79th Annual Academy Awards

The nominees were announced and now the predictions begin. I haven't had a lot of chances to see many of the nominees, but I might as well take a stab at some predictions anyway.

Best Actor

I haven't seen any of these performances but I'll go with the favorite, Forrest Whitaker.

Best Supporting Actor

I saw the performances by Alan Arkin and Mark Walberg. Arkin definitely tops Walberg, though Walberg cursed a lot more and was mean because he was an asshole. Arkin was just cantankerous. I'll go with Arkin as the sentimental favorite.

Best Actress

Everyone is going for Mirren, but I'm going with Meryl Streep for one reason; Marisa Tomei. When Marisa was nominated for a supporting role, she was in a very tough field. Most considered her the underdog because the other actresses were highly regarded in their craft. But Marisa was the only American. She won.

By the way, if the term actor is supposed to be genderless, why do they have this category. Wouldn't it really shorten the show if they cut the two "actress" awards and just make it a free for all for best actor and best supporting? After all if Meryl Streep or some other nominee insists on being referred to as an ACTOR and not actress, how can she be nominated as an actress?

Best Supporting Actress

Another tough call. I say the two Babels cancel each other out and Blanchette and Hudson duke it out for the gold. Hudson by a knockout.

Best Director

Everyone wants to give it to Scorsese. I want to give it to Scorsese. But the Susan Lucci syndrome is going to continue. "The Departed" was good, but it's basically a remake of a Hong Kong hit. It's also another Scorsese organized crime flick. That's two strikes. Throw in the Lucci syndrome and Martin is out. "The Queen" is the winner here.

Best Picture

"Babel" and "Letters" is out. The voters don't like sub-titles. "Little Miss Sunshine" is charming and funny but nothing too special. So it's between "The Departed" and "The Queen". I think "The Departed" wins.

The Road to Suicide

We saw "An Inconvenient Truth" this past week and I found that it was very well done. Whether you believe in global warming or not, the movie presents compelling evidence that is hard to refute. One thing that really struck me however, was related to the U.S auto industry.

If Gore's numbers about fuel efficiency are legit, then it's clear to me that U.S. automakers are basically committing suicide. According to the numbers in the movie, the U.S. has the lowest fuel efficiency standards of any industrialized country in the world. Even (significantly) lower than China's. No wonder they can't sell many cars overseas.

If U.S. automakers want to sell in China, Japan or Europe, they have to modify existing vehicles to comply with each country's minimum standards. When you consider that fact that fuel prices are generally much higher in those countries than what we pay in the U.S., why would anyone in China, Japan or Europe buy an American-made gas guzzler (by their standards at least)?

U.S. automakers have been fighting tooth and nail against raising the standards to meet those of other countries. By doing so, they continue down a path of fewer sales overseas. Would it be so terrible to raise the standards so that all American-made vehicles can be sold anywhere? Wouldn't it be easier to manufacture vehicles that comply with higher efficiency standards and not have to alter the manufacturing process to create a vehicle that meets some other country's standards? After all, there's a reason Toyota and Honda are doing so well these days. It's the (fuel) economy stupid!

Hall of Shame, Maybe...

But not the Hall of Fame. I'm sure Bonds is only saying this because he'll face the same difficulty getting into the hall the McGuire and especially Rose will. They will all have to come clean one way or the other before they'll receive serious consideration for the Hall of Fame.

Positive Test For Bonds

Maybe it's a good thing that they're still working out the details of that $16 million contract. Barry still insists that he never used any performance enhancing substances. So why was he using uppers? And why would he be taking those uppers from his teammate's locker?

Is this something the Giants should be concerned with? After all, if Barry is willing to ingest some "unknown" substance from a teammate's locker, maybe he does have a problem. They better make sure there are a lot of bail-out clauses in that contract, because it looks like Barry is not going to be around to play a whole lot this year.

Raiders Got Shelled, So Art Gets Canned

What good does it do to say you're not going to fire the coach when you have every intention of doing so? There was very little doubt that Art Shell was going to be fired. Yet everyone in the Raider Nation kept insisting he'd be back. So why lie about it?

The thing is, it's not Art Shells fault that the Raiders sucked so bad this year, last year or the year before. The blame lies right in the lap of Al Davis. This is his team. He calls the shots. He mandates how the offense should play. So why blame Shell for the poor offense that Al put on the field? The only way the Raiders will regain their former glory is if Al Davis steps down and let's someone else make the decisions necessary to build the team into a contender again.

Unfortunately for Raider fans, that will only happen over Al's dead body.