Oscar nods-- zzzzzz.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the the 79th Annual Academy Awards to be aired on ABC Feb 25th. With nary a spark Oscar's nominees were very very very predictable. Babel, The Queen, The Departed, Dreamgirls. Multiple nominees in the Depressing-Movies-About-Africa category.

A couple of surprise nomination shutouts. Namely for Volver and The Wind that Shakes the Barley, BOTH ultra laureats at Cannes. Pedro Almodovar was completely excluded from Direction, Original Screenplay, AND Foreign Language Film. Ouch! Gotta hurt being shoved out out of his office especially as Volver is arguably his best work to date. Borat fizzled landing only Adapted Screenplay. Nothing like pissing off the natives in the heartland. There's also the issue of those pesky lawsuits. My bets:

Best Actress: I'm getting bored of the biopic at Oscar time (read Ray, Capote, The Queen) and although my heart belongs to Penelope Cruz in Volver, Oscar will likely go to Helen Mirren for The Queen. Have only seen trailers but Mirren's portrayl of our sovreign really does border on identity theft.

Best Actor: Cannot see Depressing-Movies-About-Africa that will undoubtedly feature scenes of torture and genocide but if the GGs are correct it will be Forrest Whitaker as Ugandan bad guy Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

Best Supporting Actress: I'll throw my money behind Adriana Barraza or Rinko Kikuchi for Babel.

Direction: Martie is my sentimental favourite. Scorcese is the Susan Lucci of the Academy Awards. Absurd that he has never won. But Babel is Inarritu's multilingual masterpiece.

Foreign Language Film: I'm neck and neck English and non films this year. Let's hope Toronto filmmaker Deepa Mehta takes it for Water.

Adapted Screenplay: I'll eat my hat if it's not The Departed taken from the Hong Kong cop flick Infernal Affairs.

Original Screenplay: Guillermo Arteaga for Babel. Hands down.

Best Picture: Need I say more? Babel.