Oscar, Oscar!

Anticipating the 78th Annual Academy Awards

Sorry, Billy. Not this year. As much as I love you as host, we’re getting Jon Stewart this year. Of course, I love the Daily Show, and, so, I expect Stewart to be a hell of a host. He’ll definitely top Chris Rock and perennial bottom of the barrel host Whoopie Goldburg, but I’ll miss the song, Billy.

What does this have anything to do with anything? Well, it’s Oscar time folks! That’s right, it’s that time of the year when I get all giggly and rant to anyone within ranting distance about my picks for the best pics of the year. The only difference between this year and previous years, though, is that, this year, I have a blog. With nominations announced tomorrow night, I’m kicking off a special Oscar Week for the Production Dude. So, until next Monday, I’m putting the Big List off. We’ll resume with #61 next week, don’t worry. I’m particularly excited about #60 on, too. That’s the real meat of the list folks.

Enough about that, though. What can you expect out of the next week? Well, Wednesday will involve an in depth look at the nominees as I whine and complain about all the nominations Cinderella Man got and how Sky High didn’t get any. Thursday will be a special look at the worst films I saw this year and Friday. . . well, I don’t know yet. It kind of depends. If there’s a good lifetime achievement award, I’ll talk about that guy. Otherwise? Who the fuck knows.

Oh? But tomorrow? Tomorrow will be my own little mini-Oscars. I’ll come up with a name for them later. Maybe the Dudies. Anyway, I’ll be throwing out my own big three picks for best picture of the year, best director, best actor, and best actress. I’ll throw out picks for best supporting actor/actress, cinematography, animated film, and the like too, but probably only the one pick for each of those. I’ll probably even add a couple of categories like best genre film and best film no one else saw. As for the eligible films, I’m opening it up to all of the film I have seen that are eligible for the real Oscars. As such, those films are (in order of having seen them):

Elektra, Sin City, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Star Wars: Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith, Robots, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, The Longest Yard, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Four, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, March of the Penguins, Sky High, Brothers Grimm, The Aristocrats, Madagascar, Crash, The Bad News Bears, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Serenity, Broken Flowers, A History of Violence, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Goodnight and Good Luck, Everything Is Illuminated, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Corpse Bride, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, King Kong, Oliver Twist, Capote, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, and, if all goes as planned this afternoon, Brokeback Mountain.

Only 34 films to pick from. Yeesh. Mind you, I saw a couple of these more than once and I saw a few rereleases and a few ineligible films, so my film viewing for the year is still at a good level, thank God.