Everything from Game of Thrones to Marvel superhero art (I guess that isn’t the widest of ranges) is on display on the Tumblr home of very talented artist Phil Noto. I particularly like his series of drawings masquerading as candid celebrity photos of superheroes from different decades. Some very cool stuff over there.

Link

The Oscars crash down on H.wood tonight in what has been called one of the least contentious contests in years. Is the script already written or will there be some twists and turns? I’m expecting Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin to be a great team but what about the rest of the show? We’ll find out soon enough. Until then, here are my picks for what will win the statues.

Best Pic – Avatar
Should it win? Yes. Even though there are 10 noms this go around, only 2 of them are really in contention. Most odds makers have money on The Hurt Locker but I think its early peak and late controversy will cost it the win. The Hurt Locker would have won 6 or 7 years ago in the indie-friendly awards climate but it just feels like the year of Avatar to me.

Best Director – James Cameron
Should he win? Yes, though I won’t be completely surprised if the academy splits and gives Bigelow this one. The question is, are we talking about a director in the classical sense of directing actors or in the Cameronian sense of inventing new technologies and creating an entire world? Every movie is a collaboration but Cameron helmed his production through incredibly complex waters and deserves the award.

Best Actress – Sandra Bullock
Should she win? No way. Even though she did speak with an accent, Bullock’s character was straight off the shelf. It wasn’t until the films last few scenes that we actually started to get some sense of the character’s motivations. Is that Bullock’s fault? No, the movie isn’t very good. I loved Carey Mulligan in An Education and she gets my pick – but this has been dubbed the year Bullock gets her statue so whatareyagonnado?

Best Actor – Jeff Bridges
Should he win? Yep. Bridges is one of those actors who becomes his character right down to his every subtle movement and Bad Blake is a character with Oscar written all over him. I don’t even remember what Jeremy Renner looks like. If I had to go for someone else my pick would be for Colin Firth who embodies those same qualities and whose character in A Single Man was good enough to win most other years.

Best Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique
Should she win? Yes. She was crowned before any of her competitors’ films were released and she stayed on top throughout. A Vera Farmiga upset is the only one that wouldn’t be a travesty.

Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Waltz
Should he win? Hell yea. Is there anyone who didn’t come out of Inglourious thinking, “Who the hell was that guy and why don’t we just give him the Oscar now?” Best. Nazi. Ever.

Best Original Screenplay – Mark Boal for The Hurt Locker
Should he win? Sure. But mostly because I am picking Avatar to win the main cats. It is pretty close between Boal and Tarantino and I would be pretty happy to see Quentin take the stage and get what he deserves for a film I enjoyed a lot more.

Best Adapted Screenplay – Reitman and Turner for Up in the Air
Should they win? No. This is maybe the toughest category of the big guys. Both Geoffrey Fletcher’s script for Precious and Nick Hornby’s An Education script were great. But how can you not vote for the four-tet behind the almost completely overlooked In The Loop? A gigantic surprise win for them would be fantastic.

Best Foreign Language Feature – The White Ribbon
Should it win? NO! I am sorry to say I have only seen a couple of these noms but France’s A Prophet is good enough to win a best picture award regardless of language and I was certainly no fan of The White Ribbon. It seems unlikely that it will be upset in this category though as it won Palme d’Or (also over 2nd place A Prophet) and has been a critical darling. Ugh.

A quick run down of the rest of my predictions:
Best Doc – The Cove
Best Animated Feature – Up
Best Art Direction – Avatar
Best Cinematography – The Hurt Locker
Best Costume Design – The Young Victoria
Best Editing – Avatar
Best Original Score – Up
Best Song – The Weary Kind from Crazy Heart by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett
Best Sound Editing – Avatar
Best Sound Mixing – Avatar
Best VisFX – Uhhh duh, Avatar

There have been rumors of a long awaited Arrested Development movie swirling around even longer than the TV DVDs have topped the Amazon charts. If it will ever see the light of day is anyone’s guess. On the other hand, this documentary titled The Arrested Development Documentary Project (pretty lame site btw) seems to have come out of nowhere. With the trailer touting its rejection from this year’s big fests, there’s a pretty good chance that the movie is nothing special – but at least it exists.

Coming next fall to NBC is the new comedy Community from Sarah Silverman writer Dan Harmon. With a cast featuring Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and John Oliver, it looks like it could be a real winner. If this teaser featurette is any indication, it is gonna be funny as hell.

NBC’s Official Page

The Oscars are this weekend so I figured I better throw my hat into the prediction game ring. Predicting Oscars is really way more like guessing. Things like which studio has spent the most money and who has the most friends who vote are more important than the actual quality of the film (how else could Crash have won?). Now I’m not one of those jaded Hollywood types who complains about all this – I just think it is important to recognize the system that is in place. I mean, it is all subjective anyway, right? So I’ll try to focus a bit more here on who I would choose to win if I had a vote.

One other note – anyone notice that Hugh Jackman is hosting this year? Odd choice (and in a year when he has a big summer blockbuster coming, if you can believe it) – but I think the guy can be pretty funny so I am keeping my hopes up.

Best Picture All right I give in – Slumdog Millionaire is the year’s best picture. I know, both Milk and Frost/Nixon were on my Top10 – but I’ve gotten swept up in the fanfare and I’ve converted… but I’m not giving it any writing awards. I wouldn’t complain if Benjamin Button snuck out the win (please not The Reader) but I think it’s looking like this will be the final answer.

Best Supporting Actor Heath Ledger played one of the best villains ever on screen in Dark Knight and it would be a shame if he wasn’t awarded for it. All of these roles were just supremely played and any of them are deserving (especially Brolin in Milk) but this is Heath’s award.

Best Supporting Actress This category is a little less clear. I think the odds are on Penelop Cruz for VCB but I am giving my pick to Taraji Henson for her lifetime spanning role in Benjamin Button.

Best Actor Wow, what a category this is. This was a fantastic year for acting and I have to say the best performance I saw was Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. He may get beat to the finish line by Penn, but Rourke’s role was so much more challenging both physically and emotionally and he certainly deserves the statue.

Best Actress This one is all me and I don’t care what Harvey Weinstein has to say about it. I loved Rachel Getting Married and I’d love to see Anne Hathaway get the award.

Adapted Screenplay The writing categories are a bit strange this year. Usually the writing awards go to the indie darlings that coudn’t squeak out awards/noms for the big categories. Isn’t this just all the Best Pic noms? Well fine – I guess my choice would be Benjamin Button then.

Original Screenplay I don’t like these noms much at all. The writing in Happy-Go-Lucky was atrocious (plot? character arc?) and the screenplay of Milk was its low point. But In Bruges was brilliantly written and deserves the award, even if Wall-e was seen by millions more people and probably a lot more Oscar voters.

Best Director …whatever wins best picture.

And the rest will go to movies that certainly deserve it (unless they go to The Reader). It isn’t the most exciting list of awards ever assembled (except the male actor categories). Heath winning a posthumous award could be a real touching moment, especially if Michelle Williams accepts the award. There is always the chance that Sean Penn will win an award and get another chance to talk about what a fine actor and man Jude Law is, no matter what Chris Rock says (it was a joke, dude). Or it could just be a night of getting way too drunk playing the game where you have to take a shot every time Slumdog wins an award. I’m just hoping I see people I know in the audience.

Mark the date folks – January 18. Oh glorious day.