Your picks are pretty close to mine. About the only place we differ is that I'm not leaning toward Tarantino.

I'm hoping you give us your own personal picks for every category as well, or rather the major categories only.

Re: Animated Feature. "Frankenweenie" still getting seemingly zero buzz seems like an even bigger reinforcement of the Academy's general indifference with Tim Burton, despite it being one of his most inspired films in years (next to "Sweeney Todd"... which itself got Best Picture and Best Director snubs ). Apparently they'd rather give it to a lesser Pixar film almost by default.

Well the fact that it got released around the same time as ParaNorman certainly didn't help.

Which I honestly think is a much superior film.

As a lifelong gamer, I think you guys are all wrong! Wreck-it-Ralph!!!!

Could be - WRECK-IT is close enough behind BRAVE that it could win. Both movies are Disney, though, so the studio probably doesn't care. The Pixar division does, however.

ParaNorman was a late-summer release. Frankenweenie was released in October. Close enough.

I think that ParaNorman, Pirates!, and Frankenweenie have very little chance of winning, further proving that the Academy is loaded with clueless shills. Everyone on Gold Derby seems to think that Wreck-It Ralph will win: http://www.goldderby.com/awardshows/exp ... ature.html, which is fine by me.

I personally thought that The Secret World of Arrietty was the best animated film of the year.

Is it me, or do this year's Oscars look very predictable and uninteresting? Maybe it's the Affleck snub or the fact that ZDT has been blacklisted, but what started off as great excitement on my part has fizzled out into indifference. It's kind of like what James once said about the anticipation for a blockbuster being much better than the film itself 95% of the time.

The Secret World of Arrietty wasn't eligible for a nomination because it was released in Japan in 2010. It fell victim to rule three part three:


Because it took so long to release Arrietty in this country, it was never eligible for any Academy Awards except for Best Foreign Language Film.

I just finished watching Wreck it Ralph and I gotta say, if Brave wins best animated feature I'll be pissed. Brave flat out sucked. But Wreck it Ralph was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it immensely. So much better than Brave and The Pirates! Band of Misfits put together!

Still need to see Frankenweenie and ParaNorman though. And they both look pretty good too.

I just noticed today you made the switch. Good for you. But now we're only three categories apart: Makeup, Original Screenplay, and Music (score)

I'm very shaky on Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay. Both of those could go in another direction. But I was locked in as of noon last Sunday so even if I think I might be wrong now, I'm committed to what I chose last weekend.

I got the animated change in before the deadline, however.