First and foremost, we would like to thank all of you who supported us on Sunday and followed the live blog. It was a big day for Sexy Gypsy, and it really set the bar high.

Unfortunately, the Academy set the bar pretty low for hosting this year. Hugh Jackman, while slightly entertaining and charismatic at first, bored us to death with the constant musical numbers. This is the Oscars, dammit, we didn’t watch the Grammies for a reason. Also, the new format for actor awards runs a little long for our taste. Do we really need past winners standing up there talking one by one about the nominees for this year? We know Heath Ledger was an amazing Joker, do we really need Kevin Kline to tell us again? And if Cuba Gooding Jr. wants to be on stage at the red carpets, maybe he should be in a movie that doesn’t suck ass.

So despite some random last minute decisions, Sexy Gypsy did pretty well in predicting the Oscars this year. Our preview was right on the money for the big categories, even if our ballots weren’t. Unlike past years, there were no really big upsets. So let’s recap:

Best Picture: We all knew that Slumdog Millionaire was going to sweep the awards again. Milk was an amazing contender, but couldn’t stand up to the sheer brilliance in editing, direction, sound, and writing that Slumdog brought. Well deserved.

Best Director: David Fincher and Ron Howard have done better work. Stephen Daldry’s presence, not only in this category, but also in every other category The Reader was nominated, was a ridiculous, unwarranted usurping of Sam Mendes’ rightful seat with Revolutionary Road. Van Sant gave him a good run for the money, but Danny Boyle couldn’t be ignored any longer. Well deserved.

Best Actor: Minus Brad Pitt, this category was stacked. Jenkins, Langella, Penn, and Rourke all gave amazing performances. But it really came down to the latter two, and even though Prop 8 could’ve pushed Penn to the win, he was fantastic, and at least Rourke is again on the radar. Questionable, but well deserved.

Best Actress: Anne Hathaway hasn’t been as typecast as most people believe. Her role in Havoc was enough for us to take her seriously. Unfortunately, she was up against two major actresses (not counting Melissa Leo or Angelina Jolie). However, Streep has had her Oscar recognition, and Winslet was due after so many dead end nominations. Well deserved, wrong film (should have been Revolutionary Road).

Best Supporting Actor: If you read our preview, you know our conspiracy theories in this category. But there was only ever a slight doubt in anyone’s mind that Ledger would walk with this one. His “eclectic” career aside, this was not only his best performance, but one of the best of all time. Hey Downey, why so serious? Well deserved.

Best Supporting Actress: This category wasn’t really stellar, but everyone did a good job in their roles. Amy Adams, however, was definitely a head above the rest, in emotion and in screen time. Predicting this one was disappointing, because we knew Cruz would take it for being involved in an otherwise-not-nominated Woody Allen film. Undeserved.

Other categories of interest

Foreign Language: Waltz with Bashir should’ve taken this, and most people thought it would. Always gotta be on the lookout for the underdog.

Shorts: It is surprising that On the Line or Manon on the Asphalt didn’t take it, considering they were more the Academy’s usual taste, but Toyland was interesting and well edited, and the only WWII film even nominated this year. Also surprising, but definitely exciting, was the Academy’s decision to look past Pixar’s usual animated brilliance and give the Oscar to La Maison en Petits Cubes, the emotional Japanese film with a French name.

Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire was an amazing adaptation, as shown by its eight wins this year. However, we still believe that, with any other director, the script would have fallen short. Doubt, though sub par in acting and directing, was an amazingly well written film, full of amazing dialogue. Milk was the obvious choice for Original Screenplay. It built and developed all the characters for the actors to round out, and there wasn’t a weak link in the bunch.

Another surprise was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. All three of this film’s awards (Visual Effects, Art Direction, and Makeup) beat out The Dark Knight, which was a thousand times better in all of them. This is either an apology to Fincher for ignoring Zodiac, or an apology to Brad Pitt that he will never, ever, ever be Batman. Robin, maybe, but not The Dark Knight.

Overall, a good year for movies, and a solid Academy Awards ceremony. We will of course be starting this all over again next November, but for now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Thanks for the support.

-Sexy Gypsy

Best Picture

Of the five films in this category, only two really have a shot. Frost/Nixon was a great stage adaptation with amazing performances and, while solid, was ultimately compromised by Ron Howard’s lack of technical abilities. The Reader was boring, poorly constructed, and probably the most overrated film in the last 20 years. And Benjamin Button was average at best.

That leaves us with Milk and Slumdog Millionaire. And it’s close.

Milk was perfectly casted, acted and edited. Thankfully, Gus van Sant showed enough restraint not to fuck it up with his usual annoyingly pseudo-artistic direction. Add to that the best performance of Sean Penn’s career and you have a serious contender for Best Picture.

But, unfortunately for Gus van Sant and Milk, 2009 is the year of Slumdog. With great music, flawless direction and screenplay, Slumdog Millionaire has finally brought Danny Boyle to the forefront of cinema. He’s a versatile director who can excel in any genre, and Slumdog’s complex, non-linear story line really allowed him to showcase his skills. The result was a beautifully executed film whose broad appeal, blending of cultures, and surprising rise to recognition puts it over the top.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Slumdog Millionaire

WHO WILL WIN: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor

Why is Brad Pitt in this category? He gave a much better, rounder performance in A River Runs Through It and is the weak link in this category with his one-note portrayal of Benjamin Button. Richard Jenkins is finally getting the love he deserves, after years of being “that guy”—you recognize him, know he’s in things, but you don’t know his name or why you seem to remember him (if you still don’t know who he is, he’s the dead father in Six Feet Under). Unfortunately, his well-developed performance will be eclipsed by the big three: Mickey Rourke, Frank Langella, and Sean Penn. This will ultimately be decided by politics: the resurrection of Mickey Rourke, the Nixon scandal, or the gay character post-prop 8.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Mickey Rourke WHO WILL WIN: Sean Penn, because the Academy loves him.

Best Actress

First off, the Academy needs to decide what constitutes a leading role, because Kate Winslet should have been up for Revolutionary Road, not The Reader, both for technical and performance-quality reasons. She’ll probably win, but only because Stephen Daldry is a marketing whore and has been politicking for The Reader like he was Blagojevich selling a Senate seat.

Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie both had great roles, but it was more the writing than they acting that made their characters special. While Angelina Jolie will get a nomination for anything in which she’s not half naked shooting at people, Streep didn’t bring the expected veteran-actress energy to an already well written character—and it fell short.

Melissa Leo in Frozen River was an interesting choice. A small, low-budget, independent film shot in 24 days spawns a Best Actress nomination? But it’s a well-crafted story—solid throughout. As for Melissa Leo’s performance, as good a job as she did, she’s not beating out Streep, let alone Winslet.

Anne Hathaway, on the other hand, deserves credit for nailing her part as a fresh-out-of-rehab junkie—a role often cliched, parodied, and overplayed. Sadly, no one saw Rachel Getting Married. It’s not a great film but Hathaway more than makes up for it (Plus, Tunde from TV on The Radio plays her brother-in-law-to-be!)

WHO SHOULD WIN: Anne Hathaway WHO WILL WIN: Kate Winslet

Best Supporting Actor

Robert Downey, Jr. is an amazing actor and definitely deserves some fucking recognition. But Tropic Thunder? Really?? It’s picks like this that make people clown the Oscar. Everyone else was solid, but Josh Brolin, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michael Shannon picked a shitty year to be nominated.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was miscast in the role of Father Flynn, and he did the best he could. Still, his subpar performance paled in comparison to most of his other work. Josh Brolin, though slightly outshone by the rest of the supporting cast, was impressive in Milk. He just seems to have bad luck—going against Daniel Day-Lewis last year, and now Heath Ledger. Michael Shannon had three great scenes, and blew me away in Revolutionary Road. He was the most interesting character in a Sam Mendes movie, which in itself says a lot, and he had a huge impact in his 120 seconds of screen time.

Yet as good as they were, Brolin and Shannon especially, no one is beating Heath Ledger. A solid, completely immersive portrayal of a psychotic clown in a movie that destroyed box offices everywhere? He deserves the award no matter what, and it only helps that he’s dead.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Heath Ledger (but only because he’s dead) WHO WILL WIN: Heath Ledger (but only because he’s dead)

Best Supporting Actress

How long do you have to be in a film to fulfill the “supporting” criteria? Viola Davis, though very emotional, had one scene in Doubt. However, she was just as memorable as Michael Shannon in her limited screen time. Penelope Cruz didn’t have a much bigger role, and she’s only here because she played a cup full of crazy in a Woody Allen movie, and her crazy wasn’t as good as crazies in the past (Wilkinson in Michael Clayton). But Amy Adams is a head above the rest in this category, and hopefully that’s enough.

Taraji Henson is here just because the Academy loved Benjamin Button, but it wasn’t a great film and she wasn’t all that good in it. Outside of Cruz, she’s the weakest nominee in this category. It was like she played the great-great-grandmother of her character in Hustle and Flow.

Marisa Tomei is the dark horse here. She gave an incredible performance in The Wrestler and she’s still ridiculously hot.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Amy Adams WHO WILL WIN: Penelope Cruz

Best Director

If you’ve ever read sexy gypsy, you already know our pick for Best Director. Motherfucking Danny Boyle.

Stephen Daldry is now on my shit list for The Reader—even more so for plugging the fuck out of an inferior movie and tricking everyone into thinking it was great. Who the fuck does he think he is, M. Night Shyamalan?

David Fincher is a great director with some amazing movies under his belt, but the travesty of Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not one of them. The sequence with Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt was the only time you really saw Fincher’s influence, and it was the best part of the film.

Ron Howard is still Hollywood’s golden boy, so it’s not surprising he was nominated for Frost/Nixon. Aside from persistent anachronisms and mishandling of time, Howard preserved the spirit of the stage play and the camera work was excellent.

Gus van Sant finally decided to humble himself and make a solid, consistent film, and is really the only one who could challenge Boyle. The Academy loves him, and could look to make up for robbing him of Best Director in 1997, plus some Prop 8 guilt could come into play. This is definitely a category to watch.

WHO SHOULD WIN: Danny Boyle (with an honorable mention and apology to Sam Mendes) WHO WILL WIN: Danny Boyle

Conspiracies

• Who did Sam Mendes piss off? He is a great filmmakers and Revolutionary Road, though disturbingly depressing, was an amazing film. Camera work, editing, score, acting, screenplay—all great. Yet the Academy left him out of the running and even changed the nomination for Kate Winslet, calling her performance in The Reader a lead—a role which the HFPA considered a supporting a few months ago. I think he’s in the doghouse for some reason, and Michael Shannon’s nomination is an apology. I suspect that, though Ledger has it locked, they might upset everything and give it to Shannon, just to show there’s no hard feelings.
• Amy Adams deserves to win best supporting, but everything in Hollywood is political (which could also explain Winslet’s bump to lead role after Daldry’s whoring). My guess is that Cruz could walk with this one because the Academy loves Woody Allen and they’re sorry he made a dumb movie they can’t nominate for anything else.
• Again making up for its past mistakes, the Academy has shown major love to Benjamin Button. They want so badly to let Pitt have one, but Babel just wasn’t that good. And Zodiac, Fincher’s first Academy-worthy film, just came out too early for Oscar consideration.
• 4.) Robert Downey, Jr. has been in some great movies, always does his roles beautifully, and the Academy thinks he’s due for something. But since Charlie Bartlett got impatient and fucked off what could have been a serious, profound ending, he couldn’t get anything for that. And Iron Man was entertaining, but no actor will ever get an Oscar for playing a superhero. Downey’s next film is The Soloist with Jamie Foxx, directed by Joe Wright. It would have been a contender for the Oscars but was pulled from its November release date and slated for early March, 2009. So now it comes down to Tropic Thunder.

So now that we’ve all had a chance to absorb the Oscar nominations, it’s time to start placing bets. We already mentioned that, in the last three years, every Oscar winner for Best Actor and Actress also won the Golden Globe. This year, however, the nominations aren’t even the same. Kate Winslet won Best Actress for Revolutionary Road, but the Academy decided to nominate her for The Reader. Not surprising, but still unfortunate, is the lack of nominations for Sam Mendes and Revolutionary Road. Michael Shannon is the only one who got a nod, with a Best Supporting Actor nomination. We’re still unclear as to why Mendes is absent on the ballot this year, especially when The Reader is up for Best Picture, and Stephen Daldry is up for Best Director (boring movie, and he’s a rookie).

Heath Ledger has a little more competition in this race for Best Supporting Actor, but we’re hoping he gets what’s due him after arguably the best performance of 2008. And kudos must be given to the Academy for calling our bluff in this category. Robert Downey Jr. is up for Best Supporting for Tropic Thunder; we’re still going to complain, but Downey really deserves an award after being overlooked for so long, so the razor blades we promised will not be forthcoming.

On a lighter note, Danny Boyle carried over all of his Golden Globe nominations, and he’s all over the Oscars. With any luck, the Academy will think outside its microscopic box and give credit to the underdog instead of going with the predictable choice (Ron Howard). The only movie to really rival Slumdog Millionaire this year was Milk. Gus van Sant deserves the nomination, maybe the win. The editing wasn’t as complex as Slumdog, but it was still good. And Sean Penn is definitely giving Mickey Rourke a run for his money as Best Actor.

The Supporting categories are also a bit strange, in that several of the nominees had very little screen time in the film. Viola Davis has like two scenes in Doubt. Penelope Cruz wasn’t really in Vicky Cristina Barcelona until the very end. Taraji P. Henson had a slightly bigger role in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but it was three hours long, and you didn’t see her that much. Even Michael Shannon only had three scenes in Revolutionary Road. Not that this is a first for the Academy (Tom Wilkinson for Michael Clayton, Ruby Dee for American Gangster), we’re just not sure how you justify giving an Oscar to someone who wasn’t really in the movie.

This year will not be the clash of the titans that last year was, but there are a lot of interesting choices, some standard nominations, and some unexplainable absences. It’s really anyone’s guess, but here at Sexy Gypsy, we’re smarter than everyone else, including the Academy, so be on the lookout for our official Oscar ballot choices next week.

Here at sexy gypsy, we’ve never really been into the Golden Globes. Call us pretentious, purists, elitists; but there have always only been two categories: The Oscars, and everything else (Golden Globes, MTV awards, Darwin awards, etc.). This year, however, we decided to pay attention.

We stand corrected.

It is true that the Globes are a little more mainstream, and a little more forgiving. They stick to the basic categories (best picture, director, actor, screenplay) and they differentiate drama and comedy, allowing questionable films a place on the red carpet (the day Tropic Thunder is nominated for an Oscar, we’ll be passing out razor blades). This ceremony also focuses on television, a medium that many people still hesitate to consider legitimate art. For those of you on the fence, we have six words: Dexter, Entourage, Weeds, Californication, True Blood. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizes these actors, actresses, writers, and directors in a way the Academy never will. However, even the HFPA makes mistakes.

David Duchovny,’s Hank Moody (Californication) is one of the best characters on television, in a show that features the best writing in years. Alan Ball, creator/writer of Six Feet Under, has switched genres and brings us the amazing and addictive new vampire drama True Blood. Yet Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, and 30 Rock swept the comedy awards, while AMC’s lackluster (this season at least) Mad Men beat out two of HBO’s heavy hitters, True Blood and In Treatment. And, even though the HFPA gave due credit to Anna Paquin (True Blood) and the epic miniseries John Adams (HBO), they need to work on their judgment.

As far as the film awards, the phrase, “It’s about damn time” immediately comes to mind. After so many years of being underappreciated and overlooked, Danny Boyle, Mickey Rourke, and Kate Winslet finally got what they deserved.

Danny Boyle, though having a unique and amazing career, has never been nominated for a Globe or an Oscar. This year, his film took home four (Best Director, Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score all for Slumdog Millionaire).

Mickey Rourke (Rumble Fish, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Sin City) has been getting a raw deal since his Razzie Award for Desperate Hours in 1991 (hence the substance abuse). 18 years later, the HFPA finally gave him Best Actor for his amazing performance in The Wrestler.

Kate Winslet has come close with 5 Oscar nominations and 7 from the Golden Globes (including 2 this year), but this was her first win. And she won both Best Actress for Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader.

Colin Farrell even graduated from the Teen Choice Awards, and brought home a Globe for his surprising work in In Bruges (Brendan Gleeson probably deserved it more, but whatever).

The most glaring problem this year was, sadly, unavoidable. It has apparent that everyone in Hollywood wants to fellate Woody Allen for everything he does. Because Vicky Cristina Barcelona was weak-sauce, and it still won Best Comedy (um, hi…not funny).

Overall, the Golden Globes made some good choices this year, at least for film. We only hope it’s an indication of the approaching Oscar nominations

And to anyone who would speak ill of Heath Ledger’s posthumous Best Supporting Actor award for The Dark Knight, shut your mouth until March, there’s already an Oscar with his name on it, and he fucking deserves it.