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I’ve gone through the major Academy Award categories and made my predictions based on the nominations. I’ll admit, 2007 was not my favorite year for movies, and while I usually can easily appreciate higher art films that tend to be the obvious nominations, I must admit that I was secretly hoping for “Transformers” to sweep in a number of categories (Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role/ Optimus Prime, Best Actress in a Supporting Role/ Megan Fox, etc…), but it only managed to get nominations in the minor and technical categories. Either way, here they are:

Best Picture

“Atonement”
“Juno”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”

Based on the Golden Globe Awards, “No Country for Old Men” seems to be a very obvious favorite, and it was definitely a great movie, but I definitely preferred “There Will Be Blood” overall. Paul Thomas Anderson really did an amazing job with this film, and while it doesn’t top “Magnolia,” I believe it holds the top position in this category.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

George Clooney- “Michael Clayton”

Daniel Day-Lewis- “There Will Be Blood”

Johnny Depp- “Sweeney Todd”

Tommy Lee Jones- “In the Valley of Elah”

Viggo Mortensen- “Eastern Promises”

No one can argue against Daniel Day-Lewis’s acting ability. We don’t see this guy on screen nearly often enough and he does an especially amazing job in this role. I think he’s got this category locked up. Then again, last year I was rooting for DiCaprio over Whitaker, but I feel pretty confident in this pick.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Cate Blanchett- “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”

Julie Christie- “Away From Her”

Marion Cotillard- “La Vie En Rose”

Laura Linney- “The Savages”

Ellen Page- “Juno” 

Not too familiar with the roles in this category, except for “Juno,” but regardless  I would really like to see her take this category. I thought “Juno” was slightly overrate, but Ellen Page’s performance in it was not, I dug her in this. From hearsay, her biggest competition sounds like it would be Julie Christie, which I can’t argue for or against, so I’ll just stick with my hopes for Page.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Casey Affleck- “The Assassination of Jesse James”

Javier Bardem- “No Country for Old Men”

Philip Seymour Hoffman- “Charlie Wilson’s War”

Hal Holbrook- “Into the Wild”

Tom Wilkinson- “Michael Clayton”

Here’s another personal preference. If there was one thing that was exceptional about “Charlie Wilson’s War” it was Hoffman as a smartass spy. Clearly a very versatile actor who I’d like to see walk away with this award, although the favorite seems to be Javier Bardem, who did a great job as a rogue hitman in “No Country,” so I can’t complain if I see him walk away with this one, but I’m pulling for Hoffman.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Cate Blanchett- “I’m Not There”

Ruby Dee- “American Gangster”

Saoirse Ronan- “Atonement”

Amy Ryan- “Gone Baby Gone”

Tilda Swinton- “Michael Clayton”

I’m basing this mostly on hearsay, but I think Cate Blanchett will score this one for playing a personality of Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There.” She, specifically, received major critical acclaim for this role, and from what I’ve heard, her only threat could be Amy Ryan, whose name has also been kicked around as a likely candidate among the nominees.

Best Directing

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”

“Juno”

“Michael Clayton”

“No Country for Old Men”

“There Will Be Blood”

No one does murder and dirty money better than the Coen Brothers. While I’m a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, my gut tells me that they’ll win out over “There Will Be Blood,” and they’re probably bound to walk away with Best Picture, contrary to my hopes.

Looks like the top contenders are “Michael Clayton,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “There Will Be Blood” this year, and there’s no doubt it’s a very tight competition between the three. Again, it’s a strange year for Oscar-worthy movies. The summer had such a phenomenal line up of popcorn movies like “Transformers,” “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “Ocean’s Thirteen,” “Knocked Up,” and “Superbad” that I almost swore off movies of any substance whatsoever, so it was difficult for me to get into the Oscar experience, but for the most part, a lot of these films are definitely worthy.

Aaron. The last word of “Lost” this week was “Aaron.”

Overall, this was a pretty good episode, and it appears that they revealed that Aaron, Claire’s son, might be the fifth member of the Oceanic 6, assuming they’re counting him as a passenger on Oceanic 815. I suppose it depends on where you stand on abortion as to whether or not Aaron really qualified as a person during the crash, because technically he was a fetus at the time, but I get the vibe that they may be counting him. However, because Kate is claiming that Aaron is hers, looks like we can assume that Claire is probably not one of the Oceanic 6.

Another interesting part of this episode was Kate’s trial. Jack took the stand on Kate’s behalf and we found out exactly what the lie was that the Oceanic 6 was using to explain their survival, that being that there was initially only 8 survivors of the crash. So that number is a little off.

While Kate’s flash forward was pretty crucial as far as information goes this season, there was definitely some action on the island. Looks like Sawyer and Hurley are housemates in the Others’ abandoned village while Kate and Claire have taken up residence together and Locke has his own little bachelor pad (I smell a spin-off sitcom). Basically, Kate broke Miles out because he wanted to talk to Ben, but we found out that Miles has some sort of personal motive as he told Ben that he would claim that Ben was dead if Ben paid him $3.2 million. Unfortunately, Locke caught Kate and Miles and told Kate that she’s no longer welcome with Locke’s crew. Looks like Kate is headed back to the beach where Jack resides…and the indecisive love triangle lives on!

Next week: Desmond-centric episode from what I gather. Obviously he was not on the flight so he cannot be part of the Oceanic 6, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t make it home.  Should be a good one. Maybe some insight on the Widmore Foundation. Anything can happen.

Alliances were finalized for the Favorites tribe this week, as Cirie, the swing vote, aligned herself with Parvati, Amanda, Ozzy, and James, leaving Jonathan, Yau-Man, Eliza, and Amy a little desperate. Ozzy made an interesting point about bringing Cirie into the alliance, stating that she started out as a swing vote but now the alliance was giving her all the power to decide who they voted for…not a smart move.

Cirie was adamant about knocking out Yau, probably one of the most likable  castaways ever, claiming that he was too smart, and that made him a threat. This is one of my big issues with “Survivor.” For some reason, castaways feel threatened by members of their own tribe early in the game, tribe members who are useful to have around until the merge because they’ll help win immunity challenges. Yau-Man is one of those guys. He’s smart, and he doesn’t look it, but he can be a pretty solid physical threat. Ozzy understands this. Cirie does not.

So yes, the Favorites tribe, the veteran castaways who know and understand this game so well, voted out Yau in their second tribal council, long before the merge. Furthermore, lazy-ass Cirie, who I would never in a million years consider a “Survivor” Favorite, went from being an outsider swing vote, to holding a power position in an alliance. So basically, I guess being a veteran on this show means nothing, because it looks like half of this group has learned nothing from the last time they all got screwed over and blindsided at tribal council, because they just prematurely knocked out someone who would’ve been pretty clutch to hang on to. It should’ve been Eliza. Or if they were really smart, they all should’ve voted off Cirie. That’s what I would’ve done. But hey, I guess that’s meaningless, I only know this game inside and out.

So the “Prison Break” finale aired Monday night, and I gotta say, I’m unimpressed. No twists, no turns, no further explanation of The Company. Nothing about it was really final, and nothing about it really left things off with a major cliffhanger. Michael is planning on going after The Company to get revenge for Sara, Whistler is definitely part of The Company, and Mahone made some sort of deal with Whistler getting him back in with The Company. Other than that, Bellick and T-Bag are still in Sona, now joined by Sucre.

T-Bag’s role in the show is pretty much ridiculous at this point. He tricked Lechero into putting a call out to get him money, then killed Lechero and took the money for himself. Basically, he used the money to declare all inmates equal in Sona, stirring up some sort of revolution. It was probably the most ridiculous scene in “Prison Break” ever, and I guess when the writer’s go on strike, these sort of abysmal plot segments may be expected. Hopefully, at the start of season 4 this is one of multiple disappointing storylines to be redeemed.

That said, while the finale was very disappointing, and not nearly as crazy as its preceding season finales, there’s always season 4 to look forward to. At this juncture, I’d say it would be a smart move for Michael to hook up with the anti-Company group that his father was heading up during season 2, maybe that would be a good direction for the show if it wants to hang onto its viewers. Basically, it’s time that they really get to the bottom of what The Company is all about, otherwise this show could wind up off the air, and not on its own terms.

“Lost” continued its turbulent 4th season this week, with a Sayid-back, or rather, a Sayid-forward, in which we learned that Sayid is the 4th member of the Oceanic 6. You either watched it or you didn’t though, so I’ll get straight to the point…Sayid kills people. More significantly, Sayid kills people for Ben.

I really have to question the motive behind this idea, and I can’t help but think that while this will eventually be explained, it’s purely for shock factor. This raises a lot of questions about Ben and what exactly he’s all about, more importantly, what could have possibly happened that caused Sayid to start killing people on Ben’s behalf? I guess we can assume that whatever happened, there has gotta be some sort of rift between Sayid and the other 5 who left the island, unless a few of them are also working for Ben…

What else went down? It seems Kate flipped over to Locke’s crew because she just can’t resist Sawyer’s rugged charm…no wonder Jack, a well-established spinal surgeon, grows an ugly beard and becomes a suicidal alcoholic down the line. Beyond that, it seems Sayid and Desmond are going to the freighter to speak with the leader, which is pretty much where we’re being left off for this episode.

Obviously questions are still dangling. Who are the last 2 of the Oceanic 6? Sawyer is probably a good bet, who else though? Furthermore, Ben has Sayid out killing people for some undisclosed purpose…who was the chick Sayid killed? Does she work for the unnamed black guy (Naomi’s boss) who is hunting Ben down? When will Michael be brought back into the story?

It’s only the second episode of “Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites,” already backstabbing and betrayal has ensued. Very little excitement was stirred up on the Favorites tribe, all of that was reserved for the Fans.

There’s a very clear divide on the Fans tribe, a 7-3 split of Mary, Alexis, Erik, Jason, Joel, Mikey B., and Natalie, against Kathy, Chet, and Tracy. This early in the game, it would seem logical that Kathy, Chet, and Tracy get picked off immediately, because beyond being outcasted, they’re pretty lousy contestants all around. Jungle Joel though, a beast of a man who looks entirely at home on a deserted island, decided things needed to get stirred up after they lost the immunity challenge.

Mikey B., resident strategist, and Mary, resident hot chick, had some clear flirtation going on, and Joel viewed this as an immediate threat to everyone else. Somehow, even though Mikey B. established himself as a clear strategic leader of the tribe, Joel managed to shake things up and convince the tribe to collectively vote Mary out, essentially cockblocking Mikey B.

Well, Mary got voted out. Joel was successful. Weird thing though, when they showed at the end who voted for who, Joel voted for Tracy. What the fuck?

Top 12 Girls

Asiah Epperson
Alaina Whitaker
Alex Lushington
Amanda Overmyer
Amy Davis
Brooke White
Carly Hennessy Smithson
Joanne Borgella
Kady Malloy
Kristy Lee Cook
Ramielle Malubay
Syesha Mercado

Top 12 Guys

Chikeze Eze
Colton Berry
Danny Noriega
David Archuleta
David Cook
David Hernandez
Garrett Haley
Jason Castro
Jason Yeager
Luke Menard
Michael Lee Johns
Robbie Carrico

Personally, I’ve really liked a lot of what’s been done with Season 3 of “Prison Break.” Admittedly, killing off Sara was handled in a pretty shitty way, but nonetheless, I feel the season overall has been pretty interesting and threw in a few new characters and a couple of curve balls that have really added to the story. Last night’s episode was big, seeing as how they, well, finally broke out…again.

Seeing Michael’s plan in action, I wasn’t terribly impressed. I felt like there were a lot of details that made it susceptible to failure, but one major twist made up for that minor shortcoming. At the end of last week Lechero and T-Bag, being the resident assholes who actually belong in prison, turned on Michael at the last minute and insisted they be the first out of the tunnel to ensure that no matter what, they’ll escape, being that there will only be 30 seconds of darkness before the back-up generator kicks in and activates the lights. Michael is a genius though. Them leaving the tunnel first was an integral part of the escape plan. A diversion was part of the escape plan. What the escape crew didn’t know, was that a few of them were Michael’s diversion.

And so, while Lechero, T-Bag, and Bellick are getting caught in the middle of the yard and the guards do a head count in the yard, Michael, Whistler, Mahone (who no doubt would’ve been among the intended guys to get caught had he not been smart enough to stay behind Scofield), and McGrady (little basketball-wielding Spanish kid) sneak out of the yard. They run through the jungle (Whistler “tore his ankle up” and had to hobble part of the way), rendezvousing with Link at the beach. They dig for a cooler hidden in a previous episode, where there are 4 small oxygen tanks…apparently another integral part of this plan is successfully swimming underwater for roughly 5 miles. Brilliant.

Granted, in this scene down on the beach it’s important to recognize Lincoln Burrows for the badass moment of the night. After packing phones and accessories in a plastic bag to avoid damages, Mahone asks Link to put a picture of his son in the bag. Wait, wait, now get this. Link hears this, turns to Mahone and says, “Screw you, Mahone.” Apparently, Link has not completely forgiven Mahone for killing his father. I guess we all carry baggage.

Oh shit moment of the night is dedicated to Sucre, who was detained at the prison and not able to carry out another integral part of the break out. After the 5 mile swim, a boat is supposed to pick them up at a buoy. Well, as we know, Sucre isn’t really sharp enough to be in one place at once, let alone two. For all his Chewbacca-like loyalty, he rarely comes through when needed, and so it was probably a bad idea for this whole plan to in essence, lay on the incapable shoulders of Sucre.

All right though, enough of this. To wrap up, thank god McGrady was pulled in at the last minute, because somehow his old man found them and got them back to shore to finish the escape. Michael, Link, Whistler, and Mahone take off, play a little chicken on some Panamanian back roads with The Company, finally winding up at some empty warehouse. Link points a gun at Mahone, but Whistler takes off, Link and Michael have to go chase him, Mahone escapes, and there we have it.

Unresolved issues: Whistler lost the bird book with the coordinates The Company needs from him, but T-Bag found it in the yard. Sucre is still being detained at the prison, and now they know that he’s got some history with Scofield. Where’s Mahone off to and how will he fit into the finale? The psychotic but smoking Susan is still holding LJ, but now the boys don’t have Whistler to make that trade possible. And of course, the question plaguing us for 3 seasons that probably still won’t be answered…who the hell is The Company? More importantly, where will next week’s finale leave us hanging?

The Thursday night primetime hours have recently become a powerhouse. If you page through your TV Guide you’ll notice that as per usual, “Survivor” airs at 8 PM on CBS. If you look a little further, you’ll notice that “Lost” airs on ABC at 9 PM. While other weeknights offer a variety of sitcoms, cop dramas, teen dramas, family dramas, etc…Thursday night offers two hours of island adventure. Basically, the television gods have created a night of entertainment entirely built for and catered towards me. No complaints.

Even better, “Survivor” has a pretty solid twist this season. Fan-favorites versus Fans, so there are a lot of returning favorites (granted, there are a lot of returning castaways who aren’t all that memorable) like Johnny Fairplay, famous for lying about the death of his grandmother and being an overall scumbag notorious for screwing over others. The fans appear to be a fairly diverse group of unsuccessful people, I believe one of the most accomplished among them is listed as an “Ice Cream Scooper.” Despite who they are in the real world, they fared pretty well in the first challenge, defeating the veteran castaways.

Being that the veteran castaways lost the immunity challenge, they had to send one of their numbers home. The tribe had clearly split into roughly two alliances, with it unclear of who Johnny Fairplay was truly allied with. As per usual, he was scheming amidst everyone, and we were all expecting him to really stir up some serious shit and devise a master plan.

He went home. He cried about his pregnant girlfriend and after playing both alliances as if he was going to pull off some amazing scheme, he basically asked everyone to vote him out. I kept thinking it was a trick. Like, maybe he was playing the one alliance just to throw them off, and the other alliance knew that he wasn’t sincere. He was voted out though. They bring back one of the dirtiest and most underhanded castaways in the history of “Survivor,” and he asks to go home. Should be a pretty turbulent season.

The second episode of “Lost” primarily developed the story behind the so called rescue team. Charlie is still dead, and we were introduced to four characters: a physicist who seems a bit off, some sort of paranormal detective, an archaeologist, and an alcoholic pilot. The greater purpose of their group seems like it may have something to do with studying the Dharma Initiative. All this episode really did was introduce us to these people without giving too much away, because if the writers gave us direct and complete explanations, “Lost” just wouldn’t be “Lost.” And of course, “Lost” wouldn’t be “Lost” if we weren’t left with a major cliffhanger. The crew’s primary objective on the island is to find Ben Linus, because Ben Linus has someone of the freighter feeding him information about the crew. More on this next week…

I didn’t enter the fast-paced, corporate world of blogging to shoot off half-baked theories about “Lost,” but in light of the Season 4 premiere, this will have to suffice as being my first post.

We last left our consistently plagued survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 on the cusp of rescue. Charlie took a tragic hit for the team allowing Jack to get a signal out to a rescue freighter…the rescue freighter that any true “Lost” fan knows isn’t really a rescue freighter. Nope. What else happened in Season 3’s finale? Well, besides Charlie dying (RIP, easily one of the most interesting and compelling characters) and Jack getting the rescue call out, Locke isn’t dead and killed Naomi, the chick who parachuted on the island and essentially is the cause of getting them “saved,” Jack blindsided everyone by admitting to Kate that he loved her, and of course, Sawyer, Juliette, and Hurley saved our boys Sayid, Jin, and Bernard down by the beach. Oh, and now rather than just flashbacks, we’ll be seeing flash forwards as well, which showed us that Jack and Kate both get off the island. Enter Season 4.

Season 4 was not the most explosive season premiere by a long shot, but that’s entirely forgivable because honestly, it was just pretty damn good. Did we learn new things? Not really. At least, nothing we really didn’t see from the commercials. Did we see anyone from the freighter in this episode? No, not until the end and he had one line. Did I have a problem with this? I’ve been watching “Lost” for 3 seasons, it’s called dedication, and honestly, I figured we wouldn’t see anyone from that freighter until episode 4. Lucky me.

All of this brings me to my overall reaction to what I’ve seen this episode. In a word, I saw promise. I saw a promising season on the horizon. We saw a Hurley flash forward that confirmed a few things, such as there are only 6 of them who left the island and they are clearly covering something up. They have some secret. My housemate and I concocted the idea that the 6 left the island without telling anyone else, they probably struck some sort of deal with the crew of the rescue freighter that is clearly not there to rescue them. Furthermore, I’m betting that they may be involved in the old Dharma, being that Ben helped the Others kill the original Dharma and then has been blocking all outgoing and incoming frequencies from the island. In any case, basically, these 6 probably screwed over the other survivors, and Jack, Hurley, and Kate are part of this group of 6, another one of them is probably dead (the funeral that Jack went to). This is crucial. Not everyone leaves the island. There’s a reason why people stayed or were left behind…good enough for me. I’m captivated.

This season premiere didn’t do much for me. It gave me set up, which I suppose works. It wasn’t explosive by any means, but it certainly gave the season an interesting direction. We left off with Jack, Kate, Rose, Bernard, and a wide variety of extras heading down towards the beach to get rescued. Locke lead the majority of the ensemble cast and one of the extras back towards the barracks, all of which took Charlie’s last message as an ominous warning (”Not Penny’s Boat”). This divide is crucial, but it clearly won’t last. Shit will hit the fan. Michael will be thrown back into the mix. Charlie’s dead. Sawyer’s not out of nicknames. Granted, we only have 8 episodes due to the writer’s strike, so hey, a lot of this building excitement will be put on hiatus. Sucks. Regardless, tune in next week. Maybe it’ll be more explosive. Maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll just further this interesting new direction for the series much like the premiere did. Maybe the new season of “Lost” has given Thursday night an entirely new meaning. Embrace it.