2007 Academy Awards

With the Academy Awards coming up next month, and the recent release of this year's nominations, I thought I would create a thread with a list of all nominee's and discuss some opinions on the matter. The Oscars is normally one Award show that I do watch annually. Although I did watch most of the Golden Globes this year. So lets have a look at the nominees.

Best Actor
■ Leonardo DiCaprio
■ Ryan Gosling
■ Forrest Whitaker
■ Will Smith
■ Peter O'Toole

I am a fan of Ryan Gosling's recent work, and I would love to see him take home the award. It's quite obvious he is the dark horse in this group, and is going to be more than please with his nomination. I believe Whitaker is going to take home the award this year, as he took home the Golden Globe. I've not seen this film or his performance, but from every review I have read, he is the runaway favorite. So was Brokeback Mountain last year though, and Crash took the award. So we'll never know until it is actually announced.

Best Supporting Actor

■ Alan Arkin
■ Mark Whalberg
■ Eddie Murphy
■ Djimon Hounsou
■ Jackie Earle Haley

Marky Mark or Goonie Goo Goo? Mark Whalberg has been putting out very good performances in the last few years, more so than Eddie Murphy. I would love to see Whalberg take home an Oscar but I have to hand it to Eddie on this one. Either way, I'm more than satisfied to see one of these guys take home the gold.

Best Actress

■ Penelope Cruz
■ Judi Dench
■ Helen Mirren
■ Meryl Streep
■ Kate Winslet

Haven't seen any of the films, but Mirren does eerily resemble Queen Elizabeth II. Flip a coin on this one, I really could care less.

Best Supporting Actress

■ Adriana Barraza
■ Cate Blanchett
■ Jennifer Hudson
■ Rinko Kikuchi
■ Abigail Breslin

Again, Have not seen any of the performances but I have heard plenty of good reviews on Hudson's performance long before she won the Golden Globe in this category. Haven't seen it, could care less, but I would be surprised if Hudson did not take this award.

Best Picture

■ Babel
■ The Departed
■ Little Miss Sunshine
■ The Queen
■ Letters From Iwo Jima

I think other years a movie like Babel or The Queen could of won, but The Departed is my odds on favorite going into the show. With their cast, Scorsese at the helm, it is their year. Just as Scorsese is going to take home the award for Best Director, they are taking home the award for Best Picture.

What do you think?

Whittaker owns the best actor award already. He's loved by the community as both an actor and a director and his performance in The Last King is supposed to be incredible. The award will be Hollywood's way of acknowledging all he's done in the past. Gosling is amazing but he's young and he'll get more chances.

Stick with Kelly Leake for Best Supporting. Then watch him fade back into obscurity.

Helen Mirren gets the trophy for Queen. Brits and their royalty are always winners.

Jennifer Hudson needs to write her acceptance speech. Her performance in Dreamgirls was amazing.

Scorecese gets his best director trophy for Departed and the Best Picture might wind up in the hands of Clint simply because the voters won't want to let him go unrecognized after giving the Director award to MS.

Chissler, if you're interested, a client of mine runs an oscar pool that brings in a few hundred players each year, not expensive and it makes the smaller awards worth paying attention to. Send me a u2u and I'll see to it that I get a copy of the game out to you when it is available. Even if you don't play along, it's cool as hell as the guy who puts it together is a huge movie goon and a copywriter at a big ad agency so the layout and the themes are always great fun. He was one of the brains behind the original viagra ads. The ones with the old couple getting all touchy feely on the couch.