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)

81st Oscar Nomination Predictions (Tech Categories)

Editing
1. Slumdog Millionaire
2. The Dark Knight
3. Frost/Nixon
4. Doubt
5. Milk

Cinamatography
1. Slumdog Millionaire
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
3. The Dark Knight
4. Revolutionary Road
5. Frost/Nixon

Art Direction
1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2. The Dark Knight
3. Revolutionary Road
4. Changeling
5. Slumdog Millionaire

Sound Editing
1. The Dark Knight
2. WALL-E
3. Iron Man
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Quantum of Solace

Sound Mixing
1. The Dark Knight
2. WALL-E
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Iron Man

Costume
1. The Dark Knight
2. The Duchess
3. Revolutionary Road
4. Changling
5. The Curious Case of Banjamin Button

Makeup
1. The Dark Knight
2. Trpoic Thunder
3. Synecdoche, New York

Visual Effects
1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2. The Dark Knight
3. Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Song
1. “Down to Earth”, WALL-E
2. “The Wrestler”, The Wrestler
3. “Jai Ho”, Slumdog Millionaire
4. “O Saya”, Slumdog Millionaire
5. “I Thought I Lost You”, Bolt

Score
1. WALL-E
2. The Dark Knight
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. Frost/Nixon
5. Doubt

Foreign Language Picture
1. Waltz with Bashir
2. The Class
3. 3 Monkeys
4. The Baader Meinhof Complex
5. Everlasting Moments

Documentary Picture
1. Man on Wire
2. Trouble the Water
3. Standard Operating Procudure
4. I.O.U.S.A.
5. Made in America

Animated Picture
1. WALL-E
2. Waltz with Bashir
3. Kung-Fu Panda

3rd Annual Noble TV Awards

Well the Emmys did a good job in 2008 of honoring the best, but here are my own awards as voted by posters at theenvelope.com as well as myself. Enjoy...

The Emmys go "Mad" but still "Rock"

GREAT

Zeiljko Ivanek was the highlight for me, not only did I predict him but he had the best tape and helps the Best Supporting Actor in a Drama retsain its mantle as most impressive category at the Emmys. His costar Glenn Close gave one of the best performances on television this year, she was chilling playing Patty Hewes. She was the firm frountrunner and deserved to be.

Pushing Daisies was criminally snubbed in comedy series but easily won an incredibally well deserved directing trophy.

Mad Men and Boston Legal were the best drama had to offer this year so as long as one of those took it out I was happy (to be honest Damages or Lost winning I would have been fairly happy with as well. Mad Men’s win wasn’t an upset but was very well deserved. It’s writing win was also very well deserved (even for a script that was 7 years old).

Without the Friel in the mix and Parker submitting an average tape Fey deserved to win here and she was able to. One of the great comedic performances on television here.

GOOD

Without January Jones, Yunjin Kim, Chi McBride or Jack McBrayer, supporting actress in a drama and supprting actor in a comedy were underwhealming categories but Wiest and Piven had the best tapes and deserved to beat out the weak field.

Spader had an incredibal tape which should have earnt him a 4th statue. Hamm and Laurie also had strong submissions but Cranston was a worthy winner for his great transformative performance in Breaking Bad.
Without Pushing Daisies (which should have won) there was a hole in comedy series. The Office and 30 Rock though were both good with the Office being a bit weaker than it’s previous season and 30

AVERAGE

Baldwin was great in his tape and he’s the best thing about 30 Rock. But Carell was so good in Goodbye Toby (one of the best tapes of any category submitted) the trophy should have gone to him.

BAD

Cooter was not even 30 Rock’s strongest episode nominated. Fey is a great writer but here the writing was uneven. Pushing Daisies should have won or any of the other nominiees before Cooter.

Chenoweth should have easily won this category but unfortunatly Smart took it home. Nothing aginst Smart, she should have won for 24 and I like her in Samantha Who? But her win was one for mediocrity.

TERRIBLE

The hosts and the embrace of reality TV, which did nothing to improve ratings or sustain the dignity of the awards.

SUMMARY & SCORECARD
Overall it was a very good year for the Emmys. I was able to correctly predict 7/14 of the top awards for 50% success rate.