The 81st Annual Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, February 22, 2009, Academy President Sid Ganis announced today.

The ceremony will again take place at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.

Key dates announced:

Monday, December 1, 2008: Official Screen Credits forms due
Friday, December 26, 2008: Nominations ballots mailed
Monday, January 12, 2009: Nominations polls close 5 p.m. PT
Thursday, January 22, 2009: Nominations announced 5:30 a.m. PT, Samuel Goldwyn Theater
Wednesday, January 28, 2009: Final ballots mailed
Monday, February 2, 2009: Nominees Luncheon
Saturday, February 7, 2009: Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards presentation
Tuesday, February 17, 2009: Final polls close 5 p.m. PT
Sunday, February 22, 2009: 81st Annual Academy Awards presentation

From AwardsDaily:

“The dates are in keeping with those of recent years, since the presentation date was moved from March to February. However, one notable change for the 81st Awards is the move of the Nominations Announcement from the traditional Tuesday to a Thursday. The switch was made to avoid a conflict with the 2009 Presidential Inauguration.”

This is just the beginning of what I hope to be another great Oscar season like last year, I am so excited already!

You could look at the following one of two ways, either, a bunch of crap written by a bored kid on a Sunday night who should be studying or think how much fun it would be to participate in an Oscar Forecast type debate thing. The later may only appeal to people who have no lives outside of film, so I am in.

These “predictions” that I sucked out of my thumb (imdb helped…) are not to be taken too seriously, I urge you to take them with about ten pinches of salt. These are up with a not-so-complete list of films to look out for in 2008 on the Oscar Corridor 2008 page. These predictions are not rigid and will probably change on a weekly basis, and these are only predictions for the major categories, with a full write-up coming soon enough.

Best Picture:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Revolutionary Road
Milk

Best Director:

David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button*
Joe Wright - The Soloist
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Sam Mendes - Revolutionary Road
Gus Van Sant - Milk

Read the rest of this entry »