I guess what I am saying is that this season may be the most mouth-breathing, desperate, media awards season ever. Yet, the lessons learned are going to be the least informative ever.

Do not plan on learning anything you can hang onto this year ... except for who wins and who loses. Plenty of noise will be made as endless Reverse Analysis will prove that hindsight is not always 20/20. But for all the micro-obsessing, it is unlikely that there will ever be a year quite like this again. More >>

The Charts
Best Picture | Actor/Supporting Actor
Actress/Supporting Actress

Still not a lot of movement in the Gurus Best Picture picks, just a few shuffles in the middle of the pack. Meanwhile, the Best Director picks reflect, but don't quite mirror, the Picture list. And in Animation, Up leads the way... so far.

Gurus: November 18

..
The Contenders

2009 Oscar Day
The List of Oscar Winners

The Acceptance Speeches

Danny Boyle - Accept| Backstage
Kate Winslet - Accept | Backstage
Sean Penn - Accept | Backstage
Penelope Cruz - Accept | Backstage
Heath Ledger's Family - Accept
Dustin Lance Black - Accept | Backstage
Simon Beaufoy - Accept | Backstage
Andrew Stanton - Accept
Man on Wire - Accept

The Gurus Ballot
The Critics Scoreboard
20 Weeks to Oscar
Oscar Outsider

Print Your Ballot

The List of Nominees
The Oscar Crossword

 



The Contender Chart

Ten Make Oscars Animated Shorts Short List

"Armond White's review buys into the narrative that there can only be one acceptable presentation of black life. He's flattening the black experience, and in that way, he denies our humanity."|
"To Blacks, Precious Is 'Demeaned' or 'Angelic'"

Not Everyone's Happy About Oscars Documentary Short List

The Oscar Round Table: Take 4
"Less money is being spent early in derby season for campaigns this year. That’s obvious — and ominous."

Adjusting The Buzz

Anne-T's 16 Qs For Single Man Tom Ford

25 Things The Academy Got Right In The 2000s?

Goodridge Susses His 2010 Outlook For Non-Studio Awards Contenders

A Few Motley Musings On "The Festival Effect" And Oscar

Daniel Day-Lewis Sez He Tried To Avoid Dancing In Nine

Oscar Picks Hamish Hamilton To Direct, Known For Rock Concert, MTV Lensing; Also Up For NFL Halftime Gig

The Doc Short List Is Announced And Michael Moore Isn't On It

From MTV Music Awards To Directing The Oscars

The PGA Says Precious "Sheds Light On Provocative Social Issues in an Accessible and Elevating Fashion" And Gives It The Stanley Kramer Award

Cieply On The Crazy Heart Of Jeff Bridges' Oscar Chances

Samson & Delilah Win In Oz

Taking A Stab At The Doc Feature Oscar Shortlist

The IDA Announces Doc Award Nominees

So How About Some Fine Concept Art For Fantastic Mr. Fox From Artist Chris Applehans?

Best Quote From The Oscars So Far ..
"I can't believe it - a man at last. The thought that when I get home I'm going to have a two-legged man in my room is so exciting."

Oscar's Got Video Of The Saturday Honoraries To Calley, Corman, Bacall And Willis

An Obit For The A-List Actor
With - H'wd's New Leading Leading Men
And - Michael Sheen Sez, "I Am Officially The King Of Hollywood"

Cieply On The Honorary Oscars Ceremony Saturday Night That Clocked In At An Oscar-Sized 3:18

WeinsteinCo And University Of Minnesota Team With A Single Man Book Tie-In

Corman According To Scorsese, Matheson, Shatner, Hopper, Howard, Dante, Demme, Sayles, Stallone, Spheeris

"I have no desire to go on a trip. My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold and anything else is just a waste of time. Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing."
Cormac McCarthy Talks Up The Road

David Rockwell Styles The Oscar Stage Again

James Cameron Is The VES King Of The World

The Denver Dollar$ Behind Precious

Oscars List Of 20 Animated Film Submissions Is Here

Turkish Honor For Greek Great Angelopoulos Postponed After Quarantined For Swine Flu At Athens Airport

Sasha Stone Is Thinking Hangover For Globes

Art Of The Title Sequence Sews Up Coraline

"They hear you're 75 or 80 and figure you're probably dead. They don't know who you are anymore. Since Into the Wild, it seems to me that certain people's perception of who I am has changed."
H'wd & Fine Chats With Hal Holbrook

"Gabby Sidibe told me that 'Push' was a book that every black girl read. So when Anthony Lane wonders why it's called Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, instead of just Precious, there’s your answer. Precious is an adaptation of what for many people is a classic."

Sheffield Doc/Fest Announces 2009 Awards

The European Film Award Noms, Led By The Prophet

Thomson On Why We Should Care About The Honorary Oscars

Cove 7 Noms; Burma VJ And October Country 5
Cinema Eye Announces Nonfiction Feature Nominees For 2010 Edition

British Doc Awards Include Afghan Star, Burma VJ, Yes Men

Steve Martin And Alec Baldwin Suit Up For Oscars

Oscar Entries Due For Cartoons

Dressing To The Nine

"At the Globes, everyone is sitting around and drinking. I'm going to be drunk, and I'm not going to rehearse. So, it's the perfect gig for me."

"Please. You got the role because you've got two Oscars and you look like Amelia Earhart. Period."

Copy The Emmys, Hire NPH, Streamline, "Less Hoofing," More Jokes
Writing About 2010 Oscars, Tube Cricket Reveals What She Really Wants To Do Is Produce-Direct

Hirschberg Transcribes Audacious Lee Daniels In Puff Of Precious

Trailering Chris Smith's Collapse

Making The Case For Sam Rockwell And Moon

Precious Wins Over the Audience At The Chicago Film Fest

Peter Sarsgaard, Between Sexy And Creepy

"I used it as a doorstop. And it was bent."
Two-Time Oscar-Winner Luise Rainer, Closing In On 100, Recollects Glamour Past

Gabourey Sidibe Tells Beeb She's Afraid Of Oscar

Sunday Magazine Preview
Hirschberg Transcribes The Audacious Lee Daniels In A Puff Of Precious

Mechanic And Shankman To Produce Oscars

A Dis Of The Gothams, Precious, And "A Handful Of Indignant Bloggers" That Makes A Gratuitous, Uninformed Slap At The Maid

Academy Allows Private Online Screenings, Appropriately Enough, For Web-Cautionary Doc We Live In Public

And so it begins ...
The Hurt Locker And Big Fan Get Nominated For The Gothams

Reporter Ranks Amelia With Ray And Capote
Earlier - Variety First-Reviews Amelia; Finds Flaw (spoilers galore)

2010 Cinema Eye Honors Offer Doc Shortlist 98 Pics Deep

Vancouver IFF's Awards

Universal Digital Marketing Exec Talks New Film P.R. Strategies

Anne-T Sez Tree Of Life Is Now 30 Years And Counting; No Malick For Christmas

Mashup Reigns
When Wes Von Anderson Met Lars Fischer In The Fallen Forest: "The Satanic Mr. Fox"

Oscar's 65 Foreign Language Dates

Ellwood Pros And Cons The Best Actress Contenders

The Hollywood Film Fest Hands Out A Few Awards

8 Shortlisted For Oscar Short Docs, Including Spike Jonze Pic
And - Schnack Has Details On All Of 'Em

Awards Daily Hosts A Virtual Roundtable

Ellwood Lays Out His Best Actor Contenders

How Much Politics, Real-World Style, Will Enter This Award Season?

WeinsteinCo Balls In Air Again: Nine Refigured To December 18 Exclusives Between Nov. 25 Road And Dec. 11 Single Man

Pedictions From Anne Thompson

It's On In The Animated Category

UK Enters Foreign Language Oscar Fray With Afghan Star

60 Foreign Films In The Running Of The Oscars?

Tom O'Neil Is Ready To Nominate A Serious Man For Everything

Sasha Stone Sails The Calm Before The Storm

Major Foreign Language Films Left Off Nations' Academy Noms... Really?

Inside The Precious Litigation

Denmark Choses Terribly Happy To Represent

Tapley's Counting Down The Best Song

The Academy Honors Lauren Bacall, Roger Corman, Gordon Willis And John Calley

"I think we are absolutely in an era where we have to try things. In that sense, nothing’s off the table."
Bruce Davis Talks About Oscar

IndieWire Looks For Awards Season Answers From Venice, Telluride And Toronto

Counting The Oscar Votes In a 10 Nominee Race

In Contention Offers Its Last Oscar Prediction Charts

Vulture's Infallible, Late August Oscar Predictions

Ondi Timoner On Self-Distrib Of We Live In Public To Get Oscar Notice

Could The Cove And Capitalism: A Love Story Wind Up In Oscar's 10 Best Nominees?

Night For Day
Spirit Awards Moved Up A Day, Now 2 Days Before Oscar

Streep Sez Oscars Oughta Be On January 1

Bong Joon-Hoo's Mother Bests Thirst For S. Korean Oscar Entry

Is Sri Lanka's Flowers Of The Sky The First Foreign Language 2010 Oscar Nom?
And - The Trailer

The Academy Invites 136 To Membership

The Bagger Asserts Oscar Needs Less, Not More
While - David Thomson Considers The Move By His Friend, Mr. Ganis

Further Oscar Retuning: New Original Song Rules
And - On Moving The Honorary Awards To November

Studios Say 10 Best-Pic Slots Hardly Likely To Boost Year-End Tub-Thump Budgets
Earlier - Will 10 Best Pic Noms Mean Other Categories Get Short Shrift On Big Show?
And - Hot Blog "Yes, Virginia, Star Trek, Up, and The Hurt Locker are now in the Best Picture race."
Plus - Academy To Platform 10 Best Picture Nominees

H'wd & Fine Thinks Hurt Locker Could Detonate Oscars

Frenzy on the Wall
Changes That Would Actually Make The Oscars Better

by Noah Forrest


The Academy doing silly things shouldn't be a surprise for anyone since this group has had a long history of doing remarkably silly things. The idea of giving awards to the "best" film or the "best" actor is a rather inane act in itself, but it seems as if the Academy is intent on stripping away any kind of legitimacy or value from the proceedings. 

35 Weeks to Oscar
The Next Oscars Will Be Rated X
by David Poland

This year I decided to find a way to work Guitar Hero World Tour into my Oscar predictions, thereby justifying the amount of work time I spend honing my "Crazy Train" skills as "work research." For each category, I randomly ordered the nominees and assigned a percentage range to each, and the Guitar Hero player whose turn it was performed their song to determine the winner.