Live Blogging the Oscars

17/24 on predix. Same as last year. The End.

Glad to see No Animals Were Harmed during the broadcast.

So ends another disappointing Oscars. Glad that Hugo won at least 5. Time to move on.

8:36 – Of course they have to bring the damn dog on stage.

8:32 – Streep wins Actress. She was great, but the movie was not. The end can’t come soon enough…

8:24 – Everything sounds better in an English accent. The bullshitting sounds genuine.

8:23 – Can’t wait to hear Colin Firth tell Streep how moved he was by her role as The Iron Man.

8:20 – What was up with the yelling Dujardin? Relax, asshole.

8:14 – Can we just hurry up and give it to the French guy already.

8:13 – Let us hurry up and give it to Jean Dur…The French guy…And we never heard from him again…

8:11 – Moneyball music over this montage is excellent.

7:57 – That Oprah is a big bore.

7:53 – Michel what’s his name wins for Best Director. Madness. Madness. Thankfully we will never hear from him ever again…

7:43 – At least I called Best Doc Short and Live Action Short right…

7:30 – Shouldn’t have picked The Artist to win Best Original Screenplay. Glad to see Allen win his third Screenplay Oscar.

7:27 – Dean Pelton is an Oscar winner, very cool.

7:25 – Nice leg there Jolie.

7:16 – This French guy who won best Score didn’t thank Bernard Herrmann. That is the only reason The Artist won best score. Congratulations to Bernard Herrmann for the win.

7:02 – Christopher Plummer wins, an obvious attempt at the Academy to make up for not nominating him for General Chang in Star Trek 6.

6:57 – Very happy that Hugo won best visual effects, but my predictions are going in the shitter.

6:45 – They got to bring back Chris Rock to host. He killed it.

6:40 – That French circus thing was kinda cool. Liked the North by Northwest bit the best.

6:34 – This sounds nothing like Kermit.

6:29 – Hugo wins both sound categories. Finally two categories I called right. Hugo had 4 wins and I think that is all it will win for the night.

6:24 – Dragon Tattoo wins for editing! Yea, anything but the Artist! This is a real surprise.

6:22 – Cooper rocking the douchey mustache.

6:20 – Focus group bit was geniuiney funny.

6:09 – Love the robotic, odd way  that Nick Nolte claps. That is exactly the way I thought he would clap.

6:07 – A Separation wins for Best Foreign Film, well deserved, great movie.

6:04 – Having movie stars talk about their love and memories of the movies, easily the best part of the broadcast.

6:01 – This is they only time Adam Sandler will be apart of an Oscar broadcast.

5:57 – Why are they using Hugo score under the make up nominee? And am I the only person to take notice of this? Yes.

5:46 – Why the fuck are they playing the drums in balcony?!

5:44 – Hugo for Art Direction. Yea. Glad it will deny The Artist a sweep of all the awards at least.

5:43  Hugo! yes! Fuck the Artist!

5:41 – Doesn’t seem  right that Jonah Hill is seated in front of Martin Scorsese

5:37 – Here we go with singing melody…

5:30 – Freeman rocking a black glove. He has been cursed. And a terrible start with Crystal appearing in all the movies. This would have been great if it was 1997.

84th Annual Academy Award Predictions

The Oscars are here and time for another night round of extreme disappointment. “The Artist” is gonna sweep all the major categories and the only place where there will be any sort of suspense is in the below the line races. My predictions are in bold, and like Clint Eastwood said in “Unforgiven,” “deserves got nothing to do with it.”

Best Picture
“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
“Hugo”
“Midnight in Paris”
“The Help”
“Moneyball”
“War Horse”
“The Tree of Life”

I can’t wait till after Sunday so I never have to hear about “The Artist” again.

Best Actor
Demian Bichir, “A Better Life”
George Clooney, “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”
Gary Oldman, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
Brad Pitt, “Moneyball”

The most broad, and least subtle of the 5 will win here. I would love to see an Oldman win.

Best Actress
Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”
Viola Davis, “The Help”
Rooney Mara, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

Streep could still win here, but Davis is in a very popular movie and that will carry here over the top.

Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, “My Week With Marilyn”
Jonah Hill, “Moneyball”
Nick Nolte, “Warrior”
Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
Max Von Sydow, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

Plummer’s won every single supporting actor award out there. Another veteran actor, Von Sydow, could still eke out a surprise.

Best Supporting Actress
Berenice Bejo, “The Artist”
Jessica Chastain, “The Help”
Melissa McCarthy, “Bridesmaids”
Janet McTeer, “Albert Nobbs”
Octavia Spencer, “The Help”

Like Plummer, Spencer has won just about every supporting actress award out there.

Best Director
Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”
Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”
Terrence Malick, “The Tree of Life”
Alexander Payne, “The Descendants”
Martin Scorsese, “Hugo”

This is madness that the director of “The Artist” would win a BEST DIRECTOR award when up against the other 4. Madness.

Best Original Screenplay
Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”
JC Chandor, “Margin Call”
Asghar Farhadi, “A Separation”
Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist”
Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, “Bridesmaids”

The madness will continues and I will go out on a limb and say Hazan – whatever, will win, stealing it from the heavy favorite, Woody Allen. “A Separation” could pull out a surprise win here.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxton, Jim Rash, “The Descendants”
John Logan, “Hugo”
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, “The Ides of March”
Aaron Sorkin, Steven Zaillian, “Moneyball”
Bridget O’Connor, Peter Straughn, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”

“The Descendants” won the WGA award, and that is a pretty good predictor of who win the Oscar.

Best Animated Feature
“A Cat In Paris”
“Chico & Rita”
“Kung Fu Panda 2”
“Puss in Boots”
“Rango”

I loved “Rango” and I haven’t seen the other 4, so who cares.

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
Bullhead (Belgium)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)

The favorite is “A Separation,” but this is a category where an upset isn’t uncommon.

Best Original Score
“The Adventures of Tintin,” John Williams
“The Artist,” Ludovic Bource
“Hugo,” Howard Shore
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” Alberto Iglesias
“War Horse,” John Williams

It will win because of the usage of the great Bernard Herrmann score from “Vertigo.” Can anyone out there really remember anything about the music other than Hermann’s score?

Best Original Song
“Man or Muppet,” The Muppets; Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
“Real in Rio,” Rio; Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown, Lyric by Siedah Garrett

They really should just eliminate this category if all they could come up with is two nominees. I could still see “Real in Rio” pulling off a win.

Best Achievement in Art Direction
“The Artist”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”
“Hugo”
“Midnight in Paris”
“War Horse”

“Hugo” has to win something and this would be a justly deserved victory.

Best Achievement in Cinematography
“The Artist”
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“The Tree of Life”
“War Horse”

“The Tree of Life” won the Cinematography Guild Award, though this category is a crap shoot.

Best Achievement in Costume Design
“Anonymous”
“The Artist”
“Hugo”
“Jane Eyre”
“W.E.”

I really have no idea who will win here. Fuck it, I’ll go with Hugo.

Best Documentary Feature
“Hell and Back Again”
“If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front”
“Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory”
“Pina”
“Undefeated”

I will go with “Undefeated” because The Weinstein Company sent out the doc to every Oscar voter.

Best Documentary Short Subject
“The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement?”
“God Is the Bigger Elvis”
“Incident in New Baghdad”
“Saving Face”
“The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom”

A majority of the Oscar bloggers are going for this short, so I will go with them.

Best Achievement in Film Editing
“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“Moneyball”

“The Artist” won the Editor’s guild award, and I think this will match up with its Best Picture win.

Best Achievement in Makeup
“Albert Nobbs”
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”
“The Iron Lady”

Everyone seems to be saying that “The Iron Lady” will win, but I’ll go with Harry Potter because this is the last of the series and the Academy will want to give it something.

Best Animated Short Film
Dimanche/Sunday
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life

Most of the Oscar bloggers are going with this short, so I’ll just follow along.

Best Live Action Short Film
“Pentecost”
“Raju”
“The Shore”
“Time Freak”
“Tuba Atlantic”

See above for my sound reasoning in picking “The Shore.”

Best Achievement in Sound Editing
“Drive”
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
“War Horse”

I always have a hard time telling the sound categories apart, so I will just go with “Hugo” because of its dominance of nominations. “War Horse” could win here as well.

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
“Hugo”
“Moneyball”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
“War Horse”

See above for reasoning.

Best Achievement in Visual Effects
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”
“Hugo”
“Real Steel”
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”

They will give it to Apes for the fantastic visual design of the central character.