Oscar predictions

The Academy Awards are finally here! I'll probably spend the next 48 hours alternating between frustration at not being able to watch it (curse you Murdoch, curse you!) and desperate scrabbling on the web and TV for info on the winners and losers (of the awards and in the dress stakes).

This year there should be few surprises for the major awards, so I'm not going out on a limb here, but for form's sake these are my predictions (use the Datablog's handy guide to make yours).

Best actor: Colin Firth (but I'd rather James Franco)
Best actress: Natalie Portman (not seen it but surely deserves it for what she put herself through)

Supporting actor: Christian Bale (can he share it with John Hawkes please?)
Supporting actress: Melissa Leo (brilliant)

Best director: The Social Network (why oh why wasn't 127 Hours nominated?)
Best picture: The Social Network
Animated film: Toy Story 3
Foreign Film: In a Better World

Adapted screenplay: The Social Network
Original screenplay: The King's Speech

Original score: The Social Network (go Trent Reznor!)
Original Song: If I Rise (Randy Newman has too many Oscars already)

Documentary: Inside Job (but I think Banksy would make for better TV)
Documentary short: Strangers No More

Short animation: The Gruffalo
Short live action: God of Love

Art direction: Inception
Cinematography: Inception
Editing: The King's Speech

Costume: The King's Speech
Makeup: The Wolfman (because B-movies deserve credit too)

Sound editing: True Grit
Sound mixing: True Grit
Visual effects: Inception

Year of pleasures #2: Oscars season

I love the Oscars. I used to stay up all night to watch, when it was on the BBC, with a big bowl of popcorn and a few drinks to get me through until 6am. Now it's on Sky (grr) I have to rely on the web, 24 hour news channels and BBC Breakfast the morning after. I get a lot more sleep but it's nowhere near as exciting as watching it live, unedited and unpolished. Even though the Baftas has ramped up the glamour in recent years, no other award ceremony can quite hold a candle to the Oscars.

Nominations were released today, and while there's always a chance that the Academy could vote against the grain, so far Colin Firth (The King's Speech - the Academy likes an impediment) and Natalie Portman (Black Swan - physically demanding role) look like shoo-ins for the best acting prizes.

I may be on maternity leave but in my absence one of my colleagues is keeping an eye on the nominees and winners of all the major trophies this awards season. Before you make your Oscars predictions check out the form of all the nominees on the Datablog.

Don't mess with the Oscars

So the Oscars have finally rolled around. I used to relish it as a highlight of the year until BBC lost the rights to Sky. Highlights just don't cut it - too many musical interludes, a sanitised version with all the controversial - and funny - speeches edited out. You can't beat sitting up all night, popcorn and beer on hand, waiting to see if your predictions come true and if the Academy throws any curveballs.

Anyway, even without that excitement, I'm eager to see who they pick this year (you can see my predictions on the Datablog nominees/winners tracker, if you scroll through the comments at the bottom).

There's an argument (espoused by David Thomson on the Guardian blog this week) that the Oscars are losing favour with the American public - viewing figures seem to get lower every year - but I think that's missing the point. Yes, the nominated films sometimes have little or no audience at the American box office. But the awards should be about quality, not popularity. Some of the biggest films in the US are really poor - Big Momma's House anyone?

Even if the Academy voted along populist lines, they're unlikely to get viewing figures anything like decades ago, when the public revered their film stars, before their every flaw was instantly revealed on gossip websites.

Cut the budget, by all means - scrap the gimmicks, the hugely expensive presenter goody bags, the self-congratularoy love-ins, the horribly unfunny scripted comedy sketches, all those musical interludes - but don't pander to a public - and a network - that doesn't care about quality filmmaking.

Oscars night is about the industry, voted for by the industry, and the people who genuinely care about good filmmaking will keep watching. Everyone else can watch the MTV Movie Awards.

Oscars countdown

I've been busy with a few Datablog posts lately - one on teen drug misuse, one on deadly earthquakes - but my favourite one of the moment is tracking all the major winners over the film awards season.

Until the BBC lost the rights to the Oscars, it was one of the highlights of my television year, staying up late (usually til 6 or 7 in the morning) with popcorn and beer to watch it live. I miss the build-up but now that I'm writing about it I feel excited again.

Every year I plan to watch the films that have generated the most Oscar buzz, but never get round to it. This year I'm determined to catch at least some of them at the cinema - films like Up In the Air, The Hurt Locker, Crazy Heart, all of which have done well in the nominations so far. I don't think I'll be checking out Avatar though (despite the Golden Globe nods) - I'm sure it looks amazing but the story just doesn't seem that original.

The Academy Award nominations are out later this week but I'm prepared to look stupid by casting my predictions early - Jeff Bridges for best actor, Sandra Bullock best actress (white female teacher coaches black student - it's a shoe-in unless Oscar fave Meryl Streep wins the votes), Kathryn Bigelow for director, The Hurt Locker best film, Mo'Nique and Christoph Waltz for supporting roles (they've won everything so far so not much of a gamble!). Let's hope they get nominated now!

Booker club

I wrote a piece for the Datablog last week on Booker prize winners and whether it boosts sales. In the process I came across a Guardian blog, the Booker club, in which Sam Jordison reads and reviews a different Booker winner each month.

Whenever a new 'top 100 books ever' type list comes out I promise myself I will read all of them, but never quite get beyond the first few. So the Booker winners list, standing at only 43 books so far, is much more achievable.

I've only read three or four of them in the past, which is shameful considering the list includes classics like Midnight's Children, The Remains of the Day, The God of Small Things and Possession.

I'm not sure how easy it will be to get hold of some of the early winners (The Elected Member, anyone?) but let's see how far I get this time! The Man Booker archive even stores the shortlists, too, which should keep me going a few years.

Check me out on the Datablog!

I had a really busy day at work yesterday, most of it spent putting together a few blogposts for the Guardian's Datablog. It's quite exciting writing something directly to the web which you know people are actually going to read.

The first was a list of Patrick Swayze films and the money they made at the box office - hardly cutting edge news I know but interesting anyway. And the second was a post about crop circles, inspired by Google's crop circle doodle. Much more interesting and useful, and the data can definitely be manipulated to create some interesting mapping or diagrams (and not, as one commenter thinks, to run rampant over some poor farmer's field).

The crop circles even makes it to the top of the list on Google's news site, if you search for "crop circles" (well, almost to the top, but I can't begrudge a fellow Guardian post).

I did some work on the department spending post too, so I'm feeling pretty smug workwise.