Sgt. Pepper is gonna give me nightmares the next time I eat pizza too soon before bed.
8. Jason Bateman, squinting confusedly at the teleprompter and looking like he’s hating himself for even being there, introduces a contest where accomplished violinists and cellists play for exactly six seconds and then viewers vote for which one gets to play with the Foo Fighters by texting. I’m sure Juilliard will be following suit in their application processes next year. The most attractive girl ends up winning the competition and is given a three-second solo early in the song.
9. Carrie Underwood has emerged as the only American Idol artist (with the possible exception of Jennifer Hudson) who now operates completely free of its stigma, but her performance was… Idol-like. Gyrating awkwardly (though, attractively) in black catsuit as TV screens showing digital flames looped in the background and what looked like the crew from “Stomp” performed a color guard routine around her. This is a girl who’s trying to gain country cred. Really.
10. The Academy CEO, three and a half hours into the show, gives a long and boring speech interrupted midway through by a video clip of him giving a longer and even more boring speech while wandering through the Grammy building that’s under construction, and finishes with him introducing a yet another piano player who plays a lively tune that, since it happened at 11:30 on the East Coast, utterly fails to wake anyone up.

Alright, it’s late, so let me wrap up with the results of my predictions. Out of 110 categories, I got 47 right, 62 wrong, and one category where I can’t really tell from my writing on the last post exactly who I picked (I'm sure lots of good writers have this problem), for a success rate of 43%, slightly better than I predicted. Of course, lessee, I missed Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year, so let’s not get carried away with platitudes.

Losers: I’m a glass half-empty guy, and the glass is only 43% full anyway, so let’s cover the screw-ups. I failed to see Herbie Hancock win (though, really, who saw that coming? Kanye West sold 2 million albums last year, Hancock sold 55,000 and I’d never heard of the record until I saw it was nominated), failed to see Winehouse’s complete domination, and failed to dominate most of the categories I thought I had locked up, like Pop and Gospel. What’s more, a good number of the groups where I promised no one would ever vote for them? Well, a lot of those groups won, including, obviously, Herbie Hancock, plus Paquito D’Rivera Quintet? and Chaka Kahn’s “Funk This,” in addition to assuming that Blanton Aspaugh was a classical music superproducer (he had no wins in any of his categories). And that’s not counting the amount of times I picked the nominee with the funniest-sounding title, which turned out to be a very bad strategy indeed. I don’t think anything that had an exclamation point at the end of it ended up winning, unfortunately.

Winners: Alright, sure, 43% is nothing to be too proud of, but I thought I made a number of very good calls. For example, I correctly predicted:
- seven out of eight of the Rock categories, and the one I missed I pointed out who was going to win, I just voted for a band I was a fan of.
- That both polka and bluegrass had some dignity left in them (though it turned out that blues did not, as they gave the award to two guys named Pinetop and Honeyboy. Not kidding here.)
- That jazz voters would go with an album named “Pilgrimage” over one named “Kids: Live At Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola”
- That jazz voters would also vote for an album with “Katrina” in the title.
- That a guy named “Marley” would win best Reggae Album
- That Flight of the Conchords would kick George Lopez’s unfunny fanny
- That the White Stripes, Springsteen, Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, and the Foo Fighters would all dominate.
- That I probably wouldn’t get that last post done until the Grammys had started, and believe me, I barely made it.
- And finally, and most impressively, that people love the Beatles. I’ve got my finger on the pulse of the nation.

All in all, a good year, and a great lead-in to this year’s Oscars, which I plan to do better on than I did last year. Though last year, you might remember, I kicked everybody’s tail who competed against me in the Oscar pool. Anyone up for it this year or are you all scared little whiners (or, as our pastor puts it, “tittiebabies,” which is apparently a common phrase down here, though that’ll be the last time I use it) who don't have the guts to give it another shot? I'm now accepting all comers.

Until next year, remember: people don’t like to see young, fresh acts on primetime, they want to see Cher introduce Beyonce, who then will do a dance routine in order to introduce a still sequined, still catsuited Tina Turner, who will then perform a three-song medley while trying desperately to keep up with her backup dancers. That’s what television is all about. Before television, we would just have had to do without.

Oscar Predictions!

Hey there, crew, it's that magical time of year again: The Oscars. That special time when movie studios pound and pound away at you the merits of their movie through every available media outlet, completely ignoring the fact that you've never seen virtually all of these movies.

I'm still a bit behind in my Oscar films myself, but I've seen enough and heard enough that I feel I can make some fairly accurate predictions. Heck, I was about 90% accurate last year, but I skipped some races that I didn't know anything about, and I missed The Big One: I had Brokeback Mountain winning Best Picture.

This year, I'm throwing down on all the races. If I find a race boring, I'm casting my vote and moving on fast before I fall asleep writing about this stuff. These columns get boring quick, and anyway, these things always end up becoming an exercise in "Y'know, sure, he'll probably win, but don't discount..." so that the writer can cover all his bases. This time, I'm not worrying about hitting to all fields. I'm going all in for the power stroke. And hopelessly muddling my sports metaphors. So here's my predictions:

Picture: People go on and on about how it's an even race, any one of these films could win, it's all up in the air, yadda yadda yadda. Here's my call: The Departed edges Babel by a nose. The Queen is gonna steal too many of Babel's acting-conscious voters away, and also, Babel has too many detractors since it's, y'know, weird. But I'm discounting The Queen, too, since it features two dynamic performances around what's otherwise a somewhat slight movie; while everyone acknowledges the film, I don't think anyone was blown away by it. I certainly wasn't. It's a deserving Best Picture nominee, but not a winner.

Letters From Iwo Jima is too low-budget and not a grand enough vision to be honored, and not enough industry voters will acknowledge the value of Little Miss Sunshine for it to be a truly credible threat. Sunshine's not nominated in the two categories that tend to foretell Best Picture winners: Best Director and Best Editing. The last time a movie won Best Picture without a nod in either of those categories? Never. Not a good sign, guys.

Director: Martin Scorsese. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you, Alejandro González had a grand vision, Paul Greengrass was mesmerizing, whatever, I don't care. This is Scorsese. He's been dissed in this category so long he's become the Academy's gold standard of the running joke. He created a wildly popular film with nuanced performances from people who don't really give nuanced performances on a regular basis, he's a legend and he's due, so who's voting against him?

Actor: I loved Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson (and I think he's a good dark horse here if you're a dangerous gambling man), I loved Will Smith in Pursuit of Happyness, I think Leonardo DiCaprio and Peter O'Toole are credible threats. But no one's beating Forest Whitaker. The guy played Ida Amin and scared us all to tears. Done and done.

Actress: Helen Mirren. Moving on.

Supporting Actor: Tough call. I think that this category is actually pretty lame this year. Mark Wahlberg and Alan Arkin are credible threats, but they were barely in the movies that they're nominated for. Jackie Earle Haley hasn't been in a movie in who knows how long (hyperbole alert: he was in one earlier this year. But it was a long time before that one), and Djimon Hounsou ranted for pretty much the entire two hours he was on screen. I think Eddie Murphy's got it in the bag for resurrecting that ol' SNL James Brown impression and putting some Serious Actor funk on it.

Supporting Actress: The girls from Babel split their vote, so it's between Abigal Breslin's little girl cuteness and Jennifer Hudson's "Hey, I used to be on American Idol but now I'm a serious actress" vibe. I'll give my vote to Hudson, but my heart belongs to Breslin's performance.

Animated Feature: Cars is a lock. Moving on.

Art Direction: Tougher category. I give it to Pan's Labyrinth - c'mon, they had a monster who wore his eyeballs in his hands - but I fear that reverse Dreamgirls backlash (it was overrated, but then it got snubbed by the Oscars, so people might vote sympathetically) might give it to them. That would be really lame if that happened.

Cinematography: If anyone besides Children of Men wins this, it's a travesty. There has not been a film more technically groundbreaking in this category in the last decade (I have no idea if that's true. I made that up. But it feels like it's true). Go watch that movie and try not to gasp.

Costume Design: Three films are in this one with a legitimate chance. Curse of the Golden Flower actually had the best costume design, but it's a foreign flick and not that many Academy voters saw it. Dreamgirls had great costuming, but the design is very modern and it's unlikely to create any real stir among voters (unless there's - da dum dum - reverse backlash). So the award likely goes to Marie Antoinette, which was mostly an exercise in fun-with-frilly-clothes-and-80's-music anyway.

Documentary Feature: There's no way An Inconvenient Truth could win. Hollywood hates liberalism and agendas.

Short Documentary Feature: "Recycled Life." Because... that's what everyone says will win. Heck if I know.

Editing: United 93. Because the actual best picture of the year oughta win something.

Foreign Film: Pan's Labyrinth vs. A Bunch Of Films No One Saw. I don't care if The Lives of Others is "the new media dark horse," this race is over.

Make-up: Pan's Labyrinth vs. A Mel Gibson Movie vs. An Adam Sandler Movie. I'm pretty sure I don't need to vote on this one.

Score: My favorite is Thomas Newman's score for The Good German, but I hear that it has no chance in hell. Ah, well. I'll vote for Gustavo Santaolalla in Babel. I know Alexandre Desplat's evocative score for The Queen is heavily favored, but I didn't think it was all that good.

Original Song: You might think that the fact that three Dreamgirls' songs are in the mix means that they'll split the vote. You're probably wrong. It's just because the Academy couldn't nominate only Dreamgirls songs, and they would've if they could've. This has happened before: Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King both got three nods in this category. They both took home the final prize. Prediction: Beyonce's "Listen" will end up taking it.

Still, why three nominations for Dreamgirls? Sure, the songs aren't bad, but - as a number of Oscar buffs besides myself have been harping - it wasn't exactly a weak year for original songs. Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" fromthe completely overlooked Casino Royale would've been a deserving pick, Devotchka's breezy "Til The End of Time" from Little Miss Sunshine was a standout, and pretty much anything Jack Johnson recorded for Curious George could've been in there. Hey, the man went #1 on the Billboard chart with a collection of kids' songs and no radio airplay whatsoever, and he gets no love in this category? Shame, shame, shame, shame.

Short Film (Animated): "The Little Matchgirl." Apparently it's a powerhouse.

Short Film (Live Action): "West Bank Story." I don't even know what it's about.

Sound Editing: Clint Eastwood's two films split the serious-movie vote, Pirates of the Caribbean wins.

Sound Mixing: Reverse backlash wins Dreamgirls this prize. Plus, there was music in it. Oscar voters tend to vote this subject with a "hey, which one of these was a musical again? Musicals are hard to mix. I should vote for that one."-type mindset. This means 19-time nominee Kevin O'Connell will get sent home empty-handed, again, which is a real shame, especially on the night Scorsese is finally getting his props. Of course, O'Connell mixed for Apocalypto, which is everybody's favorite to win no awards whatsoever.

Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean. Because it made the most money of any film this year. And the Academy likes to show that they're hip to what everyone likes.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Departed. None of the other films will be able to gather enough votes to form a formidable threat. Though it's not the best screenplay of this lot. That probably belongs to Little Children.

Writing (Original Screenplay): A Best Picture nominee that won't win any other awards? This prize has to go to Little Miss Sunshine.

You didn't even read this far, did you? Yeah, I didn't think so. I'm lucky if I got you to "Sound Editing." Still, come back after Oscar night and double-check me. I'm prepared to take any sort of beating you throw at me. Because I think I've got a good chance to go 75, maybe 80% accurate this year. Bring it on.