My predictions for Emmy Award Nominees

I know this is a day late but oh well. I'm trying really hard to fit in my blog to my schedule. I promise it will start off soon! Anyways instead of having multiple posts explaining everything, this year I will just give a list of my predictions for the ten major categories.

Best Comedy Series

30 Rock

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Entourage

Flight of the Conchords

The Office

Two and a Half Men

Best Drama Series

Dexter

House

Lost

Mad Men

The Shield

True Blood

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Bryan Cranston for Breaking Bad

Gabrielle Byrne for In Treatment

Hugh Laurie for House M.D.

James Spader for Boston Legal

Jon Hamm for Mad Men

Michael Chiklis for The Shield

Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Anna Paquin for True Blood

Glenn Close for Damages

January Jones for Mad Men

Kyra Sedgwick for The Closer

Mary McDonnell for Battlestar Galactica

Sally Field for Brothers and Sisters

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Alec Baldwin for 30 Rock

Charlie Sheen for Two and a Half Men

David Duchovny for Californication

Steve Carell for The Office

Tony Shaloub for Monk

Zachary Levi for Chuck

Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

America Ferrera for Ugly Betty

Amy Poehler for Parks and Recreation

Eva Longoria for Desperate Housewives

Mary Louise-Parker for Weeds

Tina Fey for 30 Rock

Toni Collette for United States of Tara

Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Josh Holloway for Lost

John Mahoney for In Treatment

John Slattery for Mad Men

Michael Emerson for Lost

Nelsan Ellis for True Blood

Walter Goggins for The Shield

Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Candice Bergen for Boston Legal

CCH Pounder for The Shield

Dianne Weist for In Treatment

Elizabeth Mitchell for Lost

Marcia Gay Harden for Damages

Sandra Oh for Grey's Anatomy

Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Jeremy Piven for Entourage

Jon Cryer for Two and a Half Men

Jon Krasinski for The Office

Michael Urie for Ugly Betty

Neil Patrick Harris for How I Met Your Mother

Tracy Morgan for 30 Rock

Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Becki Newton for Ugly Betty

Holland Taylor for Two and a Half Men

Jane Krakowski for 30 Rock

Jenna Fischer for The Office

Nicollette Sheridan for Desperate Housewives

Vanessa Williams for Ugly Betty

The Academy to honor more

It's been a hell of a long time since my last post, so long I have no idea where to begin. I'll probably start with the big news from two of the biggest award ceremonies. The Emmy's announced all of their 10 major awards will now have six nominees instead of five. The Academy also announced that the number of nominees for Best Picture will grow from five to ten.

The news for the Emmys is great. It will bring in some fresh faces to the some of the major races that seem to be the same old thing from year to year. It could spell out great things for genre shows such as True Blood, Battlestar Gallactica, and Supernatural. The only downfall would be if we had another year with winners like James Spader, Tony Shalhoub, and Jeremy Piven. Spader has been nominated four times in the past five years, winning three of them. Shalhoub has been nominated every year for the past six years, winning three of them. Let's hope this new change can bring some new homes for the statues.

The Oscars bring up more mixed feelings. They are trying to mix it up and get everyone to care again. This gives more mainstream movies a chance to be recognized. We could very well see movies like Up, Star Trek, Avatar, and Where the Wild Things Are a better chance to be nominated. It could also be a good thing for movies released earlier in the year like The Hurt Locker and Sin Nombre a chance too. It could shake up the winner as well. With so many more options to vote for, it could take away votes from a movie that would have won in a five-film race. We could see an upset this year that we havn't seen in a while, the closest being Crash over Brokeback Mountain. The problem is the list of nominees could feel a bit to much like a ten best film list of the year, like the National Board of Review or the Critics Choice. We will also know which films would have been nominated for the five-film race because The Best Director race will still only include 5 nominees. We're going to have to give this a chance, it could be disasterous or just what The Academy needs.

Best Supporting Actress Possibilities?

Like the supporting actor race this year, there isn't that much competition. I could really see any of the following possibilites being nominated and winning:

1. Viola Davis, Doubt* - Although she is only in one or two scenes she gives a pretty memorable performance. She plays the mother of the token african-american child at a catholic school during the sixties, a boy that might have been sexually abused. It is a powerful performance, you understand the character. Many have crowned her as a front-runner for the award.

2. Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona* - No one could agree on Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Some loved it and some hated it. However, they all agreed that Cruz's performance was phenomonal. Everone only had praise for her. You can see that from the trailers. This is definatley some of her best work right up there next to Volver.

3. Amy Adams, Doubt* -This wouldn't be her first nomination. She was nominated back in 2006 for Junebug. This year she gave one of the four powerhouse performances in Doubt. We all know how good she is at portraying the innocent, naive girl. We saw it in Enchanted, and now we see it in Doubt, but somehow she keeps it original. The only problem she faces is that she is in her scenes with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, which gives a good chance she could be forgotten.

4. Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button* - This became the front-runner for Best Picture, with it's groundbreaking technology, great performances, and intriguing story. It most likely earn up to 14 nominations. Henson gave the most memorable supporting performance in TCCBB. It's pretty hard to be remmembered when you are in the majority of your scenes with Brad Pitt acting with all of the technology to help him. She needed to create a character that would be memorable just from her talent and she did, Queenie. Taraji P. Henson has already been snubbed by The Golden Globes, however she did grab a SAG nomination.

5. Kate Winslet, The Reader* - I think we can all agree; KATE WINSLET DESERVES AN OSCAR! Then why is she without one? She has already been nominated 5 times: Sense & Sensibility, Titanic, Iris, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Little Children. This year she could grab two more nominations, but will she win one or maybe both? I predict she will walk away with a statuette this year.

6. Marissa Tomei, The Wrestler - She has won before, for My Cousin Vinny. She was also nominated for In The Bedroom. When critics do mention Tomei they talk about her performance being award worthy, but a lot of the critics don't mention Tomei. She could still be nominated though since there isn't a lot of competition. She has already been nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in The Wrestler so you never know.

* Indicates my predictions for Best Supporting Actress.

Best Supporting Actor Possibilities?

There isn't a lot of competition this year for Best Supporting Actor Oscar, the winner is almost certain. Although I wouldn't say it's set in stone. The academy is known to send one or two curve balls once in a while. Of course I am going to have to start out the list with:

1. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight* - Like I said, it's almost certain Heath Ledger will be winning the award. He shined a new light on the familiar character known as The Joker. Many are calling it the best performance of the year.

2. Josh Brolin, Milk* - There is a pretty good chance he will be nominated this year after being snubbed last year for No Country For Old Men. His only other chance at a nomination would be for portraying George Bush in W. However, since this year's Best Actor race is so crowded he is much more likely to be nominated for his performance as Dan White.

3. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt* - PSH is one of the best American actors we have ever seen. He is phenomenal in Doubt (as always). He has already won one Oscar for Capote, and another nomination for Charlie Wilson's War.

4. Robert Downey Jr, Tropic Thunder* - This is truely the year of Robert Downey Jr. Two huge roles, the other being Tony Stark in Iron Man. He is getting the same attention Johnny Depp got right after the first Pirates film came out. In any other year I doubt The Academy would even consider nominating this kind of comedic role (especially one that involves black face!), but with the supporting actor race being so small this year he will most likely be nominated.

5. James Franco, Milk* - A role you don't see very often, the male housewife. When you do see it, it is usually very stereotypical and clichéd. However Franco plays it with this breath of fresh air. It proves he is one of the better actors of his generation.

6. Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder - The same thing I said for RDJ I say for Cruise, any other year he would not be nominated for this performance. This year might be different. Cruise has gone through a lot of ridicule the past couple of years. For his role in Tropic Thunder he got a different kind of spot light. People were praising his work again, not talking about scientology or the latest couches that he jumped on.

7. Ralph Fiennes, The Duchess - I don't know much about Fiennes work in The Duchess, although he was nominated for a Golden Globe. He is bound to get an Oscar soon though, he's been nominated twice for The English Patient & Schindler's List, winning neither. I've heard though his performance was very complex and that he stole the show. So let's see how The Academy takes it.

8. Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road - He stole every scene he was in in Revolutionary Road, and that's a hard thing to do when you share a scene with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. There hasn't been much buzz about his performance until recently (unlike Ledger, Downey Jr, and Cruise who have had buzz around the performance for months) so we will see if the voters will save room for him on their ballots.

* indicates my predictions this year for Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Possible nominees?

This will be my first post about The 81st Annual Academy Awards. WOO HOO!!! To start off our journey to the oscars I've come up with a couple of lists of possible nominees in the major categories. I can't wait to compare the actual nominees with my list of possibilities. Let's get started.

The Exorcist

So my first trip to the horror fest at the Broadway Theatre was pretty interesting. I was completely stoked to be going to see The Exorcist for the first time. We got there and there was a good sized audience, which made me even more excited. I love it when people go out to see older movies in theatre.
The first twenty minutes was a little dry. Following that old man through the desert with very little dialogue didn't really seem relevent, plus it was kinda boring. Even though it was a little boring I was still intrigued. Then the excitement level, rose pretty high in the final scene of the desert part of the movie. The statue, the exhusted and a little frightened old man, and not to mention the crazy barking dogs.
Then the story switches to the mother-daughter family of the MacNeils, Chris & Regan. Watching Regan slowly become taken over by this demon was so fascinating. And right when it got to be extrodinary the film burned up. Yep, it burned up. I WAS PISSED. I was forced to go home without knowing what happens next. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE? Well, let me tell you it is not pleasant, not at all. For the rest of the week I couldn't concentrate at all. I needed to finish that movie. I was bound and determined. By the end of the week I had an Exoricst party. I forced everyone to sit down and finish what we had started.
I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it so I won't go into how it ends, although its not that hard to guess what does. I just want to say that this was an extremely satisfying horror film, well it was more than just an extremely satisfying horror film, it was an extremely satisfying film in all. In every aspect: the acting, the writing, the directing, the special-effects. The Exorcist is one of those movies that makes you think long after you finish watching it. It stays in your mind and you go over it again and again. And let me tell you, every time you go over it it becomes a better movie. You appreciate it a little bit more. We need more movies like The Exorcist.

Scary Movies at the Cinema

So I found this theatre downtown on Broadway that often plays older movies. The entire summer, on mondays, they had the independent film revival. Now that that is finished they started to play scary movies. The line-up went as followed:

Nightmare On Elm Street

The Exorcist

The Thing

Army of Darkness

Psycho

I was not able to make it to Nightmare on Elm Street and Army of Darkness, but I made it to everything else! It's always a treat to see classic film on the medium it was intended for, the big screen.