Stupid Internet Spoilers!

I wanted to remain ignorant of the main Oscar Wieners and follow along but it's impossible to gain access to any site without the big winners being revealed. So, I've head over to the Wiki page and clicked to the last page thus I can work my way backwards.

The complete list of the 83rd Annual Academy Award nominations were announced Tuesday and just like last year, I will put my desired win in bold and what I think will win in italics or both if they overlap.

Starting at the bottom of the Wiki page, we have:

Best Film Editing:
I chose 127 Hours because they actually edited it down and my prediction came true for the longest movie,
The Social Network (Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter) won it.

Best Visual Effects: I chose Alice in Wonderland realizing and expecting Inception (Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, and Peter Bebb) to win, which it did.

Best Costume Design:
The Academy agreed with me and chose Alice in Wonderland (Colleen Atwood) but I thought that they might go for The King's Speech.

Best Makeup:
The Wolfman (Rick Baker and Dave Elsey)...Nailed it. The Oscar boys rightfully chose this one along with me.

Best Art Direction:
Once again I underestimated the Academy's love for Inception and my choice Alice in Wonderland (Art Direction: Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Karen O'Hara) won.

Best Cinematography:
Nailed it! Inception (Wally Pfister) justifiably walked away with it.

Best Sound Editing:
I erred in both my desire, Tron: Legacy and my prediction, TS3, leaving "Inception" (Richard King) sounding off with very Sound wins.

Best Sound Mixing: "Inception" (Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo, and Ed Novick) won this as well. I had my tongue placed in my cheek when I chose Salt and True Grit.

Best Original Score:
I was way off with this one, hoping that How to Train your Dragon might win something and predicting that The King's Speech would take it. Rather surprisingly, the Hoity Toity ones chose a rather trendy score with "The Social Network" (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)

Best Original Song:
"We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 (Randy Newman) was what I hoped for though I was afraid that "I See the Light" would take it.

I missed both of the following two categories, but then again I hadn't seen any of them when I made my predictions (then again, who has seen any of these?)
Best Live Action Short Film:
"God of Love" (Luke Matheny) beat out The Crush, and Na Wewe.

Best Animated Short Film:
"The Lost Thing" (Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan) beat out The Gruffalo and Let's Pollute.

Hmm. I missed these as well...
Best Documentary Feature:
"Inside Job" (Charles H. Ferguson and Audrey Marrs) beat out Gasland and Waste Land.

Feature Best Documentary – Short Subject:
"Strangers No More" (Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon) beat out The Warriors of Qiugang which was both my choice and prediction.

Best Animated Feature:
No surprise whatsoever where Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich) conquered my favourite, How to Train Your Dragon. Sigh.

Best Foreign Language Film:
In a Better World (from Denmark in Danish, Swedish, and English – Susanne Bier) is what I thought the Academy would choose though I wanted Incendies to win because it's Canadian.

Best Writing – Original Screenplay:
"The King's Speech" (David Seidler) stole the honours away from both Inception and The Fighter.

Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay:
The Social Network (Aaron Sorkin from The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich) took it as expected though it sure would have been nice to see the Coens win for True Grit.

Best Supporting Actor:
My prediction was spot on for Christian Bale (The Fighter as Dicky Eklund) took it though I'd have liked to have Geoffrey Rush win.

Best Supporting Actress:
Though "Melissa Leo" (The Fighter as Alice Ward) won, I predicted her costar Amy Adams and wanted Helena Bonham Carter to take it.

Best Actor:
Colin Firth (The King's Speech as Prince Albert, Duke of York / King George VI) duked it out with another Dude Duke, Jeff Bridges in his Duke tribute.

Best Actress:
I nailed Natalie Portman (Black Swan as Nina Sayers / The Swan Queen)! I wish!!

Best Director:
I erred with "Tom Hooper" (The King's Speech) winning it, though I predicted David Fincher to scoop it up and desired Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Maybe next year.

Finally,
Best Picture:
The King's Speech (Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, and Gareth Unwin) scammed it as expected though once again, I'd like to have seen any of the other 9 to take it, specifically True Grit.

So, what's my total? Last year, I gave myself 2 points for my desired movie, 1 point for the predicted Academy movie and 3 points for doubly nailing it. My undesired prediction came through 8 times, my desire came through thrice (6pts) and I doubly predicted thrice as well (9pts) which gives me a total of 23/72 or about 1/3. Considering a saw next to none of these movies, I think I fared fairly well. Biggest disappointment was with "True Grit" (0/10) and "How to Train Your Dragon" (0/2), a bit of a surprise that "Alice in Wonderland" won 2/3 and I'm content that "Inception" gathered 4/8.

Now that I've given my summation, I'm off to the Blogosphere to learn about the ceremony itself and maybe catch a few highlights on the YouTube BoobTube.

Bending Air.

It appears that M. Night Shamalamadingdong has won yet another Golden Raspberry for The Last Airbender. Congrats to him and to the collective cast of S&tC2 for their triumphant wins!

Stayed tuned tomorrow when I hope to offer my musings on the Oscars...

Has Spring Sprung?

In a complete turnaround of events, this morning did not suck! I went to get my driver's license renewed/replaced and fully expected to get bogged down in red-tape and ultimately rejected. Though I didn't get it today, I was given directions as to how to obtain it later this week. I may be rejected later, but for now my day started off well.

So since I was in the neighbourhood and the sun was shining, I called up pal Alex and met up with he and his daughter for a walk in the park. Once the sun hid behind the clouds, it became bitter cold yet for a few hours there, it seemed as though Spring had arrived.

Fabulous Fables.

I'd read the first dozen issues when they came out and recently I've been reading the collections of Bill Willingham's Fables. They are just astounding and when I go home next (whenever that'll be), I hope to gather up the remaining volumes.

Here are the covers to 8, 9 and 11. I wish I could get my paws on the others right now.

I saw this on the tube this morning and it's what inspired today's post.



The big bad wolf he learned the rule
You gotta get hot to play real cool.

Conan The Great!

Ever wonder why the literacy rate in Japan is so high? (Actually it's about average, but that's not the point.) It's because there are free books at almost every minor train station in the country. In the waiting room, there is usually a bookcase or two of a variety of books for all ages and interest. Sure, these books are way out of date and not even the Used Book stores want them, but still...FREE BOOKS! I had a bit of a wait, so I browsed the shelves and I saw　コナン・ザ・グレート or Konan za Gureto. I assumed it was about Conan the Detective but I looked more closely and sure enough, it was Ahhnold's Sword & Sorcery extravaganza, "Conan the Barbarian" from way back in 1982. The entire text was in unreadable kanji and the B&W pics are fairly grainy, but it did have a few colour photos so I scammed the tome since the price was well within my budget.

Since a remake is due out this summer, I felt it was time to look back at the original. (Hey, the new one features Ron Perlman, so you can add an extra star to the review right now.)

Ever wonder what would happen if Milius had made Conan a musical? That should rest your mind at ease.

Child Of Dreams.

Browsing through the stacks at a Used Book store is usually a fruitless enterprise, not knowing exactly what one is seeking but occasionally a book just leaps out at you. Batman Child of Dreams is one such book that claims 360 pages for 500￥ that I landed for a smooth buck. I like author Kia Asamiya's style and he manages to squeeze in Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler, Joker and Catwoman into one volume. Batman lands in Tokyo chasing after a wacky drug that gives you one heck of a dream for one night but then drains your life force. Succubus Sucks, dude.
Here are some highlights of the book, featuring some nice splash pages of Bats or the villains. What gets me is that there always seems to be a full moon.

Finally, anyone recognize this scene?