Initial Thoughts

Overall, I am very happy with the nominations this year. The films are deserving and there is no distinct frontrunner. In my predictions, I mostly erred in following the path of Into the Wild through the guilds. I should have gone with my gut instinct all season on that film - that it wouldn't appeal to the older Academy voters. Oh well. I still got a respectable, 67% overall and 73% in the major categories. If I give myself half points for the spoiler choices it bumps up to 75% and 81% respectively. Not too bad, but I've done better. There is always next year.

Now that the race for the win is on, here's your list of films to see before the big show, in order of priority. I actually calculated based on number of nominations, weighing big categories more than smaller ones (giving no weight to whether I thought they were likely to win those categories). Let's see how far down the list we get this year. There's only 47 films, so it shouldn't take more than 100 hours.

1. Michael Clayton
2. There Will Be Blood
3. No Country for Old Men
4. Atonement
5. Juno
6. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
7. Ratatouille
8. Away from Her
9. The Savages
10. Sweeney Todd
11. La Vie En Rose
12. Elizabeth: The Golden Age
13. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
14. Eastern Promises
15. In the Valley of Elah
16. Into the Wild (can you believe how low this is!)
17. American Gangster
18. Charlie Wilson's War
19. I'm Not There
20. Gone Baby Gone
21. Mongol
22. The Counterfeiters
23. 12
24. Beaufort
25. Katyn
26. Transformers
27. Lars and the Real Girl
28. The Bourne Ultimatum
29. 3:10 to Yuma
30. Enchanted
31. No End in Sight
32. Sicko
33. War/Dance
34. Taxi to the Dark Side
35. Operation Homecoming
36. Persepolis
37. Surf's Up
38. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
39. The Golden Compass
40. The Kite Runner
41. Across the Universe
42. Once
43. August Rush
44. The Animated Shorts
45. The Live-Action Shorts
46. The Documentary Shorts

And only, only if you've seen all of those. As a last resort....
47. Norbit

I've seen 15 already and plan on doubling that before the big night. Race you there!