Oscar Predictions

This coming Sunday is the 79th annual Academy Awards. It is when the best of the best in film are honored for their achievements during the previous year.

At this time last year I made predictions about who I thought would win for films released in 2005. Out of the 21 categories I predicted last year, I was correct for 10 of them. Let’s hope I can do better this year.

Also like last year, I will not be predicting the categories for Best Animated Short, Best Live Action Short Film, and Best Documentary Short Subject. These are categories that I know nothing about and can not even harbor a guess as to which films will win.

With those notes, here are the nominees with my predictions in red.

Best Picture
Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen






Best Director
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel
Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Paul Greengrass, United 93






Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland



Best Actress
Penélope Cruz, Volver
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children



Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed



Best Supporting Actress
Adriana Barraza, Babel
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel



Best Adapted Screenplay
Borat Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal





Best Original Screenplay
Babel
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Queen






Best Foreign Film
After the Wedding (Denmark)
Days of Glory/Indigènes (Algeria)
The Lives of Others (Germany)
Pan’s Labyrinth (Mexico)
Water (Canada)




Best Animated Feature Film
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House








Best Documentary
Deliver Us from Evil
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country




Best Art Direction
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pan’s Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
The Prestige




Best Cinematography
The Black Dahlia
Children of Men
The Illusionist
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Prestige




Best Film Editing
Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
The Departed
United 93




Best Costume Design
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Marie Antoinette
The Queen



Best Makeup
Apocalypto
Click
Pan’s Labyrinth






Best Original Score
Babel
The Good German
Notes on a Scandal
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Queen






Best Original Song
“I Need to Wake Up” Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge from An Inconvenient Truth
“Listen” Music by Henry Krieger and Scott Cutler, Lyric by Anne Preven from Dreamgirls
“Love You I Do” Music by Henry Krieger, Lyric by Siedah Garrett from Dreamgirls
“Our Town” Music and Lyric by Randy Newman from Cars
“Patience” Music by Henry Krieger, Lyric by Willie Reale from Dreamgirls



Best Sound Editing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest






Best Sound Mixing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Dreamgirls
Flags of our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest






Best Visual Effects
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns

Home vs. Away

Indiana University is a basketball school. It’s the home of the Hoosiers. It’s where Bobby Knight made a name for himself (both good and bad). It’s a place where a good number of undergraduates enroll only because of the basketball team’s reputation.

I’ve been in Indiana now for nearly 10 years. I was here at the tail end of Bobby Knight’s tenure, at a time when he was losing as much as he was winning. I was also here for all of the Mike Davis years, which had a lot of bad (missing the NCAA men’s tournament, missing any postseason play) and some good (runner up in the NCAA men’s tournament in 2002). This season is the first with new head coach Kelvin Sampson, and they are finding some success.

Currently the men’s team has a record of 17-8, with a record of 7-5 in Big Ten division play. All of the team’s losses this season have been games played away from Bloomington.

That got me wondering. How can a team play so well at home but lose 2/3 of their games played away? And how can you teach your players to play well away?

If anyone has any ideas about how to do this, I’m ready to listen. And I’m sure the Hoosiers would be too.

No New Posts

OK. I've caught some grief for not updating here in a while. But I've been busy!

I've been working on my dissertation data.

In addition I recently had a great job interview at the University of Alabama.

And now I'm writing a few short pieces for an upcoming edition of Indiana University Professor Emerita Susan Eastman's Media Programming textbook.

I promise to have post more regularly soon. (I know I've promised this before.) It'll be just as soon as I have some free time to do it!