Got Nailed.

Last year, I did quite well with my predictions, nailing more than naught. Alas I was not so much Nostradamus as Nostromo (and we all know what happened to that Alien ship!) (I'm embarrassed to see that my last year's post of winners has the same title as yesterday's post. I gotta check these more carefully.) Anywho...I'm not going to bother a tally of all my efforts, only those I wanted to win or predicted would win. Here goes:
(Before I begin a brief aside: While I'm writing about the celebration of Movie's best, I'm watching a devastation of its worst...Mr. Bean's Holiday! UPDATE: I turned it off!)

My prediction for what won will be in BOLD, for what I wanted will be ITALICIZED and if they coincide, it'll be BOTH.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire --Christian Colson
Best Foreign Language Film: Departures - Japan --Yojiro Takita
Best Documentary Feature: Man on Wire --Simon Chinn
Best Animated Feature: WALL·E --Andrew Stanton
Best Director: Danny Boyle --Slumdog Millionaire
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Sean Penn --Milk
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Kate Winslet --The Reader
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger --The Dark Knight
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Penélope Cruz --Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best Writing - Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black --Milk
Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy --Slumdog Millionaire

Documentary Short (Missed it!)
Film Editing (Missed it!)
Makeup (Missed it!)
Music (Score) (Missed it!)
Music (Song) Nailed it! Jai Ho
Short Film (Live Action) Toyland (Guessed it!)
Sound Editing (Missed it!)
Sound Mixing (Missed it!)
Visual Effects (Missed it!)

Holy Crap, Batman! All my desired picks went to either Benjamin Button or Slumdog! TDK, Hellboy and Iron Man got snubbed for everything!! (Okay, not Heath, but you know what I mean.)

As pointed out by the Japan Times, two big winners were Japanese. (Any Canadian Content anyone??) Similarly, Alex pointed out in my comments that
Departure is a pretty good pic. He was surprised to learn that there has never been a Japanese Best Foreign Film winner and further amazed that Kurosawa had never won. Actually it's the first win since 1954's 地獄門 (Jigokumon) or Gate of Hell, Directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa but that was before the BFF Category was invented and prior to that it was only an Honourary Category.

As for Kurosawa, his only film to have ever received the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar was for Dersu Uzala (1975)...his only film not done in Japanese (it was in Russian). His movie, Ran, was not nominated as a Foreign Film nor as Best Picture but Akira himself was nominated as Best Director!

I can be forgiven for not choosing the Best Short Film (Animated) for with a title like La Maison en Petits Cubes who knew that it'd be a Japanese entry directed by Kunio Kato?

In summation, I nailed a lot of the obvious ones and missed out on the ones I liked.

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Jerry Lewis --Comedic film and humanitarian work. He's a goof in real life, but I did like some of his early work...and I'm not even French!

Dead Guys tribute: apparently they neglected to mention Eartha Kitt (Hissss!) or George Carlin
(%$&#$%)!

I hope buddy Bob taped it for me. It sounds like Wolverine did a great job!