Oscars, 2019. Here is who is going to win, and who SHOULD win. You're welcome.

I eliminated the minor categories, or categories where I just hadn't seen enough of the work to make an educated judgement. 

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

NOMINEES

CHRISTIAN BALE  <<SHOULD WIN

Vice

BRADLEY COOPER

A Star Is Born

WILLEM DAFOE

At Eternity's Gate

RAMI MALEK.   <<WILL WIN. barf.

Bohemian Rhapsody

VIGGO MORTENSEN

Green Book

Malik is a talented actor who overacts like Jim Carrey in...well, every Jim Carrey movie. It's not a character he creates, it's a characakture. But he's won everything else, it would be a shock if he didn't win this as well. 

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

NOMINEES

MAHERSHALA ALI

Green Book

ADAM DRIVER

BlacKkKlansman

SAM ELLIOTT

A Star Is Born

RICHARD E. GRANT. <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

SAM ROCKWELL

Vice

I am calling for a mild upset here over the favorite Ali. Grant has been a well-respected member of this community for 30+ years, giving excellent performances with little to no fanfare. This is the perfect time to reward him, given that Ali won a statue last year.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

NOMINEES

YALITZA APARICIO

Roma

GLENN CLOSE. <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

The Wife

OLIVIA COLMAN

The Favourite

LADY GAGA

A Star Is Born

MELISSA MCCARTHY

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

McCarthy won a Razzie yesterday, winning this would be quite a daily-double, but no chance. I am sorry, Gaga, you are a superstar who would deserve this award in almost ANY other year, but this is a no-brainer. One of the great performances in the recent history of cinema.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

NOMINEES

AMY ADAMS

Vice

MARINA DE TAVIRA

Roma

REGINA KING

If Beale Street Could Talk

EMMA STONE. <<SHOULD WIN

The Favourite

RACHEL WEISZ. <<WILL WIN

The Favourite

It says a lot about this class that absolutely nobody is talking about the incredible work that Amy Adams did, and has done for her entire career. One year she's going to get one of these, but it won't be this year. If Weisz doesn't win, look for the very popular Regina King to walk away with the hardware, in the only film in any of the acting categories that I have yet to see. 

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

NOMINEES

INCREDIBLES 2

Brad Bird, John Walker and Nicole Paradis Grindle

ISLE OF DOGS

Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson

MIRAI

Mamoru Hosoda and Yuichiro Saito

RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET

Rich Moore, Phil Johnston and Clark Spencer

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE. <<WILL WIN.

Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Amazingly I have not yet seen any of these except for Ralph, which was cute, but SpiderMan has won everything it has been eligible for, so this seems like another no-brainer.

DIRECTING

NOMINEES

BLACKKKLANSMAN

Spike Lee

COLD WAR

Paweł Pawlikowski

THE FAVOURITE

Yorgos Lanthimos

ROMA. <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

Alfonso Cuarón

VICE

Adam McKay

Will this be the year that the Academy makes up to Spike Lee for their unforgivable snub of Do the Right Thing, 30 years ago? Not likely. Cuarón is a near-lock here for everything he did to bring this beautiful, poignant little film to life. 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

NOMINEES

CAPERNAUM

Lebanon

COLD WAR

Poland

NEVER LOOK AWAY

Germany

ROMA. <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

Mexico

SHOPLIFTERS

Japan

It has a reasonable chance to win Best Picture, so this is the lock of the night.

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)

NOMINEES

ALL THE STARS

from Black Panther; Music by Kendrick Lamar, Mark “Sounwave” Spears and Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith; Lyric by Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith

I'LL FIGHT

from RBG; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren

THE PLACE WHERE LOST THINGS GO

from Mary Poppins Returns; Music by Marc Shaiman; Lyric by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman

SHALLOW. <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

from A Star Is Born; Music and Lyric by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt

WHEN A COWBOY TRADES HIS SPURS FOR WINGS

from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; Music and Lyric by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

Another 100% guaranteed lock.

BEST PICTURE

NOMINEES

BLACK PANTHER

Kevin Feige, Producer

BLACKKKLANSMAN

Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele and Spike Lee, Producers

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Graham King, Producer

THE FAVOURITE

Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday and Yorgos Lanthimos, Producers

GREEN BOOK

Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga, Producers

ROMA

Gabriela Rodríguez and Alfonso Cuarón, Producers

A STAR IS BORN. <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

Bill Gerber, Bradley Cooper and Lynette Howell Taylor, Producers

VICE

Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adam McKay and Kevin Messick, Producers

Definitely not a lock, but this was the best film of the year, by a pretty wide margin, and I am going to give the Academy enough credit to come to their senses. If an upset happens, look for Roma to prevail. If Bohemian Rhapsody wins, I am going to throw my TV off the balcony and never watch another movie. I mean, good grief.

VISUAL EFFECTS

NOMINEES

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.  <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

Dan DeLeeuw, Kelly Port, Russell Earl and Dan Sudick

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

Christopher Lawrence, Michael Eames, Theo Jones and Chris Corbould

FIRST MAN

Paul Lambert, Ian Hunter, Tristan Myles and J.D. Schwalm

READY PLAYER ONE

Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew E. Butler and David Shirk

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

Rob Bredow, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Dominic Tuohy

I mean, this epic film has to win SOMETHING, right?

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)

NOMINEES

THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

BLACKKKLANSMAN

Written by Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee

CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

Screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

Written for the screen by Barry Jenkins

A STAR IS BORN. <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

Screenplay by Eric Roth and Bradley Cooper & Will Fetters

BlackKKlanseman might come through here, as the Academy's way of honoring Lee, but I'm going to call the Best Picture winner to win for it's screenplay.

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

NOMINEES

THE FAVOURITE

Written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara

FIRST REFORMED

Written by Paul Schrader

GREEN BOOK

Written by Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly <<WILL WIN. SHOULD WIN

ROMA

Written by Alfonso Cuarón

VICE

Written by Adam McKay

Green Book is too good to come away with absolutely nothing, so this will have to be their consolation prize.

SuperBowl. And why it matters who won.

"Cheaters never prosper"
  - My mother, and probably your mother, and every other mother

"Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat"
  - Jesse "the Body" Ventura


Well another NFL season is in the books, and yes, I am incredibly disappointed in the result. The worst organization in the league won, again, proving that our mothers were just fucking liars and "the Body" was onto something.

The New England Patriots have been caught cheating twice.

CAUGHT.

TWICE.

Now, either they are the worst cheaters in the history of the world, and were caught both times they broke significant NFL rules, or they cheat all the time and have only been caught twice. I wonder which one of those statements is true?

The latter, of course.

Let's brush up on our history. We all probably remember Deflategate, in which Tom Brady was accused of having team equipment managers deflate game balls to fit his preference, a clear violation of the rules. Brady and the Patriots were levied huge penalties, not so much for the actual deflating of the footballs, but for lying to the league and failing to cooperate with the investigation. Brady was evasive, had his cell phone destroyed with a hammer, refused to turn over inculpatory evidence in the form of text messages, etc etc etc. The actual act of deflating the footballs wasn't all that relevant - you may remember they clobbered the Colts in the offending game, so it wasn't like the result was in question. But the lying, the evasion, the dishonesty.....Patriots football, all the way.

Before that, in 2007, there was Spygate, where the Patriots videotaped the NY Jets defensive coaches hand signals from unauthorized locations, in order to determine their play calls and get an unfair advantage. Read the entire article if you wish, but I'll sum it up for you: They cheated, the got caught, Belichick was fined a HALF MILLION DOLLARS, and there were tons of allegations that they had done this on many, many more occasions but it was never proven.

Critics can, I guess, say that I am just bitter because I hate this team and regret any success they may achieve. All of that is true...but it's not that I hate the organization that matters. It is WHY I hate them. They don't follow the rules. They, and their fans, can point to their 6 Super Bowl wins and say "See? That's all that matters. They win.".

OK. That's the kind of world we live in today. The results matter more than the method of achieving those results. We see that in many aspects of society, most notably in the President of the United States.

Let's put aside for a minute that, no surprise, the Patriots owner, coach, and overrated Quarterback are all Trump supporters. No, let's not put that aside - it matters. It shows a lack of character and judgement that lines up completely with their habit of playing fast and loose with the rules.

In 2016, Trump once famously said he could "stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any votes.".

Sadly, that has pretty much been proven in the 2+ years since he said that. His supporters don't give a damn what he does or what he says. If he stood in the middle of 5th Avenue and used a sub-machine gun to mow down a crown of Honduran children, his supporters would say "Yeah, but what about Hillary's Emails???".

The once-proud GOP has used this horror of a human being to further their agenda; to steal a Supreme Court seat and pass LGBTQ-unfriendly legislation. They are just like the Patriots. Win at all costs. Doesn't matter how you get there....just get there.

Nazis can march in Charlottetown and Trump says there were very fine people "on both sides". That is something that should have brought widespread condemnation from both sides of the aisle; but the GOP was largely silent. We've all seen what happens when anyone questions Trump. He lashes out at them on Twitter, the MAGA-army sends hate mail that generally includes all natures of horror including, usually, death threats, and then it all goes away.

The New England Patriots are Donald Trump. Their supporters will allow them to do whatever they want, as long as they win. If Bill Belichick shot someone in the middle of Newbury Street, Patriots fans would insist he got paroled in time for the next NFL season.

During the Patriots scandals, we never heard any of their fans, high-profile or otherwise, condemn their actions. On the contrary: all we got was bitching and moaning about how unfair the NFL was being to them. Poor, poor Tom Brady! He's allowed to do anything he wants to footballs, HE'S TOM FUCKING BRADY, THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME! Spoiler alert: He's not even close, but that's a conversation for another thread.

Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.

Thanks, Jesse.

Vacation Blog VI, Part IV, it's my favorite person's birthday today!!!

5:05 AM - Yeah really not that excited to be up this early. Slept OK, I guess, but sure could have used more. Perhaps I'll find time for a little nap later, but we have a fun day planned.

And I need a fun day, let me tell you. Yesterday's football results hit hard. I used to be very emotional about sports, and I rarely (if ever) get like that anymore, but the Chiefs losing to Tom Fucking Brady and his deflated balls in that fashion? Hard to live with.

If only there were a bunch of cute cat videos on the internet somewhere that could cheer me up.

But time to move on, and make today my wife's best birthday yet! She deserves no less. I am sure she will sleep for many, many more hours.

Speaking of which, I hear her stirring in the bedroom so maybe this is my chance to go back to bed without disturbing her.

9:35 AM - MUCH BETTER!!!!!!!!!!! She can sleep later if she likes, but I am much more rested now.

10:05 AM - The hard reality of real life smacks me in the face, as I get a notification that it's time to check in for our flight home tomorrow. Four nights here is just not enough. Luckily we are just a few months away from our next trip here.....we do it all again for six nights, with the main event being AEROSMITH!!! And in even better seats than we had for Gaga. Awesome!

10:15 AM - The birthday girl is up and is a fantastic mood until she looks at her phone and sees the boarding pass I sent her for tomorrow's flight. Rage ensues.

....but it's short lived. Our free breakfast has been ordered and she hops into the shower to prepare for the day. There are about 12 things we want to accomplish on our last day here, and we actually will try to do 2 or 3 of them. We will see how successful we are.

10:45 AM - Well holy shit, as we are eating breakfast the fire alarm goes off!! Oh man. Tracey runs to get dressed while I go to the safe and grab our valuables and our passports and get ready to run down 23 flights of stairs. OMG I hope there isn't a huge fire in the Hotel.

Um....as we get into the hallway, we notice that the fire alarm is going off ONLY IN OUR FUCKING SUITE!! Well, I guess the hotel isn't on fire.

It takes 15 minutes for a maintenance guy to get up here. He is great and solves the problem quickly, but Tracey did not ask for a splitting headache for her birthday, and that's what she got. Not so great.

I hop into the shower....AND THE FUCKING THING GOES OFF AGAIN.

11:45 AM - Same maintenance guy is here, and this time he is actually removing both smoke detectors and replacing them with new ones. Having said that, the ones that kept going off were brand new already he said, so he is unsure of what the problem is. Suffice it to say we are not particularly pleased. Damn good thing this didn't happen at 3 in the morning.

We will have to have a chat with the front desk when we go down. Not acceptable.

Maintenance guy finds the issue......a wire that was not attached properly when the smoke detector was installed. Well, at least this shouldn't reoccur.

12:15 PM - Downstairs to hop into the car to go to the Mirage. We have a couple of comp passes to the Secret Garden & Dolphin Habitat. While we go outside to wait, I realize that the weatherman wasn't kidding when he issued a wind advisory for today. Here is me, a fucking dumbass, in shorts and tank top. Quickly upstairs to put on a T-shirt and jeans, and honestly that isn't really even enough. It's freaking cold today, a departure from the beautiful mild weather we have enjoyed so far this trip.

I'm pretty cold most of the time while at the Garden....but you know who else is cold? The cats!! Usually we are here when it is stifling hot and the bigt cats sit there and do nothing due to the heat. That's not the case today! They are all up and around, and there is even some frolicking and play fighting. We got some incredible pictures. Just a couple examples.

Those are from my camera; Tracey got some better ones with her new iPhone which has a 10X zoom. I'll post some of those after we are home.

Oh, before leaving the Mirage we head to Rhumbar and I pick up my first, and only, Pina Colada of the trip. I am a little bit disgusted with myself, but at least I made up for it with extra great wine. I mean, you can only drink SO much, right? At least that's what I've heard.

3:30 PM - After some more retail therapy (it was a really, really, really good birthday for someone - when we walked into Jimmy Choo they all screamed "THE ENGEMOENS ARE BACK! THE ENGEMOENS ARE BACK!!!), we head to Trevi for lunch/dinner/whatever you call a meal at 4 PM. The food is fantastic as always

5:40 PM - Back to the room and I am going to have a soak while Tracey packs. As soon as she is done, I would anticipate I will be physically removed from the tub as she will take over for "Birthday Bath". It will be epic. That's not a prediction - that's a spoiler.

6:52 PM - Tracey is just about done with the packing and I am out of the bath so as to avoid a confrontation. It's her world, I'm just livin' in it.

And besides, I mean it's almost 7 PM, I'm freaking exhausted. Time for bed! I need my rest to try to outrun the border guards tomorrow when they see how much we bought down here. Aye, carumba!

Oh, and I was wearing my Chiefs T-shirt today and I cannot count the number of people that said they were so sorry to see them lose yesterday. Nobody likes the fucking Patriots!!!!!!


Chances are this will be it for my blogging this trip; if I write one tomorrow it will probably be because something extraordinary happens (and I'm not sure I want anything extraordinary to happen on a simply travel day), so, until April....

Engemoen out!