I correctly predicted 13 out of 24 awards last year, and I was very proud of that, as a lot of categories last year had no obvious frontrunner. So I think I’m on a hot streak right now. I’m feelin’ good about these picks. Bet on ‘em. I’m goin’ 24 for 24 this year, baby!

Best Picture
Nominees: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood.
Should win: I believe No Country was the best film of 2007 — and lookee here, it was nominated for Best Picture, too! (It doesn’t always turn out that way.)
Will win: It’s gonna win, too. Atonement doesn’t have a chance (a film rarely wins Best Picture without having a director nomination), Juno is the “it’s cute, but let’s be serious here” entry, Michael Clayton just doesn’t have the momentum, and too many people think There Will Be Blood is weird.

Best Director
Nominees: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood; Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men; Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton; Jason Reitman, Juno; Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Should & will win: The Coens. They’ve got the momentum to win it, having already taken awards from quite a few other guilds and critics groups.

Best Actor
Nominees: George Clooney, Michael Clayton; Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood; Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah; Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises.
Should win: I saw no better performance all year than Jones’ in Valley of Elah. That man is a marvel.
Will win: … but nobody saw that movie, and besides — they’d rather vote for Jones in No Country for Old Men. Mortensen is out, considering his is the film’s only nomination. Depp and Clooney are both Hollywood favorites, but they can’t pass Day-Lewis, who’s been lauded for this role since before the movie was released.

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Peter Sciretta at SlashFilm posted something the other day that summarizes a thought I’ve been having a lot lately: People have changed the definition of what a “spoiler” is.

Peter writes:

Originally a spoiler meant something from a film that gave away a twist or turning point in the story. Basically, anything that would ruin your experience watching the story on the big screen. I don’t know exactly when, but sometime in the last year the tide began to change online, and [even] studio-released production photos began to be considered “spoilers” even when they didn’t reveal something major about the story.

Nowadays we have people freaking out if they see or read ANYTHING about a movie, no matter how minor. Peter’s article was prompted by some fans getting upset when he posted photos of the new Hasbro toy version of the “Cloverfield” monster. To them, seeing what the monster looked like constituted a “spoiler,” and he should have warned them before posting the picture.

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Hello, and welcome to Presidents Day. Many furniture stores and car dealerships are having special sales in honor of Washington and Lincoln, so I hope you will take advantage of that, in their memory.

Meanwhile, “Snide Remarks” brings us the eagerly awaited second half of the Oxford Film Festival story, ingeniously titled “A Visit to Mississippi, Part 2.” It, too, contains a reference to Lincoln, also in honor of Presidents Day.

This week’s “Snide Remarks,” including the audio version, is here.
The audio version (i.e., the podcast) is also here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed here.

For some reason all of this week’s movies are coming out today rather than Friday. I get the connection for “Definitely, Maybe,” which is a romantic comedy and thus appropriate for Valentine’s Day. But why did the others all follow suit? Will people be taking their sweethearts to see “Step Up 2 the Streets”? You could go crazy trying to figure out how movie marketers’ minds work.

Anyway, “Definitely, Maybe” is decent; “Step Up 2 the Streets” is a typical street-dancing movie with fantastic dance scenes and nothing else; and “Jumper” has a nifty premise squandered by hasty, careless execution.

Then there’s “The Spiderwick Chronicles,” which is the best young adult fantasy movie of the last several months. My review of it will be at Film.com shortly, if it is not there by the time you read this is at Film.com. This week’s podcast and “In the Dark” mailing are also forthcoming have at last arrived.

Happy Valentine’s Day (I guess), and if you happen to be my mother, happy birthday! I love you, and I’m glad nobody forced you to watch “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins” last week the way they forced me.

Sign up for the “In the Dark” e-zine here.
Listen to this week’s podcast version here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed here.

(For complete background on this feature, read the introduction here. But here’s the gist: I registered a fake e-mail address for actress/singer Raven-Symone and announced it here, with the disclaimer that it wasn’t real, figuring dumb people would ignore that part and write to it anyway. And I was right.)

How have I allowed four months to pass since our last installment? It is shameful of me. That is why, even in the midst of all the more pressing tasks (i.e., the ones that pay $$$$) that I have before me, I have taken the time to compile another batch of hilarious e-mails. As always, my favorite parts are in bold type. Enjoy!

CHILDREN’S LETTERS TO RAVEN-SYMONE

Oct. 14, 2007:

HEY RAVEN MY NAME IS GORET AM 13 YEARS OLD AND U ARE MI ROLE MODEL.
I LOVE YOUR WORK AND I JUST THINK U ARE AMAZING.
AND AM NOT LIKE THE OTHER FANS THAT GO OVER THE
BOARD TO TRY AND GET YOUR INFORMATION.
I WILL REALLY LOVE TO MEET U ONE DAY IN
PERSON.AM COMING TO GEORGIA NEXT SUMMER TO VISIT MY COUSINS AND I HOPE TO HEAR MORE FROM YOU.
PLEASE CAN U ADD ME AT BEBO…THNX.U CAN REACH ME AT [e-mail address].pleaseee add me.

and remmember biggest fannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

[That last part, with the elongated "fan," is creepy.]

* * * * *

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It’s a two-parter! But only one part has been published! You have to wait until next week for the second part! It’s not as exciting as my choice of punctuation would indicate!

This week’s “Snide Remarks,” including the audio version, is here.
The audio version (i.e., the podcast) is also here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed here.

I’m not gonna lie to you: Mississippi was a blast. I LOVED the Oxford Film Festival and the town of Oxford itself. I had a great time. I will tell you all about it in this week’s “Snide Remarks”…

… which is aaaalmost done but not quite. The sudden Mississippi trip threw my schedule (such as it was) out of whack, so now I have to whack it back in, or however that figure of speech works out. Stay tuned.

Sweet creamy butter, Oxford is delightful! The film festival (the fifth annual, not fourth as I said before) kicked off Thursday night with an excellent movie and a great party afterward, which I will tell you more about later.

In the meantime, stay in your house this weekend. Under no circumstances should you attempt to see either of the major new releases, “Fool’s Gold” or “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.” You have been warned.

And now, I am as tired as a junebug in a rain gutter, so I’m going to retire for the evening. I do declare!

Sign up for the “In the Dark” e-zine here.
Listen to this week’s podcast version here.
Subscribe to the podcast’s feed here. 

My friends Ken and Katie recently took their many children to Disney World, where they met up with other friends for several days of merriment. Ken wrote about it in his blog. He included photos. One of them is below. (You can click it for a larger version.) Look at the sign behind them, partially obscured by Ken’s head. What do you suppose they charge for admission at that place?

If you find yourself in Oxford, Miss., this weekend, stop by and say howdy, or how-do, or whatever they say in Mississippi. Why on earth would I be in Mississippi this weekend? Well, I’m honored to say that I will be part of the fourth annual Oxford Film Festival as a panelist and juror. The fact that I’m doing it as a last-minute replacement for my friend Scott Weinberg, who can’t make it due to a serious dental emergency (ouch), does not reduce the honor.

My panel is called “Film and the New Media: Writing about Film in Print and for the Blogosphere.” It’s at 4 p.m. Friday. I don’t know if anyone who reads this blog lives in or near Oxford, but hey, maybe.

This is a very sudden trip — I only got the call from Weinberg at noon today, and I have to fly out at 6:20 a.m. tomorrow — and so I’m a little scatterbrained at the moment. Mostly it means that all the stuff I was planning to do tomorrow and Friday and over the weekend, I have to do today instead. But I’m glad to fill in for Weinberg, and besides, I’m not one to pass up a free trip to Mississippi! Or at least apparently I’m not. It’s never come up before.

Monday’s “Snide Remarks” will almost surely be late in arriving, as I haven’t written it yet, and I won’t get back to Portland until 11 p.m. Sunday night, and I don’t know how much downtime I’ll have in Oxford. Friday’s movie reviews and “In the Dark” should be on the regular schedule,  assuming they have Internet service in Mississippi. And maybe I should refrain from making Mississippi jokes until after the festival, just as a courtesy.