It is time for my OTHER obsession… the Oscars.

Yup, I need to take a quick pause from talking baseball to feed my other beast: I am an Oscars addict. Now I promise I won’t turn this blog into Sully: Oscars, but each year I need to make my predictions for the big show.

So here are my picks for the nominations that will be announced tomorrow morning.
Note that these AREN’T the films that I think should necessarily win.
These are the films that I think WILL be nominated.

Best Picture
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids are Alright
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

Best Director
Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan
Joel and Ethan Coen – True Grit
David Fincher - The Social Network
Tom Hooper - The King’s Speech
Christopher Nolan – Inception

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges – True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
James Franco – 127 Hours
Mark Wahlberg – The Fighter

Best Actress
Annette Bening – The Kids are Alright
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale – The Fighter
Andrew Garfield – The Social Network
Jeremy Renner – The Town
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids are Alright
Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter – The King’s Speech
Mila Kunis – Black Swan
Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit

Best Original Screenplay
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids are Alright
The King’s Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours
The Social Network
The Town
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

Best Animated Feature
Despicable Me
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Tangled
Toy Story 3


Best Documentary Feature
Client 9
Inside Job
The Tillman Story
Waiting for Superman
Who is Harry Nilsson?

Best Art Direction
Alice in Wonderland
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
True Grit

Best Cinematography
Inception
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
True Grit

Best Costume Design
Alice in Wonderland
Black Swan
Burlesque
The King’s Speech
True Grit

Best Editing
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
127 Hours
The King’s Speech

Best Sound
Black Swan
Inception
127 Hours
The Social Network
True Grit

Best Sound Effects Editing
Inception
127 Hours
TRON: Legacy

Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Inception
The Social Network
TRON: Legacy

Best Music Score
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
True Grit

Best Original Song
“I See the Light” – Tangled
“If I Rise” – 127 Hours
“Shine” – Waiting for Superman
“We Belong Together” – Toy Story 3
“You Haven’t Seen The Last of Me Yet” - Burlesque



I am predicting that the Academy will not nominate David O. Russell… perhaps the clash with Lily Tomlin on Youtube would still be on their minds. And I think that the DVD release of Winter’s Bone will make it the surprise Best Picture nomination.

And while The Town will get shutout of the big prize, Ben Affleck will get another writing nomination.

And I am also predicting some serious distribution of wealth amongst the nominations.
I see both The King’s Speech and True Grit getting double digit nominations with 10.

Black Swan, Inception and The Social Network should all get 9 nominations.

That’s 5 films with a pile of nominations.
And with 8 nominations for 127 Hours and 7 for The Fighter the possibility of another upset is strong. (Remember how The Hurt Locker upset the blockbuster Avatar last year?)

Alrighty. Get some sleep. Tomorrow is nomination day and always a big day in my insane calendar.

Let’s see how I did on my Oscar predictions…

Watching the Oscar nominations this morning, I saw that some of my predictions were spot on. Others… not so much.

Let’s check my work.

BEST PICTURE – 10 for 10. Not bad. Now I have to rent Winter’s Bone.

BEST DIRECTOR – 4 out of 5. I thought Christopher Nolan would be nominated for director after being snubbed for The Dark Knight. They went with Lily Tomlin’s best friend, David O. Russell and The Fighter.

BEST ACTOR – 4 out of 5. Javier Bardem was nominated for Biutiful (sic) instead of Mark Wahlberg. Don’t dispair Mark, you got nominated as a producer for The Fighter.
BEST ACTRESS – 5 for 5. YES! Granted, I’ve only seen Black Swan of the group, but I predicted it alright.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – 4 out of 5. John Hawkes from Winter’s Bone gets to put “Oscar Nominee” on his resume. I thought Andrew Garfield would ride a Social Network wave. I was wrong.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – 4 out of 5. I am stunned Mila Kunis wasn’t nominated for Black Swan. Jacki Weaver got it for Animal Kingdon. For the record I think it is moronic that Hailee Steinfeld is in the “supporting” category. She was the main character of the movie! But I am glad she was nominated. She deserves it.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – 4 out of 5 – No Black Swan! Interesting. Someone explain to me how Mike Leigh, a guy who prides himself on NOT writing a screenplay, just got his FIFTH "Best Screenplay" nomination. I should go to every coffee shop in Los Angeles where writers are slaving over a script and nudge them and say “Just have the actors make up the words.”

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – 4 out of 5. I am super glad Toy Story 3 got the love it deserves. No love for Ben Affleck and the screenplay for The Town? It had the hilarious line about Jack Clark ripping off the Red Sox, which made it Oscar worthy in MY book.

So of the so called “Major nominations” I got 87% correct.

My other predictions…
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – Well, I got all 3 right… except I thought there were going to be 5 nominees. So too bad Despicable Me and Tangled. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – 1 for 5. WHOOPS! (No Waiting for Superman?) ART DIRECTION – 4 out of 5 CINEMATOGRAPHY – 4 out of 5 COSTUME DESIGN – 3 out of 5 EDITING – 4 out of 5 SOUND – 3 out of 5 SOUND EDITING – 2 out of 3 (Actually 5 nominations. I thought there were 3) VISUAL EFFECTS – 3 out of 5 MUSIC SCORE – 3 out of 5 ORIGINAL SONG – 3 out of 5

So overall my nomination predictions were 75% accurate.
Not bad.

OK, I have a month to see these nominations. I’ve seen 6 of the Best Picture nominations and I have two that I haven’t seen gathering dust as DVDs. There’s no baseball game on tonight, so better get watching them!

I still think 20 wins is cool

Jon Lester goes for win #20 tonight and I really hope he gets it.
Of course I want ANY Red Sox pitcher to win and with the Sox still having a shot at 90 wins, I want them win as often as they can now.

But 20 for Jon Lester will be sweet.

I know we're not supposed to care about win totals anymore.
I had someone say they are a meaningless stat.

And while I wouldn't go as far as meaningless (Hello! You play to win the Game!) wins and losses on the record can be misleading.

As I wrote in my Bert Blyleven post, the fact that he didn't get the win in 13 additional games is keeping him out of the Hall of Fame is nothing short of insanity.

And in one of my MANY posts plugging Felix Hernandez for the Cy Young, I pointed out that if the only stat that CC has over King Felix is wins, then that is not enough to give him the Cy Young.

So I understand that wins are not the end all and be all of a pitcher's worth.

But I still think 20 wins is cool.
It's a nice shorthand for an ace caliber pitcher.

"He's a 20 game winner" still carries a little weight. If you win enough to take your team 1/5 of the way to 100 wins yourself, it must feel good for a pitcher.

I can't imagine a pitcher being THAT lucky that they would get twenty wins and have it all be good fortune.

OK, maybe Rick Helling's 20 win season in 1998 for the Rangers despite an ERA of 4.41 was a bit lucky.

But hey, I once heard that when Napoleon was considering new generals, one of the questions he would ask is "Is he lucky?"

So perhaps a healthy amount of luck is cool.

Besides, I'd rather be a Mr. Magoo winning games by pure luck than a hard luck pitcher losing games despite pitching well.


It also is aesthetically pleasing.

Seeing 20 wins on the back of a baseball card just looks cool. I don't care how big a Sabrmatrician you are... it is like the spoiler on the back of the car. It may not mean much but it looks bad ass.

It's a nice title to have.
It's kind of like "Academy Award Winning Director" sounds cool in front of a director's name.

Did the Oscar make Martin Scorsese or the Coen Brothers better directors?

Of course not... they were geniuses long before they got the Golden Guys.

But knowing they won Oscars and can be called "Academy Award Winning Directors" is neat, if overdue.



And with Lester... well it could make his Cy Young case more compelling (or take away from Sabathia's case and maybe split the "You need the big win total" crowd and give Felix a real chance.)

It would be the latest peak that he scaled since cancer (that along with winning the World Series clincher in 2007 and throwing a no hitter in 2008.)

It would give the Red Sox a nice moment to build upon after a disappointing season.

And oh yeah, help create the winning foundation of the 2011 team.

It's good to start with an ace... and what builds more confidence in an ace than knowing they won a pile of games?

Maybe being a 20 game winner.

It may not mean as much as it used to... but it is still cool.