Man, has it been a full year already? Seems like just yesterday I was posting my 2009 picks. Well, apparently it has been a year, so here we are again, Oscar time. Woooooooo.

If this is your first time joining me on this journey, some background: I don’t watch sports, I watch movies. The Oscar telecast is my Super Bowl. It is beyond a doubt, my favorite night of television of the year. I love the cheesiness, the groan-worthy jokes, the occasionally painful musical performances…I love it all. And I love predicting the outcome. It’s never a sure thing, but I like to think I’m fairly good at it. Last year I only missed two categories (foreign language film and actor) and one of those I think was utterly robbed (I’ll let you guess which one).

I don’t predict every category, but I do more than most. My father and I have our annual Oscar bet, and these are the categories we’ve selected.

My annual disclaimer: These picks represent who I think will win, no who I think should win. I don’t care who should win. To be honest, I thought this was a pretty uneven year for movies. Avatar was the most enjoyable movie I saw, but was it Oscar-worthy? Not really. I enjoyed The Hurt Locker, but I don’t think it deserves the overwhelming praise. Up in the Air was probably the best film I saw this year, but even then, it wasn’t as good as many of the nominees from the last couple of years.

Anyway, let’s get to who I think will win, shall we?

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker.

I don’t really see this as a question, since it’s won every conceivable guild award, but there is some weirdness here. In order to understand why, you need to understand what the Academy has done to the Oscars this year.

In a blatant attempt to get better ratings (sigh), the Academy has increased the number of nominees in this category from 5 to 10, thus allowing more mainstream movies to be nominated. Last year that would have allowed The Dark Knight to be nominated, and this year it’s allowed Up and District 9, which never would have made the cut, into the list of nominees.

That carries with it some problems, however. With 10 possible nominees, it’s entirely possible that no single film will get the necessary majority to win. So instead of just picking a winner, Oscar voters have to vote for several films. I still believe that The Hurt Locker will get the most votes, but if it doesn’t have enough to win, there’s no doubt in my mind that everyone’s #2 pick will be Avatar. No question.

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker.

She won the DGA award, and the buzz is firmly behind her on this. Even James Cameron wants his ex-wife to win. She’ll win.

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart.

My personal choice in this category is George Clooney, who I think genuinely deserves it. But Jeff Bridges has been overlooked so many times in the past that I believe this is finally his year.

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side.

This could go any way, to be honest (except maybe Hellen Mirren). Meryl Streep has more critics awards. Carey Mulligan is definitely the long-shot-that-could-totally-win choice (she won a handful of critics awards), Gabourey Sidibe has more critics awards and Sandra Bullock won the SAG. I’m going with Bullock purely because of that SAG, plus Best Actress more often than not is a popularity contest, and the Academy just loves the mainstream-actress-doing-a-weepy role. But even Bullock’s been out there saying she doesn’t deserve an Oscar.

If you want the safe bet, go with Bullock. If you want the edgy bet, go with Mulligan. If you can’t decide which way you want to go, Meryl Streep is your choice.

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds.

I’m fairly confident this is a lock.

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, Precious.

The full title of this movie (“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire’”) may make my head hurt, but this is still a lock.

Best Original Screenplay: The Hurt Locker.

Really tough category. The Writer’s Guild award is usually the best indicator here, but Inglourious Basterds wasn’t eligible, since Tarantino isn’t a member. So instead they gave it to The Hurt Locker withot ever considering Inglorious Basterds. I’m going with Hurt Locker, on the hunch that voters will give it a lot of love this year, but it’s a total tossup. Proceed with caution.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Up in the Air

I don’t expect this movie to win anything else, so this is my choice. And I’m pretty sure of this one.

Best Film Editing: The Hurt Locker.

It will win picture, director and editing. That doesn’t always happen, but it’s in the best place to win all three.

Best Cinematography: The Hurt Locker.

Wasn’t too sure of this until Hurt Locker won the guild award. Now you’d have to be crazy to pick anything else.

Best Costume Design: The Young Victoria.

This category always goes to either the period piece or the musical. The musical this year is a dud, and of the period pieces, The Young Victoria is by far the frontrunner, having won the Costume Designer’s Guild award (a tough judge because they split their awards into contemporary and period) and the BAFTA. I’m not 100% sold on this, but it’s what I’m going with.

Best Animated Feature: Up.

This is an uncharacteristically fun category this year. Yes, Up is gonna win. But you’ve also got a handful of worthy and interesting nominees, instead of the latest Shrek sequel. After Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was nominated for an Annie, I was a little worried it would make the cut here, but it didn’t. I would have preferred to see Ponyo in the nominees, but I’ll take what I can get.

Best Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon

Tough call. I usually just go with Ebert on this, but by his own admission he hasn’t seen all the nominees. Plus last year really threw everyone for a loop. I’m going with The White Ribbon, which is the pre-World War Germany film. I’ve seen people predict this, El Secreto (which I briefly was going with) and Un Prophete. Could go to any one of those. I’m not at all confident in this choice.

Best Documentary Feature: The Cove

This is a two-horse race between Food, Inc. and The Cove. Everything I’ve seen from The Cove has self-righteous hippies crying, and after living in Northern California for two years, my tolerance for hippies is pretty low. But I’m going with it anyway, figuring there are a lot of academy voters who are sympathetic to that sort of thing. But if you can’t bring yourself to bet on unwashed hippies, go with Food, Inc.

Best Original Score: Up.
Not too sure of this, but it’s what everyone else is predicting.

Best Song: “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart.

This category suuuuuucks this year. Last year was pretty sad too, but this year they’re not even bothering with performances. Everything I’ve seen says Crazy Heart’s gonna win, so that’s my choice.

Best Art Direction: Avatar.

I don’t think it stands a chance in any of the major categories, but Avatar is still gonna walk away with a handful of technical awards, starting with this one.

And there you go, my choices for this year. These are the only categories we bet on, so those are my only formal picks, but I’ll say this: for anything else technical go with Avatar or Hurt Locker (except makeup – I’d go with Star Trek on that). For the animated short category, my pick is Wallace & Gromit. It might be the weakest one yet, but it’s still Wallace & Gromit and you would be stupid to bet against it.

Anyway, if you’re betting, good luck! If not, enjoy the show. I’ll be flying across the country during the broadcast, so my post-game will be a little later than usual. Have fun!

Today is my seventh wedding anniversary, and this year I really wanted to do something a bit different for Heather. I contacted Lauren Montgomery, director of Superman/Doomsday, Wonder Woman and other awesome DC animated movies. I’ve been reading her art blog for years, and I love her Bruce Timm-influenced style, so I pinged her to see if I could commission a drawing. I came up with the nutty idea of taking our cake topper (Superman + Wonder Woman dressed up for a Jewish wedding) and combining that with actual pictures of us dancing (like this one). Somehow she agreed to this insane idea, and here’s the result.

I think it came out great. I had it framed and matted in silver and black…looks classy.

Also I am a very lucky man to have a wife that would appreciate something this nerdy.

For anyone curious, here are two sketches Lauren did while working on it, showing a different approach that was abandoned:

The hardest thing for me was keeping this a secret for so long. I contacted Lauren way back in February, and the piece was done by April, so it sat in my office for a while. Then I had to discretely transport it across the country when we moved (I sent it to my parents for a while during the chaos) before finally getting it framed once we were all set up here in Maryland. But I think it’s safe to say Heather had no idea what this could possibly be, so mission accomplished.

Yep, it’s that time again…October 21st marks TEN years since my last cigarette. That’s TEN YEARS! HOLY CRAP. I used to be a very heavy smoker, and quitting cold turkey was a very big deal for me. So every year on October 21st, I take this opportunity to figure out how much money I would have spent on cigarettes had I not quit.

But first…

This year I’m going to cheat and calculate a full second year in California, even though I moved to Maryland in July. It’s just easier that way. Anyway, I used to smoke on average 1.75 packs a day (most days were 1.5, but many were 2+, often reaching 2.5 easily). So over the last ten years that’s 3,652 days (2000 and 2008 were leap years), I would have smoked 6,391 packs of cigarettes, or 127,820 individual smokes. Calculating the first eight years at the New York City rough average of $7 a pack across 5,112 packs I get $35,784, plus two years at the California average of $4.50 a pack, we wind up with a total amount I would have spent had I been smoking of…

Drumroll please…

$41,544

Smoking in California is definitely cheaper at roughly $3,000 a year (compared to $4,500 in NYC), but that’s still a lot of money (and don’t even get me started on how insane it is that a state as broke as California hasn’t proposed heftier sin taxes on smoking).

If you’re thinking of quitting, visit QuitNet for more information. Also try the Smoking Calculator if you’d like to see just how much that habit is stealing from your precious income. And if that’s not enough motivation, read Wikipedia’s article on the health effects of tobacco or the thoroughly unpleasant How does your body digest a cigarette? article at HowStuffWorks.

And remember, you can quit. I’m living, breathing proof of that. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

We’ve made the internal announcement at 2K, so I’m finally free to post this…after 5+ years, I’m leaving 2K Games/Take-Two Interactive. I’ve taken a position at Bethesda Softworks, and will be moving out to Maryland next month (Heather and Alice sadly, won’t be joining me until August).

Out of respect for my current employer I’m going to refrain from going into too much detail, but the basics are that I’ll be a Senior Producer with their publishing team. Anyone who knows me knows what a Bethesda fanboy I am, so this shouldn’t come as too big a surprise, and it really did take a dream project (plus the prospect of being back on the east coast) to get me to consider leaving 2K.

Anyway, I’ve got a lot to do between now and July 12th, when I fly out to Bethesda, but I can finally talk about this, which is a relief.

Good lord, have I really not posted a blog update since the Oscars? What the heck is wrong with me?? Okay, that’s easy enough to answer. I’m busy with [TITLE REDACTED] and [TITLE REDACTED] not to mention [TITLE REDACTED], and what free time I have is usually taken up by Alice. But the real reason for the lack of updates here is actually Twitter. As you might see from the sidebar there (assuming you’re not reading this via RSS, which I guess 99.999% of people probably are), I post on Twitter fairly frequently. That’s typically where I’ll post the “hey look at this awesomely nerdy thing I found” stuff I used to post here. It’s just easier and faster than giving it a full blog post. And as a writer, I enjoy the challenge of making it work within the 140 character limit.

So where does that leave this blog? In a different place, I think. When I do post here, I want those posts to be longer and more thought out than anything I could just post on Twitter. So that means stuff like my ongoing Star Trek reviews (as soon as I get around to finishing my writeups on the remaining series, that is) or other longer-form musings. For anything else, there’s Twitter.

It’s funny that Twitter has so ravaged this blog. I can’t be the only one with this problem. So anyway, if you haven’t already, get on Twitter. And read this site via RSS, because there will be gaps between posts. I can’t commit to one post a week, but hopefully I can get it down to at least one per month.

So last night’s show was a good one. It was a pretty uneventful evening…my picks were more or less dead-on, I only missed two categories (Actor and Foreign Language Picture). And of those two, only one qualified as a surprise – Foreign Language Film, which didn’t go to either of the frontrunners. Go fig on that one. I did win my bet with my father, although he won all the major categories, so I suppose it’s somewhat of a hollow victory (I lost that way a few years ago…it’s a nice consolation).

As for the actual show, I wasn’t super thrilled with Hugh Jackman. He was okay, but while the opening number wasn’t bad (Anne Hathaway saved it), the homage to musicals was downright lame. Then again maybe I was just annoyed at any reference to Abba within the Oscar telecast (I have a thing about Abba…but that’s a story for another time).

Still, there were some interesting moments. Favorite speech of the night goes to Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz or Sean Penn. I was disappointed that Mickey Rourke didn’t win, but I guess his craziness really did cost him an award (lest there be doubt, that is one seriously crazy dude right there).

My favorite moment of the night was watching A.R. Rahman accept his award for Best Score, run offstage for a minute, then come back out to perform, “O…Saya”, then “Jai-Ho” and then come back to accept the award for Best Song. It’s too bad the song performances were so weak. Yes, one of the performers just had a baby (went into labor just after performing at the Grammys!), but she did offer to do it via hologram, so you figure there could have been some solution. In any event, that was a disappointment, but not a huge one.

Anyway, good show. Not riveting, edge-of-my-seat awesome, but it was enjoyable. Hopefully next year I won’t have to deal with a screaming baby at the same time. That was slightly distracting.

Greetings, dear reader, and welcome back to another edition of my annual Oscar picks. I took last year off, as the awards landed just two weeks after my daughter was born, and with all the drama and craziness surrounding that, I barely had a chance to look at the nominees before the broadcast, let alone form picks. But a year has passed, and my daughter is now a rambunctious almost-toddler, which means she’s sleeping through the night, my life has settled into relative normalcy, and I can safely take a stab at predicting the 2009 Academy Awards.

Before I get to my picks, my traditional disclaimer: these predictions are who I believe will win, not who I think should win. Having seen very few of these movies, I really don’t have any particular opinion on who should win, so don’t ask.

Also, the only categories I’m listing are ones in my annual bet with my father. We cover just about everything, but we leave out the shorts and super technical categories.

As for my track record, I tend to land somewhere in the 60 – 80% category every year. Some years it’s higher, some years it’s lower. Way back in 1998 I landed almost 100%, although let’s be honest, it was pretty freaking easy that year.

Anyway, let’s get to the good stuff.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

This is a lock. Some years this category is something of a mystery. It ain’t this year.

Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Again, a lock. At one point I figured this was going to be Gus Van Sant’s year, but man, Boyle has picked up some crazy awards, and this is going to be a Slumdog Oscar year.

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

My confidence in this category isn’t nearly as absolute now as it was a few weeks ago, but dammit, I’m sticking with Rourke on this one. Word is that it’s come down to either Rourke or Sean Penn, but Frank Langella or Richard Jenkins could pull off a Marcia Gay Harden here and win. I’m going with Rourke because of his guild wins and the fact that Hollywood loves a comeback story. But I freely admit to being a little worried about this one (plus I’m positive my father is going to pick Sean Penn, so there’s that too).

Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader

You know what they say, the sixth time’s the charm. Meryl Streep is considered to be #2 here, but I think she’s got enough Oscars already. Melissa Leo to me is the dark horse in this category. But I think this is Kate Winslet’s year.

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Total lock. None of the other nominees are serious contenders here, and everyone knows it. It’s a shame Ledger didn’t win for Brokeback Mountain, but if this is to be his final nomination, it’s good to see him go out with a win.

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Christina Barcelona

This category is wide open. I’m going with Cruz because she’s got buzz, but having actually seen the movie, I don’t think she actually deserves it. Still, buzz is buzz, and I’ve made my choice. But really, anyone in this category has a shot.

Best Original Screenplay: Milk

WALL-E also has a shot here, but I don’t see it. Milk’s gotta win something, and I think this is it.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire

Lock.

Best Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire

Most people are safely picking Slumdog here, and I’m no exception. A lot of the time there’s a three-way Picture, Director and Editing sweep, and that’s what I’m counting on. But I fully recognize that Benjamin Button or The Dark Knight could pick this up. This category sometimes goes to the flashy, fancy-edited movies (see: The Matrix’s win in 2000 which I suspected might happen, but still went with the safe – but ultimately wrong – bet). If that’s the case, it could wind up with either The Dark Knight or Benjamin Button.

Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire

This is the safe bet, and it’s killing me. My gut is telling me there’s no way this movie can win for cinematography, since it was shot in digital, and not on film. But it won the ASC and BAFTA for Cinematography, and that’s just too hard to pass up. If you want to know what my gut’s telling me, it’s saying that this award is going to go to Benjamin Button. Sometimes I gotta go against my gut. Hopefully this doesn’t come back to haunt me.

Best Costume Design: The Dutchess

There’s only one real costume drama this year, and it’s The Dutchess.

Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This could go to The Dutchess, or even The Dark Knight, but I have to assume that something is going to go to the movie with the most nominations, and this is the most logical choice.

Best Animated Feature: WALL-E

Going as far back as when they were the unstoppable force in the shorts categories, my rule has always been this: bet against Pixar at your own risk. Yes, Kung-Fu Panda won the Annie award, but I have no idea how that happened. This is all about WALL-E, a movie some thought should have been nominated for best picture (not me though, I haven’t seen it yet).

Best Foreign Language Film: Waltz With Bashir

This is either going to be Waltz With Bashir or The Class. I’m completely torn between the two, and I’m going with Bashir purely because when I have no other opinion on this category, I go with Ebert’s choice. Very rarely has he led me wrong way on this one.

Best Documentary Feature: Man on Wire

This oddball movie is the odds-on favorite this year, so I’m going with it. It’s that simple.

Best Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire

No question in my mind. It’s a highly original soundtrack alongside some pretty traditional contenders. And it’ll get swept along with the rest of Slumdog fever.

Best Song: “Jai-Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire

Why are there only three songs nominated this year? Got me. Traditionally I’d say that having two songs nominated from the same movie will cancel each other out, but there’s been an active campaign to get people to vote specifically for the closing credits song “Jai-Ho” (despite “O Saya” being the slightly more original sounding song), so I’m not that concerned. Plus I just don’t see this being Peter Gabriel’s year.

So there you have it…my picks. Some quick picks for other categories not covered in our bet: Makeup (Benjamin Button), Visual Effects (Benjamin Button), Animated Short (Oktapodi).

If you’re betting this year, good luck! It should be a good show. I know this sounds insane, but the musical numbers this year should be awesome. There are two Bollywood songs and Peter Gabriel. What’s not to love? Not to mention the fact that there’s a Tony winner hosting the whole ceremony. Should be great.

Listen Warner Bros, I know Watchmen is technically a superhero movie, and therefore is ripe for tie-ins, but don’t you think there’s something slightly disturbing about selling a Halloween costume of The Comedian? I mean maybe? Just a little?

Yes I know Freddie Kruger and Jason (the slasher, not, you know, me) costumes are commonplace, but I’m pretty sure there was never a scene in Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street where the villain rapes anyone. Not to mention murders his pregnant Vietnamese lover in cold blood. I can’t help but think that’s a different class entirely. But then, I guess I’m just old fashioned.

In any event, if you see someone wearing this costume, you might want to cross to the other side of the street.

This year was a little chaotic for me, what with Alice’s world wide debut in February and all, but nonetheless, here are the best games I played this year:

1. Fallout 3 (360): I’m about 40 hours or so in, and I’ve completed just about every major side quest (just two left to do). I’m still only about halfway through the main quest, but since I’m almost at the level cap, it shouldn’t take me very long to zip through that. Anyway, I have some gripes, but this is still very much a Bethesda RPG, and I loves me some Bethesda RPGs.
2. Left4Dead (PC): I don’t really like or play multiplayer-only games very often, but hot damn, this game’s great. I pretty much only play it at the office, but man, when you’ve got four people in a co-op game all in the same room, it’s a ton of fun. Competitive is also fun, but it’s rapidly becoming less so as people get super awesome at the game. Not sure about the longevity of L4D though…in six months it’s probably going to be whittled down to just the super hardcore gamers. Still, right now, this is the best muliplayer game around, and boy does it get all the zombie movie stuff right (even if it does have fast zombies).
3. World of Goo (PC/Wii): Put me down as another convert to World of Goo. The best puzzle game I played this year, this game is smart, polished and awesome. I’m surprised more people weren’t beating me over the head to play this one. If you haven’t tried it, do yourself a favor and do so now. I liked it so much I bought it on two platforms.
4. Grand Theft Auto IV (360): Not much to say. It’s GTA. It’s big, it’s awesome.
5. Rock Band 2 (360): This game is everything I wanted Rock Band 1 to be. With the added awesomeness of the AC/DC track pack, all the tracks from the first game and all my DLC, it’s the perfect music game. So perfect in fact that I haven’t spent more than ten minutes with Guitar Hero World Tour since buying it. Totally didn’t expect that to happen.
6. Too Human (360): I’ve already written a bunch about how I liked this game despite its many flaws, but when I look back at the few games I managed to finish this year, there’s only one I actually played from start to finish twice, and that’s Too Human. Weird, busted and downright insane, this is not really a game for everyone, or even most people. But it sure as hell was fun.
7. Echochrome (PSP): This is a great little puzzle game, and it’s been my PSP game of choice when traveling since it came out. It’s a great game to play on an airplane while listening to music on my iPod. Very cerebral, very relaxing.
8. Rolando (iPhone): The best game I’ve played for the iPhone, this is just a fun, super polished game. I give tons of credit for ngmoco for putting out iPhone games that are all polished, high quality, and actually designed around the limitations of the platform. If you have an iPhone, check out Rolando.
9. Chrono Trigger (DS): I played a lot of DS games this year, but this is the only one I really stuck with for any extended period of time. Yes, it’s an updated version of one of the best RPGs of all-time, but it also happens to be a really, really good update. That glorious soundtrack has never sounded better, and they didn’t really screw with the core gameplay, and that’s all I really cared about.
   
10. Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (PS3): It’s basically just more levels for Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, but it actually looks better than that game, since it has the benefit of coming out later and being a standalone game with updated technology. They’re not the most thrilling Ratchet & Clank levels ever, but they are good ones, and there’s just something so perfect about the R&C gameplay formula.

In case you’re wondering, I still have yet to play Gears of War 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Mirror’s Edge, Call of Duty: World at War, Prince of Persia, Fable II and many other big name games that came out this year. Also, I left off Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (360), but for the first couple of months after Alice was born, that’s pretty much all I played (I played it enough to both finish it and hit the level cap).

All in all, not a bad year for me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play some more Fallout 3.