Hugh, good job last night. One of the better hosts in recent years.

Now, I have to go and find myself some of your movies that are not called X-Men(hate, so much hate)

ok, here are my final predictions. I think.
Best Picture:
Babel; The Departed; Letters from Iwo Jima; Little Miss Sunshine; The Queen.
For the first time since Schindler's list(the year I started watching the Oscars), I don't have a clue who will win. I'm going with Little Miss Sunshine because I just love it so much.

Best Director:
Clint Eastwood for Letters from Iwo Jima; Stephen Frears for The Queen; Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu for Babel; Paul Greengrass for United 93; Martin Scorsese for The Departed.
Scorsese all the way for me. It would be a major upset if he didn't win. 

Best Actor:
Leonardo DiCaprio for Blood Diamond; Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson; Peter O'Toole for Venus; Will Smith for The Pursuit of Happyness; Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland.
This is Forest's to lose. The only way I can see that happen is if they decide to honor Peter O'Toole, because he's you know, old.
Best Actess:
 Penelope Cruz for Volver; Judi Dench for Notes on a Scandal; Helen Mirren for The Queen; Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada; Kate Winslet for Little Children
I quite simply can't see Helen Mirren lose. I don't know how she can. I think she's the biggest shoo-in tonight. It  will be the first time in over ten years(Susan Sarandon) that an actress who's over 40 will win best actress.

Best supporting Actor:
 Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine; Jackie Earle Haley for Little Children; Djimon Hounsou for Blood Diamond; Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls; Mark Wahlberg for The Departed.
This is a pretty open race, despite Murphy winning the Golden Globe and SAG. The buzz for Alan Arkin was growing over the last few weeks. I'm going for him because he's, well same as with O'Toole, old. The Academy likes that for some reason. Murphy was fantastic in Dreamgirls and I will not be heartbroken if he wins.

Best Supporting Actress:
Adriana Barraza for Babel; Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal; Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine; Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls; Rinko Kikuchi for Babel.
This one is Jennifer Hudson's to lose and I don't really think she will. I hope little Abigail will win, but that's unlikely.

Animated feature:
 Cars; Happy Feet; Monster House.
I loved Cars and Pixar as a pretty good track record at the Oscars. Cars also won at the Annie's.

Art Direction:
Dreamgirls; The Good Sheperd; Pan's Labyrinth; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest; The Prestige.
Pan's for me. That movie was so gorgeous to look at.

Cinematography:
The Black Dahlia; Children of Men; The Illusionist; Pan's Labyrinth; The Prestige.
Once again, Pan's for me for the same reasons as stated above.

Costume Design:
 Curse of the Golden Flower; The Devil Wears Prada; Dreamgirls; Marie Antoinette; The Queen.
It has Prada in the name for crying out loud, yep that's my pick.

Film Editing:
Babel; Blood Diamond; Children of Men; The Departed; United 93.
I don't have a clue, Children of Men for me. No idea why lol.

Foreign Language film:
After the Wedding(Denmark); Days of Glory(Algeria); The Lives of Others(Germany); Pan's Labyrinth(Mexico); Water(Canada).
Pan's was one of the best movies of the year for me. Even best picture worthy.

Makeup:
Apocalypto; Click; Pan's Labyrinth.
Another one for Pan's

Original Score:
 Babel; The Good German; Notes on a Scandal; Pan's Labyrinth; The Queen.
The music in Pan's was so beautiful. I usually don't notice things like that  but I noticed it in Pan's.

Original song:
'I Need to wake up' from An Inconvenient Truth; 'Listen' from Dreamgirls; 'Love you I do' from Dreamgirls; 'Our Town' from Cars; 'Patience' from Dreamgirls.
I don't even remember the other two songs from Dreamgirls. Listen is my pick.

Visual Effects:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man's Chest; Poseidon; Superman Returns.
Poseidon, are they kidding me, I was laughing my way through, and not in a good way, that because of the special effects. Pirates for me.

Adapted Screenplay:
Borat; Children of Men; The Departed; Little Children; Notes on a Scandal.
The Departed won the WGA, I'm going with that.

Original Screenplay:
Babel; Letters from Iwo Jima; Little Miss Sunshine; Pan's Labyrinth; The Queen.
LMS for me, also won at the WGA

Sound Editing:
 Apocalypto; Blood Diamond; Flags of Our Fathers; Letters of Iwo Jima; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
I don't have a clue, Pirates for me lol.

Sound Mixing:
Apocalypto; Blood Diamond; Dreamgirls; Flags of Our Fathers; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man's Chest.
Pirates again.

I wish I knew enough or cared enough about the documentaries and short films but I don't . No predictions there from me.

aah, Oscars. I just love them, I can't help myself. Like I told a co-worker yesterday, they are awesome to bitch about because there is always something to bitch about. So I'm gonna do some bitching now lol.

My favorite Academy errors, I hope you all post your thoughts on what the biggest mistakes the Academy has made in the history of that little Golden Guy.

Here are some of mine:

*  Titanic. I hate Titanic. I hate it so much. It's one of the most overrated movies ever.
* Gwyneth Paltrow WTF, were they smoking something druggy when they were voting? Did no one actually see Elizabeth? ugh.
* Same year as Gwyneth, Shakespeare in Love for best Picture. Yep they were definitely smoking something.
* In a perfect world, Russell Crowe would have won three Oscars in a row. He deserved to win for The Insider, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind.
* I didn't get the love for American Beauty. Hubbie says it might have something to do with the fact that I'm not American.
*Forrest Gump over Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction. I like Forrest Gump but it's not better than the other two. Not even close.
*Going back to the Titanic year, I have so many  peeves grrr. No actors from LA Confidential even nominated, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kevin Spacey were all worthy of an nomination. I wonder if voters actually saw Mrs. Brown, they probably did since they found it neccessary to give Dame Judi an Oscar a few years later for only a few minutes of screentime.
*Walk the Line deserved a best picture nomination. Munich didn't and while I'm at it, Crash was in no way shape or form better than Brokeback or Good Night and Good Luck.

That's it for now, maybe I'll think of some more at work tomorrow. It's not going to be busy since the weather here in Iowa is horrible. Ice rain and snow, I've been told there is 1 ince of ice and 3 inces of snow predicted. Fun, fun.

So it's that time of the year again when everybody gets to bitch about the Oscars. Heck, I'm still  bitching about several winners or non-winners in the past *cough*Titanic*cough*.

This year it's more confusing than ever, in my opinion every best picture nominee can win. Right now I'm leaning toward a two horse race between The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine. The Departed because I feel it's Scorsese's year and Sunshine because it won the Producers Guild Award and the SAG ensemble award.

Best Actor and Actress are much easier to predict. Helen Mirren, who played Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, is untouchable right now, she won 30 pre-Oscar awards. Forest Whitaker won almost as many pre-Oscar awards for his performance in The Last King of Scotland. It would be a big shock for me if either one doesn't win next sunday.

The supporting actor awards are most likely going to the two Dreamgirls actors nominated. Eddie Murphy really impressed me as Jimmy Early, though I wouldn't be too surprised to see either Marky Mark(The Departed) or Alan Arkin(LMS) win. Arkin has the benefit of bein an older actor, the Academy seems to like that in supporting actors. The best performance in the actress category is probably Cate Blanchett, but I doubt she'll win. The way I see it the only one who can keep Jennifer Hudson away from Oscar glory is cute little girl Abigail Breslin, who I loved in LMS.

About best director I can be short. Two words: Martin Scorsese.

If I feel like it I might look a little deeper into the more technical awards. Or bitch come more about past awards lol. I'll admit to be a bit of an Oscar geek and love to discuss anything Oscary.