Could this be true? Let's hope so.

Since the last one was so good, could we possibly have a 5^th Indiana Jones movie?

That would be so cool.

81st Academy Awards

Well, It's Oscar time again and I, once again, offer you my guesses as to who the winners will be. My guesses are in BLUE, actual winners will be noted afterwards in RED italics.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- NOMINATIONS BY CATEGORY - 81ST AWARDS -

BEST PICTURE: [presenter: Steven Spielberg]
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"Frost/Nixon"
"Milk"
"The Reader"
"Slumdog Millionaire" **WINNER**

BEST DIRECTOR: [presenter: Reese Witherspoon]
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"Frost/Nixon"
"Milk"
"The Reader"
"Slumdog Millionaire" **WINNER**

BEST ACTOR: [presenters: Brody, DeNiro, Douglas, Kingsley, Hopkins]
Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor"
Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon"
Sean Penn in "Milk" **WINNER**
Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler"

BEST ACTRESS: [presenters: Cotillard, Berry, MacLaine, Kidman, Loren]
Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married"
Angelina Jolie in "Changeling"
Melissa Leo in "Frozen River"
Meryl Streep in "Doubt"
Kate Winslet in "The Reader" **WINNER**

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: [presenters: Walken, Grey, Arkin, Kline, Gooding Jr.]
Josh Brolin in "Milk"
Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thunder"
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Doubt"
Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" **WINNER**
Michael Shannon in "Revolutionary Road"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: [presenters: Swinton, Saint, Hawn, Goldberg, Huston]
Amy Adams in "Doubt"
Penélope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" **WINNER**
Viola Davis in "Doubt"
Taraji P. Henson in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Marisa Tomei in "The Wrestler"

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: [presenters: Steve Martin & Tina Fey]
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"Doubt"
"Frost/Nixon"
"The Reader"
"Slumdog Millionaire" **WINNER**

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: [presenters: Steve Martin & Tina Fey]
"Frozen River"
"Happy-Go-Lucky"
"In Bruges"
"Milk" **WINNER**
"WALL-E"

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: [presenters: Jennifer Aniston & Jack Black]
"Bolt"
"Kung Fu Panda"
"WALL-E" **WINNER**

ANIMATED SHORT FILM: [presenters: Jennifer Aniston & Jack Black]
"Lavatory - Lovestory"
"Oktapodi"
"Presto"
"This Way Up"
"La Maison en Petits Cubes" **WINNER**

ART DIRECTION: [presenters: Daniel Craig & Sarah Jessica Parker]
"Changeling"
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" **WINNER**
"The Dark Knight"
"The Duchess"
"Revolutionary Road"

COSTUME DESIGN: [presenters: Daniel Craig & Sarah Jessica Parker]
"Australia"
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"The Duchess" **WINNER**
"Milk"
"Revolutionary Road"

MAKE UP: [presenters: Daniel Craig & Sarah Jessica Parker]
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" **WINNER**
"The Dark Knight"
"Hellboy II: The Golden Army"

CINEMATOGRAPHY: [presenters: Natalie Portman & Ben Stiller]
"Changeling"
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"The Dark Knight"
"The Reader"
"Slumdog Millionaire" **WINNER**

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: [presenter: Bill Mohr]
"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)"
"Encounters at the End of the World"
"The Garden"
"Man on Wire" **WINNER**
"Trouble the Water"

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT: [presenter: Bill Mohr]
"The Conscience of Nhem En"
"The Final Inch"
"Smile Pinki" **WINNER**
"The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306"

FILM EDITING: [presenter: Will Smith]
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"The Dark Knight"
"Frost/Nixon"
"Milk"
"Slumdog Millionaire" **WINNER**

VISUAL EFFECTS: [presenter: Will Smith]
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" **WINNER**
"The Dark Knight"
"Iron Man"

SOUND EDITING: [presenter: Will Smith]
"The Dark Knight" **WINNER**
"Iron Man"
"Slumdog Millionaire"
"WALL-E"
"Wanted"

SOUND MIXING: [presenter: Will Smith]
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"The Dark Knight"
"Slumdog Millionaire" **WINNER**
"WALL-E"
"Wanted"

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: [presenters: Liam Neeson and Freda Pinto]
"The Baader Meinhof Complex" - Germany
"The Class" - France
"Departures" - Japan **WINNER**
"Revanche" - Austria
"Waltz with Bashir" - Israel

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: [presenters: Alicia Keys and Zac Efron]
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"Defiance"
"Milk"
"Slumdog Millionaire" **WINNER**
"WALL-E"

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: [presenters: Alicia Keys and Zac Efron]
"Down to Earth" from "WALL-E"
"Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire" **WINNER**
"O Saya" from "Slumdog Millionaire"

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: [presenters: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Janusz Kaminski]
"Auf der Strecke (On the Line)"
"Manon on the Asphalt"
"New Boy"
"The Pig"
"Spielzeugland (Toyland)" **WINNER**

HIRSHHOLT HUMANITARIAN AWARD: [presenter: Eddie Murphy]
Jerry Lewis **WINNER**

SCIENCE & TECHNICAL AWARDS: [hostess: Jessica Biel]

IN MEMORIAM: [presenter: Queen Latifah]

Remember when I told you about

my "as close as I'll probably ever get to Hollywood" experience?

What, you don't?

Refresh your memory here.

That movie, for better or worse, opened in theaters nationwide today for all to see.

Normally, this would be a movie I would not have any interest in seeing in the theater. It's probably funny because of Kevin James but it also looks unbelievably stupid. I'll definitely go see it and take V and M with me, simply because I like movies shot locally. However we're not going to see it for a few weeks, until I'm able to use the three movie passes that I have. I might even review it in a SNMR column after I see it.

If I do eventually add this movie to my DVD collection, it will be because I found a copy of it in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. This will probably happen sometime this summer, I'm guessing July or August.

----

V, M and I happened into BJ's tonight where I stumbled upon the complete five season series of a television show on DVD that was recommended to me in the past based on my past blogging interest in another, similar show. So I purchased the first two seasons.

The topper for me was that I was able to pick them up at a great price, at least in comparison to what amazon.com has them selling for. Such a good deal, in fact that I'm leaning heavily on the possibility of picking up the remaining three seasons at similar savings, before they go out of stock.

Playing with the big boys now

Every two years I get myself a new movie guide. For the last dozen years or so, Martin & Porter's DVD & Video Guide was always the one I used, like the one pictured at left. It's a serviceable guide with lots of helpful information and movie blurbs in it. But the small size of the book and number of pages really wears out the binding, especially after two years of regular use and abuse. For some reason I could not find the 2009 edition. I looked in bookstores and on-line with no success.

All for the best, I guess.

I was looking into getting Leonard Maltin's 2009 Movie Guide and his Guide for classic (pre-1960) movies as a replacement, but I wasn't too keen on the format. The listings seem all jammed together; add in a microscopic font size and you've got an un-user friendly guide.

Now, I've found something better. Much better, thanks to a Christmas present from my younger sister C.

This book is The One. It's jumbo sized and thicker than your average phone book, with 1,923 pages. Not only do you have capsule-sized movie summaries, but the book also has Academy Award winners and nominees in every major category, plus cast, director, writer, cinematographer and composer indexes. Oh yeah, it also has an alternate titles index and a categories list so you can find movies with similar subjects.

This is the guide you've gotta get for the movie enthusiast in your life. Trust me on this one.

'nuff said

Guess what we're going to see on Saturday afternoon? Even if it sucks, it's gonna be great! Nineteen years is a long time between sequels...

===========

Happy 11th Birthday, V. I love you, sweetheart.
Happy Birthday tomorrow, Dad.

"UnbeWEAVEable" Red Sox opener

Baseball season and the Boston Red Sox World Series title defense officially began early this morning, at 6:05 AM EDT. The Red Sox and Oakland Athletics are playing their first two games of the regular season in Tokyo, Japan as part of Major League Baseball promoting itself overseas and to baseball crazed Japan. I'm happy to report that the Red Sox won, 6-5 (10 innings). They'll play again tomorrow morning at 6:05 AM EDT. The rest of the regular schedule for the 2008 season resumes on April 1st. As I did last year, I'll keep track of the Red Sox record and upcoming schedule over on the sidebar.

-----

I got as close to "Hollywood" last night as I'll probably ever get.

Yesterday my dad called me at 17:30 to advise me that I should go over to the mall and check out some of the filming going on.

So I did. It was pretty cool to see all of the lights, diffusers, power cables and various other movie making equipment strewn about the place. It was interesting to watch the security people do crowd control for curious onlookers, such as myself. There were all kinds of production crew on hand doing their jobs. Many locals auditioned for the right to be extras, as part of a regular mall crowd, some of whom will actually appear in the final film, which is scheduled to be released in mid-January 2009.

I actually got close enough to see a scene between Kevin James and, I believe, this actress. I can tell you that the scene included James, dressed up in his security guard uniform and sporting a moustache, and the woman who was closing up her kiosk for the night. Her kiosk was called "UnbeWEAVEable" at which she was selling brightly colored wigs. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear any of the dialogue from my vantage point, which was about 75 feet to the left of where the actors were doing their thing.

I must have looked on for about 30 minutes, saw about all I wanted to see and then went home. It will be interesting to find out more about this film as details become available.

I agree

In blogging, there are rare occasions when the unthinkable happens. One of them is when scribe and I agree on something, which doesn't happen too often.

But the Scribester is totally right in that y'all need to get your wonderful blogging selves over to our wonderful movie blog more. Create a link for your sidebar or something, but visit! and comment! (Comments are always niiiiiice....)

Believe it or not, we do put considerable time and effort into that blog, though we may not always post as frequently as we (or you) may like.

-----

In case you missed anything: Episode 12 and Episode 13. I'll post the link to tonight's episode tomorrow.

WOW, what a weird Big Brother tonight! I have to say I was totally disgusted that the house chose to bring back newly evicted James, instead of going with America's vote for Alex. I really wanted to see his red haired mohawk butt out. It will be interesting to see who wins the HOH competition this week, since the show ended with an unresolved contest, and I do not subscribe to the live feeds. Well I guess I'll find out by going to one of the BB spoiler web sites to see who is going to win.

-------

Sorry I haven't had much time for blogging this week so far. I've been busier than normal this week. I hate it when life prevents me from my writing/blogging.

Fear not though, nothing tragic has happened to me. I'm not sick, either.

-----

Be a good little doobie and go now over to read Scribe & Green on the BIG Screen! I'll still be here when you get back. GO. NOW!! (Please?)

Oscar turns 80!

Didn't we just do this, like a year ago?

This year's Academy Awards show is being hosted by Jon Stewart for the 2^nd time (1^st time was in 2006).

Just like last year, I'm going to give it my best shot and see how many of the 24 major awards I can guess correctly and see if I can beat last year's percentage [11-24; 46%]. Looking at the list of nominees, I can already tell I'll be shooting from the hip on most of my predictions. Presenters and actual winners noted in red and added afterwards.

BEST PICTURE: Presenter- Denzel Washington
“Atonement”
“Juno”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country for Old Men” WINNER
“There Will Be Blood”

BEST DIRECTOR: Presenter- Martin Scorsese
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
“Juno”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country for Old Men” WINNER
“There Will Be Blood”

BEST ACTOR: Presenter- Helen Mirren
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood” WINNER
Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”
Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”

BEST ACTRESS: Presenter- Forest Whitaker
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie in “Away from Her”
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose” WINNER
Laura Linney in “The Savages”
Ellen Page in “Juno”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Presenter- Jennifer Hudson
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” WINNER
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”
Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”
Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Presenter- Alan Arkin
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”
Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”
Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton” WINNER

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Presenters- Josh Brolin & James McAvoy
“Atonement”
“Away from Her”
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
“No Country for Old Men” WINNER
“There Will Be Blood”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Presenter- Harrison Ford
“Juno”WINNER
“Lars and the Real Girl”
“Michael Clayton”
“Ratatouille”
“The Savages”

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Presenter- Amy Adams
“Atonement”WINNER
“The Kite Runner”
“Michael Clayton”
“Ratatouille”
“3:10 to Yuma”

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: Presenter- John Travolta
“Falling Slowly” from “Once” WINNER
“Happy Working Song” from “Enchanted”
“Raise It Up” from “August Rush”
“So Close” from “Enchanted”
“That’s How You Know” from “Enchanted”

BEST EDITING: Presenter- Renee Zellweger
“The Bourne Ultimatum” WINNER
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
“Into the Wild”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”

BEST ART DIRECTION: Presenter- Cate Blanchett
“American Gangster”
“Atonement”
“The Golden Compass”
“Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”WINNER
“There Will Be Blood”

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Presenter- Cameron Diaz
“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
“Atonement”
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood” WINNER

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Presenter-
“Across the Universe”
“Atonement”
“Elizabeth: The Golden Age”WINNER
“La Vie en Rose”
“Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”

BEST MAKEUP: Presenter- Kathryn Heigl
“La Vie en Rose” WINNER
“Norbit”
“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Presenter-
“Persepolis”
“Ratatouille” WINNER
“Surf's Up”

BEST ANIMATED SHORT: Presenter- Jerry Seinfeld
“I Met the Walrus”
“Madame Tutli-Putli”
“Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)”
“My Love (Moya Lyubov)”
“Peter and the Wolf” WINNER

BEST DOCUMENTARY: Presenter- Tom Hanks
“No End in Sight”
“Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience”
“Sicko”
“Taxi to the Dark Side”WINNER
“War/Dance”

BEST DOCUMENTARY- SHORT SUBJECT: Presenter- Tom Hanks
“Freeheld” WINNER
“La Corona (The Crown)”
“Salim Baba”
“Sari’s Mother”

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Presenter- Penelope Cruz
“Beaufort” - Israel
“The Counterfeiters” - Austria WINNER
“Katyń” - Poland
“Mongol” - Kazakhstan
“12” - Russia

BEST SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION: Presenter- Owen Wilson
“At Night”
“Il Supplente (The Substitute)”
“Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)” WINNER
“Tanghi Argentini”
“The Tonto Woman”

BEST SOUND EDITING: Presenter-
“The Bourne Ultimatum” WINNER
“No Country for Old Men”
“Ratatouille”
“There Will Be Blood”
“Transformers”

BEST SOUND MIXING: Presenter-
“The Bourne Ultimatum” WINNER
“No Country for Old Men”
“Ratatouille”
“3:10 to Yuma”
“Transformers”

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Presenter- Duane "The Rock" Johnson
“The Golden Compass” WINNER
“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”
“Transformers”

IN MEMORIAM: Presenter- Hilary Swank

IRVING G. THALBERG MEMORIAL AWARD: winner-
Presenter-

JEAN HERSHOLT HUMANITARIAN AWARD: winner-
Presenter-

THE HONORARY AWARD: WINNER - Robert Boyle
Presenter- Nicole Kidman

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL AWARDS: (presented by Jessica Alba on 2/9)

WRAP-UP: I did much worse this year than I did last year making my predictions. I only got 6 out of 24 correct, which makes for an anemic 25%. I really need to see more movies in the theater to make more educated guesses. Or I should read more buzz from H-wood about who is favored and who is not. Good thing I wasn't involved in any Oscar pools - I'd have lost bigtime. I really wasn't impressed with Jon Stewart as host. His attempts to be funny were lame and most of his jokes were flat. I missed the first hour of the show (BB9, ahem, was on another network.) so if anyone has the names of presenters I missed, I'd appreciate some fill in knowledge if you have it, so I can add the names appropriately. I know who the presenters were (a list of names was provided) just not which awards they would present.

Yours truly as a "Simpsons" character

My Simpsons character at Moe's Tavern.



I couldn't decide which facial hair I liked best, so I made me with both.
You can create your own Simpsons avatar here.

Another new blogging experience

Sir scribe-o-rama asked me the other day if I'd want to contribute to a blog solely where we give our opinions about movies and stuff. I told him that I love to tell people what I think - even if they don't want to hear it or just won't listen. That's why we bother blogging - because we want to be heard!

So we've got a new blog that is up and will be rolling shortly. I invite you to check it out:

Scribe and Green on the BIG screen