Oscars Already?

Every year, after the Golden Globes are over, the Oscars still seem so very far away. And yet, six weeks later, they're here before you know it. This year's timeline was ramped up quite a bit for me, as I was preparing and soon after executing a move to Los Angeles, a city I am now proud to call home. Tomorrow, I will enjoy the Academy Awards not from the comfort of my living room, but in the welcoming arms of the Silent Movie Theater, a wonderful establishment about which I'm sure I will write more in the future.

First, though, I want to direct you to a piece I wrote for Battleship Pretension that outlines my general feelings on the Oscars. I'm not one of those movie fans who decries the whole operation only to tune in with great anticipation every year. I love the Oscars, through and through.

For those of you curious about the competition, might I recommend catching up with the coverage over at Yidio? We've been covering all the Best Picture nominees and those competing in major creative categories, making predictions and taking sides.

And finally, for funsies, here are the predictions I'm going with in my yearly competition with my girlfriend. I've never felt less certain of victory.

Picture - The Social Network
Actor - Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
Actress - Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Supporting Actor - Christian Bale (The Fighter)
Supporting Actress - Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Director - David Fincher (The Social Network)
Original Screenplay - David Seidler (The King's Speech)
Adapted Screenplay - Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)
Animated Film - Toy Story 3
Foreign Language Film - In a Better World
Cinematography - Roger Deakins (True Grit)
Editing - Andrew Weisblum (Black Swan)
Art Direction - Robert Stromberg, Karen O'Hara (Alice in Wonderland)
Costume Design - Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland)
Makeup - Adrien Morot (Barney's Version)
Original Score - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)
Original Song - Alan Menken and Glenn Slater ("I See the Light," Tangled)
Sound Mixing - Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick (Inception)
Sound Editing - Richard King (Inception)
Visual Effects - Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, Pete Bebb, Paul J. Franklin (Inception)
Documentary - Restrepo


I'm not even going to bother listing my picks for short subject. I'm a bad person and never get around to seeing them, so they're complete guesses.