2009 Emmy Nomination Predictions: Writing and Directing in a Comedy Series

Thought I would up the ante this year with my nomination predictions by recording them on my webcam. So with the nomination announcement fastly approaching I'm kicking things off with writing and directing for comedy series.

"Slumdog" wins big at Oscars

Here's my late review of the 2008 Oscars where Slumdog took home 8 big awards.

THE GOOD:

Slumdog Millionaire's sweep, especially for best director. I'd be lying if I said they deserved all of them (WALL-E was robbed in the music and sound categories and screenplay should have gone to Frost/Nixon). And the best picture race was looking weak without Dark Knight or WALL-E. Nevertheless it was one of the years best films and seeing it will 8 was nice.

The Dark Knight's Sound Editing win. Ledger's win was deserving as well although that was a very weak field.

THE AVERAGE:

Penelope Cruz' win. She was good and it's always nice to see a comedic performance prevail however the ladies from Doubt gave much stronger turns.

The Dutchess for costumes I guess.

Hugh Jackman did well. He kept things focused on the films nominated for his opening bit and his siging and dancing was great. However he just didn't have the wit or pressence of Billy Crystal (who also does best picture melodies) and his 2nd musical number seemed only thrown in to show off Jackman's singing and dancing chops with very no focus on the nomiabted fare.

THE BAD:

Milk had a good screenplay but no where near the brilliance of WALL-E.

Sean Penn gave a good performance but Langella should have won, making this Penn's 2nd Oscar robbery of the decade.

Kate Winslet is one of the best actor's going around but it really pained me to see her win for a performance that seemd so ridiculously crafted to win an oscar (see Extras). Add to the fact it wasn't that great compared to Melissa Leo's great Turn in Frozen River and you have one of the night's low lights.

Benjamin Button's 3 wins which all should have gone to The Dark Knight.

SUMMARY AND SCORECARD:

Decent year for Oscars despite attrocious Dark Knight and WALL-E snubs.

In every category one of my top 2 predictions prevailed and I picked the winner 15/21 to give me a success rate of 71%. (not including the short categories).

3rd Annual Noble Film Awards Nominations

Oscar Predictions

MOTION PICTURE:
1. Slumdog Millionaire (90%)
2. Milk (5%)
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (4%)
4. Frost/Nixon (1%)
5. The Reader (0%)

DIRECTING:
1. Slumdog Millioanire (85%)
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (12%)
3. Milk (3%)
4. Frost/Nixon (0%)
5. The Reader (0%)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
1. Slumdog Millionaire (54%)
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (21%)
3. Frost/Nixon (19%)
4. The Reader (4%)
5. Doubt (2%)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
1. WALL-E (45%)
2. Milk (43%)
3. Frozen River (10%)
4. Happy-Go-Lucky (1%)
5. In Bruges (1%)

LEAD ACTOR:
1. Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon (31%)
2. Sean Penn, Milk (30%)
3. Micky Rourke, The Wrestler (29%)
4. Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (9%)
5. Richard Jenkins, The Visitor (1%)

LEAD ACTRESS:
1. Kate Winset, The Reader (43%)
2. Meryl Streep, Doubt (42%)
3. Melissa Leo, Frozen River (12%)
4. Anne Hataway (2%)
5. Angalina Jolie (1%)

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
1. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (81%)
2. Josh Brolin, Milk (11%)
3. Robery Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder (5%)
4. Phillip Seymore Hoffman, Doubt (2%)
5. Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road (1%)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
1. Viola Davis, Doubt (31%)
2. Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Bercellona (29%)
3. Amy Adams, Doubt (20%)
4. Marissa Tomei, The Wrestler (15%)
5. Tajari P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (5%)

ART DIRECTION:
1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Donald Graham Burt & Victor J. Zolfo (36%)
2. The Dark Knight, Nathan Crowley & Peter Lando (24%)
3. Changeling, James J. Murakami & Gary Fettis (11%)
4. The Duchess, Michael Carlin & Rebecca Alleway (10%)
5. Revolutionary Road, Kristi Zea & Debra Schutt (9%)

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
1. Slumdog Millionaire, Anthony Dod Mantle (30%)
2. The Dark Knight, Wally Pfister (27%)
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Claudio Miranda (26%)
4. The Reader, Chris Menges & Roger Deakins (10%)
5. Changeling, Tom Stern (7%)

COSTUME DESIGN:
1. The Duchess, Michael O’Connor (31%)
2. Australia, Catherine Martin (30%)
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Jacqueline West (29%)
4. Revolutionary Road, Albert Wolsky (6%)
5. Milk, Danny Glicker (4%)

FILM EDITING:
1. Slumdog Millionaire, Chris Dickens (40%)
2. The Dark Knight, Lee Smith (30%)
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall (15%)
4. Frost/Nixon, Mike Hill & Dan Hanley (10%)
5. Milk, Elliot Graham (5%)

MAKEUP:
1. The Dark Knight, John Caglione, Jr. & Conor O’Sullivan (38%)
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Greg Cannom (37%)
3. Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Mike Elizalde & Thom Floutz (25%)

ORIGINAL SCORE:
1. Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman (35%)
. WALL-E, Thomas Newman (30%)
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Alexandre Desplat (22%)
4. Milk, Danny Elfman (10%)
5. Defiance, James Newton Howard (3%)

ORIGINAL SONG:
1. "Down to Earth" from WALL-E, Peter Gabriel & Thomas Newman (50%)
2. "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman & Gulzar (45%)
3. "O Saya" from Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman & Maya Arulpragasam (5%)

SOUND EDITING:
1. WALL-E, Ben Burtt & Matthew Wood (32%)
2. The Dark Knight, Richard King (31%)
3. Slumdog Millionaire, Glenn Freemantle & Tom (30%)
4. Iron Man, Frank Eulner & Christopher Boyes Sayers (5%)
5. Wanted, Wylie Stateman (2%)

SOUND MIXING:
1. Slumdog Millionaire, Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke & Resul Pookutty (30%)
2. The Dark Knight, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo & Ed Novick (29%)
3. WALL-E, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick & Ben Burtt (28%)
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce & Mark Weingarten (10%)
5. Wanted, Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño & Petr Forejt (3%)

VISUAL EFFECTS:
1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton & Craig Barron (45%)
2. The Dark Knight, Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber & Paul Franklin (35%)
3. Iron Man, John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick & Shane Mahan (20%)

ANIMATED FEATURE:
1. WALL-E, Andrew Stanton (90%)
2. Kung Fu Panda, John Stevenson & Mark Osborne (9%)
3.Bolt, Chris Williams & Byron Howard (1%)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:Man on Wire, James Marsh & Simon Chinn
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Departures, Japan
ANIMATED SHORT:“Presto”, Doug Sweetland
DOCUMENTARY SHORT:“The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306”, Adam Pertofsky & Margaret Hyde
LIVE ACTION SHORT:“The Pig”, Tivi Magnusson & Dorte Høgh

Projected Totals:
Slumdog Millionaire: 7
WALL-E: 4
The Dark Knight: 2
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 2
Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Doubt, The Duchess: 1 each

81st Oscar Nomination Predictions (Best Picture)

Taking into account critical response, box office and idustry support here are how the award contenders rank:

Dark Knight
25
Wall-E
23
Slumdog
23
Button
21
Milk
19
Frost/Nixon
15
Doubt
15
Gran Torino
13
Rev Road
7
Reader
4

81st Oscar Nomination Predictions Acting

I really came close to picking Alan Alda for Nothing But the Truth as a WTH? pick

81st Oscar Nomination Predictions (Directing and Writing)