My Oscar nomination predictions were not my best, but they weren’t horrible. The big story, of course, is that The Dark Knight was snubbed out of Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay nominations, and I wrote an editorial about what that means for the future of the Academy, which you can read at The Cinema Source. Check it out and feel free to tell me I’m overreacting.

That aside, let’s get to what I got right and wrong. Overall, I predicted the top ten categories, which include 48 slots (five slots for each category, except for Animated Feature, which only has three). Out of those 48, I got 34 correct. Annoyingly, I only got one category totally right, and that was the Animated Feature category. My errors:

PICTURE (1):
I predicted The Dark Knight instead of The Reader

DIRECTOR (2):
I predicted Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight and Mike Leigh for Happy-Go-Lucky instead of Gus Van Sant for Milk and Stephen Daldry for The Reader

ACTOR (1):
I predicted Clint Eastwood for Gran Torino instead of Richard Jenkins for The Visitor

ACTRESS (2):
I predicted Kate Winslet for Revolutionary Road instead of Kate Winslet for The Reader (lame!) and Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky instead of Melissa Leo for Frozen River

SUPPORTING ACTOR (1):
I predicted Dev Patel for Slumdog Millionaire instead of Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road

SUPPORTING ACTRESS (1):
I predicted Kate Winslet for The Reader (who got nominated in the lead category, super-lame) instead of Marisa Tomei for The Wrestler

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (3):
I predicted The Wrestler, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Rachel Getting Married instead of Frozen River, Happy-Go-Lucky, and In Bruges

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY (1):
I predicted The Dark Knight instead of The Reader

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM (2):
I predicted Three Monkeys and Everlasting Moments instead of Departures and Revanche.

Yep, I would’ve gotten Picture and Adapted Screenplay 5 for 5 if it hadn’t been for the Reader/Dark Knight switcheroo. And I would’ve done a lot better on the Actress/Supporting Actress categories if the Academy had bothered telling anyone they were voting for Kate Winslet in The Reader in the Best Actress category instead of the Best Supporting Actress category.

In other words, The Reader is a total jerk.

On the bright side, I correctly predicted so-called long shots Taraji P. Henson for Benjamin Button and Wall-E for Best Original Screenplay. Good thing, since I otherwise totally botched the Original Screenplay category. Hey, at least In Bruges ended up being a surprise nominee.

A brief preview of the Oscar ceremony: Slumdog Millionaire wins Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay, Sean Penn narrowly beats out Mickey Rourke in Best Actor, Kate Winslet wins Best Actress, and Milk takes Original Screenplay.

Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t forget I wrote the previous post promising a site overhaul. I’ve been working on said overhaul for a while but keep getting stuck on how to do it. I want to create my own WordPress theme — but it’s really hard and I just barely know PHP. But I don’t like any of the pre-existing templates for the type of layout I want. Whine, whine, whine.

So that’s still coming. But it’s not here yet, and today marks two very special occasions: the return of Lost, and the eve of the Oscar nominations.

Concerning Lost, I would recommend only that you keep visiting dailylost.com for all your Lost news, videos, and theories. And, of course, that you watch the premiere tonight. Clip show is at 8, the first episode is at 9, and the second episode is at 10. ABC. Be there.

Onto the Oscars. About a month ago I created the blog awards.hell.ca, which was hosted on the DailyPixel network, the same network that hosts dailylost. Problem is, a glitch with Google caused the creation of that site to make traffic for its parent site, hell.ca, plummet. They’re looking into exactly why that happened, but in the meantime, consider it “on hiatus.”

That was last week. So even though I haven’t been posting it on here, I’ve been just as plugged into the Oscars as I have been every year. As per tradition, I need to make a set of nominations predictions, so for the ten major categories, here they are:

BEST PICTURE
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Milk
Frost/Nixon
The Dark Knight

Doubt could very well replace The Dark Knight, while Gran Torino is my dark horse. If I was feeling a bit riskier, I’d put both Knight and Doubt on the list and leave off assumed-locks Milk or Frost/Nixon. But I’m not.

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Mike Leigh, Vera Drake

Director very rarely goes five for five with Best Picture, but it’s hard to spot any weak links. With some trepidation, I got rid of Gus Van Sant for Milk and replaced him with Mike Leigh of Happy-Go-Lucky. Out of left field? Sure, but a few years ago, nobody expected him to get nominated for Vera Drake, either. And Sally Hawkins just won Best Comedy Actress at the Golden Globes, so the film might have some momentum.

I could see scenarios where each director above could get left out — except for Danny Boyle. If there are more snubs, Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) or Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino) could sneak in.

BEST ACTOR
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Sean Penn, Milk
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino

I’d love to see Richard Jenkins make it for The Visitor, but if the Academy goes for a well-respected older actor, they’ll pick Eastwood first. But who knows? Maybe Button love isn’t actually that strong and Pitt will get left out.

BEST ACTRESS
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky

Winslet and Hawkins were both surprise Globe winners — which doesn’t necessarily translate to an Oscar nomination but should here. Jolie is in a weak spot because Changeling isn’t the Oscar powerhouse it could’ve been. Kristen Scott Thomas (I’ve Loved You So Long) and Melissa Leo (Frozen River) are the dark horses.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Josh Brolin, Milk
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire

Patel’s performance didn’t really impress me very much, but since Slumdog Millionaire is shaping up as the movie to beat, it looks like he’ll sneak in after his surprise SAG nomination. If not, I’d love to see Ralph Fiennes from The Duchess grab a spot.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Kate Winslet, The Reader
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Amy Adams, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

A lot of people are predicting Marisa Tomei sneaks in for The Wrestler instead of Henson, who used to be a frontrunner. I say she still makes it, but this is a strange category this year. Frieda Pinto was bizarrely nominated for a BAFTA for her performance in Slumdog Millionaire (she’s fine in the movie, but it’s a nothing role that requires a lot of smiling and not much else), while Rosemarie Dewitt should have a better chance (she plays the Rachel in Rachel Getting Married) but hasn’t been able to garner enough buzz.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Robert Siegel, The Wrestler
Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Jenny Lumet, Rachel Getting Married
Andrew Stanton, Wall-E

Another rough category, with no main frontrunners and about ten viable candidates. Other potentials include the Coen brothers for Burn After Reading, J. Michael Straczynskin for Changeling, Tom McCarthy for The Visitor, Mike Leigh for Happy-Go-Lucky, and Nick Schenk for Gran Torino. So while I’m completely lost, on the other hand, it’s nice to have such a wealth of nomination-worthy original screenplays out there.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Eric Roth, Forrest Gump (er, I mean The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, The Dark Knight

Alternate: David Hare for The Reader, and maybe Justin Haythe for Revolutionary Road but probably not. A much more in focus category than Original Screenplay.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Wall-E
Kung Fu Panda
Bolt

The artsy animated documentary Waltz with Bashir might make it in, but honestly, probably not enough members of the Academy at large have seen it.

BEST FOREIGN FILM
The Class
The Baader Meinhof Complex
Waltz with Bashir
Three Monkeys
Everlasting Moments

I’ve actually seen one of these this year: The Class, which was really good. And I know a little bit about The Baader Meinhof Complex and Waltz with Bashir. The other two, honestly, I ripped off somebody else’s list online. Which he probably guessed at random from the list of semifinalists.

Overall, look for Slumdog Millionaire and The Dark Knight to score the most nominations — because with or without a Best Picture nomination, Knight will clean up in the tech categories. I would like to say don’t overestimate Benjamin Button, but that’s just because I didn’t like it very much. If I had my own say, the five nominees would be The Dark Knight, Doubt, The Wrestler, Wall-E, and In Bruges (although despite knocking the performances in Slumdog Millionaire, I really liked that movie too). But if we’re talking about that, you might as well just read my official top ten list.

Watch Forest Whitaker and Academy president Sid Ganis announce the nominations tomorrow morning on TV at 8:30 a.m. EST. It’s the only day of the year I get up early.

Stranded in Manhattan has now had the same layout (ignoring some very minor tweaks) since March 2007. If you’ve been around for a while, you know that’s something of a record for this site. I used to change the layout practically once a month.

Even the ’07 redesign, by the way, wasn’t that big of a change — for the last overhaul, let’s call it, you’d have to jump back to September ’06, when I first started using Blogger. Before that, the site looked a little amateurish on account of it being entirely my own code (using only HTML — not even CSS). And before that, it was created using…ew…Microsoft Word, which should just abandon any preconception it has about being able to make web pages.

Back then I believe it was called “Home of the Moviefreak.” Cute.

This memory lane trip is because, yes, I’m reinventing the site once again, although aside from the layout it won’t be as drastic as I’m making it out to be. It’ll be on a new domain (I finally decided I couldn’t rest with an inaccurate title) and use a WordPress theme that I’m currently in the process of revamping to suit my taste.

I can’t give you a time frame, but I just wanted to get a post up since I haven’t checked in for a while.

In the meantime, you might want to check out thecinemasource.com/blog, the successfully redesigned news section that you should totally bookmark and visit every day. It averages about four new articles per weekday, with a focus on more original articles alongside our traditional “Guess who’s been cast”/”Check out the new poster” items.

As for reviews, feel free to chew on Twilight, Bolt, Role Models, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, High School Musical 3, Synecdoche, New York, and Sex Drive.

Finally, I’ll also be starting an honest-to-goodness Oscar/awards blog with the same people who let me write for DailyLost. Check back for more info soon.

I’m back.  Again.  This site has been down over the past couple of days because I was a day late renewing my domain name.  Then when I did renew it, my hosting provider had accidentally billed me twice, so since I’d only paid once it still wasn’t registering that it was fixed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn’t update this website at all during July and August. But I’m back now, and ready to pretend that the lack of posts was a conscious decision to take a summer vacation from Stranded in Manhattan.

I finally got my internet fixed last Monday. The Time Warner dude came and discovered after climbing up a telephone pole that someone had disconnected our wires and stuck their own in instead. Awesome.

Why Customer Service couldn’t just tell me I was disconnected after calling about it three times is not a big mystery: the only thing Customer Service ever tells you to do is unplug your modem and then plug it back in. If that doesn’t work, they’re utterly useless.

Anyway, last weekend I avoided staring longingly at my modem by going away for the weekend for my birthday. Now things are back to normal, so let’s get down to business:

THECINEMASOURCE:

• Wanted review
• The Love Guru review
• Get Smart review
• James McAvoy interview for Wanted
• Romany Malco interview for The Love Guru
• Chris O’Donnell video for Kit Kittredge:

MOVIEZEN:

• The Top 5 Stoner Movies – because Pineapple Express looks really good
• The Rise and Pseudo-Success of Viral Marketing – does it work or not?
• Wanted Explodes in a Surprising Summer – a look at the summer box office so far

DAILYLOST:

• Lost is an Emmy semifinalist
• More with CQC and Dominic Monaghan
• A bit more about Octagon Global Recruiting
• Another Casting Rumor
• Nestor Carbonell a Season 5 regular?
• Present Time
• When you gotta go…
• The Libby/Annie Dust-Up

For the past ten days, I haven’t been able to connect to the Internet at my apartment. Six days in, I called the cable company. They said it was an outage in the area and would be back up ASAP. I said it’d been out since Saturday. They said, “Wow, that’s a long time. Bye,” and hung up.

Since 100% of the stuff I need to do requires being online, it’s been a rough week as I’ve suddenly found myself frantically trying to do everything conceivable during work hours. Then when I get home, I find myself with absolutely nothing to do. I spent the weekend watching Degrassi: The Next Generation marathons and actually – gasp – reading a book. (Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke, which so far is quite good.)

Anyway, I’ll stop lamenting to let y’all know what I have been able to pump out over the last two weeks:

THECINEMASOURCE:

• The Incredible Hulk review
• The Happening review
• You Don’t Mess with the Zohan review
• Kung Fu Panda review

• Interviews with the cast & director at The Happening premiere:

• Exclusive interview with Quid Pro Quo star Vera Farmiga:

MOVIEZEN:

• Embarking Down ‘The Road’ – a preview of a cool upcoming movie

DAILYLOST:

• The People Speak
• Lost writer becomes a Middleman
• Cynthia Watros talks Lost
• Candid interview with Naveen Andrews
• My attempt to piece together next season’s timeline
• Watch Hurley sing
• Ranking the Season 4 episodes
• Charlotte’s past and future
• Sawyer’s secret: a moot point, but cool anyway
• Boone! Charlie! Libby! How did I miss this?
• When fanfic and theories collide
• Underground polar bears and a revived Locke?
• Television Critics Associations loves Lost
• The reluctant viewer
• Spoiler: Jin’s Fate
• Lost on The Daily Show: Hilarious
• Taller Walt spotted once again
• Overall season ratings
• Claire downgraded for now
• Harold Perrineau clarifies comments (and lands a pilot)
• Sun: Villain?
• Finale ratings