The official US trailer for Satoshi Kon's Paprika (a film I had earlier talked about here) has finally arrived:



The original trailers released earlier in Japan:

The winners of the 79th Academy Awards and how I did well in my predictions ("will win" predictions I got correct are in boldface, "should win" are in italic, "could win" are in asterisk):

BEST PICTURE: The Departed
BEST ACTOR: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
BEST ACTRESS: Helen Mirren, The Queen
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine *
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, The Departed (FINALLY!)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Little Miss Sunshine
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Departed
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Happy Feet *
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: An Inconvenient Truth
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: The Lives of Others, Germany *
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pan's Labyrinth
BEST EDITING: The Departed
BEST ART DIRECTION: Pan's Labyrinth
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Marie Antoinette
BEST MAKEUP: Pan's Labyrinth
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: Gustavo Santaolalla, Babel
BEST ORIGINAL SONG: "I Need to Wake Up", An Inconvenient Truth
BEST SOUND MIXING: Dreamgirls
BEST SOUND EDITING: Letters from Iwo Jima
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Lots of surprises in the minor categories, I mean Babel's score over Pan's Labyrinth? Children of Men losing in Cinematography? The Lives of Others winning over Pan's Labyrinth in Best Foreign Language Film?

Though I was finally glad to see Scorsese finally win an Oscar (presented to him by Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg no less) coupled by The Departed winning the wide-open Best Picture race. This calls for a celebration, courtesy of The Dropkick Murphys:

My annual Oscar predictions:

Will win
Should win
* = Could win

BEST PICTURE

The Departed
Little Miss Sunshine
Babel
The Queen * (the votes might split to its favor)
Letters from Iwo Jima

BEST ACTOR

Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Peter O'Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson

BEST ACTRESS

Helen Mirren, The Queen
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Penelope Cruz, Volver
Kate Winslet, Little Children

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine *
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine *
Adriana Barraza, Babel

BEST DIRECTOR

Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Paul Greengrass, United 93
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Little Miss Sunshine
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen
Babel
Letters from Iwo Jima

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Departed
Children of Men *
Notes on a Scandal
Little Children
Borat

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Cars
Happy Feet *
Monster House

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Deliver Us from Evil
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Pan's Labyrinth, Mexico
The Lives of Others, Germany *
Water, Canada
After the Wedding, Denmark
Days of Glory, France

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Children of Men
Pan's Labyrinth
The Prestige
The Illusionist
The Black Dahlia

BEST EDITING

The Departed
Babel
Children of Men *
United 93
Blood Diamond

BEST ART DIRECTION

Pan's Labyrinth
Dreamgirls
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Prestige
The Good Shepherd

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Curse of the Golden Flower
Dreamgirls
The Queen
Marie Antoinette
The Devil Wears Prada *

BEST MAKEUP

Pan's Labyrinth
Apocalypto
Click

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Javier Navarrete, Pan's Labyrinth
Alexandre Desplat, The Queen
Gustavo Santaolalla, Babel
Phillip Glass, Notes on a Scandal
Thomas Newman, The Good German

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

"I Need to Wake Up", An Inconvenient Truth
"Our Town", Cars
"Listen", Dreamgirls
"Love You I Do", Dreamgirls *
"Patience", Dreamgirls

BEST SOUND MIXING

Dreamgirls
Apocalypto
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Flags of Our Fathers
Blood Diamond

BEST SOUND EDITING

Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns *

On this very special day comes a very special video courtesy of The Colbert Report:

Today I had my orientation for my first paying job working in the nearby theme park Six Flags Magic Mountain as a parking lot attendant. Tomorrow I'll start my training and receive my uniform. While I'm happy I finally have a job to earn extra income, I've originally preferred a much fitting workplace that suits my tastes, which is why I previously applied at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Edwards Theaters, Ralphs, Starbucks, and Best Buy to no avail.

This week was also the start of my spring semester, and I'm both excited and nervous in taking film classes again. It's good to know that I've met some of my classmates earlier last fall, the teachers in the classes are hip and laidback (but still a strict demeanor when it comes to assignements), and I might finally break my self-imposed hiatus in making short films (though technically they were shot in video, mini DV format to be precise). Hope the same thing happens to my writer's block.

For one of my classes, the teacher assigned us to come up with an "idea journal" which I can't wait to get started. I've always considered creating a "book of thoughts" (like Fellini or Burton) once I finally got my career going in the future. In the same class, we were also told to do a "mission statement film", even though I'll almost basically do a film version of my Friendster/MySpace page.

The two underground artists arrested for putting up the LED magnetic boards that caused quite a ruckus yesterday in Boston as part of a guerrila marketing campaign for a movie talk to the press and savors in their new cause celebre status. Enjoy!