The 77th Annual Academy Awards

My Predictions & the Actual Winners
Correct: 12 out of 24

Best Picture:
The Aviator
Million Dollar Baby (Winner)
Ray
Finding Neverland
Sideways

Best Director:
Taylor Hackford, Ray
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby (Winner)
Martin Scorsese, The Aviator
Alexander Payne, Sideways
Mike Leigh, Vera Drake

Best Actor:
Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda
Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Jamie Foxx, Ray (Winner)

Best Actress:
Annette Bening, Being Julia
Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace
Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake
Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby (Winner)
Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Best Supporting Actor:
Alan Alda, The Aviator
Thomas Haden Church, Sideways
Jamie Foxx, Collateral
Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby (Winner)
Clive Owen, Closer

Best Supporting Actress:
Cate Blanchett, The Aviator (Winner)
Laura Linney, Kinsey
Virginia Madsen, Sideways
Sophie Okonedo, Hotel Rwanda
Natalie Portman, Closer

Best Original Screenplay:
The Aviator
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Winner)
Hotel Rwanda
The Incredibles
Vera Drake

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Before Sunset
Finding Neverland
Million Dollar Baby
The Motorcycle Diaries
Sideways (Winner)

Best Foreign Language Film:
As It Is In Heaven - Sweden
The Chorus - France
Downfall - Germany
The Sea Inside - Spain (Winner)
Yesterday - South Africa

Best Animated Feature:
The Incredibles (Winner)
Shark Tale
Shrek 2

Best Cinematography:
The Aviator (Winner)
House of Flying Daggers
The Passion of the Christ
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
A Very Long Engagement

Best Film Editing:
The Aviator (Winner)
Collateral
Finding Neverland
Million Dollar Baby
Ray

Best Sound Mixing:
The Aviator
The Incredibles
The Polar Express
Ray (Winner)
Spider-Man 2

Best Sound Editing:
The Incredibles (Winner)
The Polar Express
Spider-Man 2

Best Original Score:
Finding Neverland, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek (Winner)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, John Williams
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Thomas Newman
The Passion of the Christ, John Debney
The Village, James Newton Howard

Best Song:
Accidentally In Love from Shrek 2
Al Otro Lado Del Río from The Motorcycle Diaries (Winner)
Believe from The Polar Express
Learn To Be Lonely from Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
Look To Your Path (Vois Sur Ton Chemin) from The Chorus

Best Costume:
The Aviator (Winner)
Finding Neverland
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Ray
Troy

Best Art Direction:
The Aviator (Winner)
Finding Neverland
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
A Very Long Engagement

Best Makeup:
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Winner)
The Passion of the Christ
The Sea Inside

Best Visual Effects:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I, Robot
Spider-Man 2 (Winner)

Best Documentary Feature:
Born Into Brothels (Winner)
The Story of the Weeping Camel
Super Size Me
Tupac: Resurrection
Twist of Faith

Best Documentary Short:
Austism is a World
The Children of Leningradsky
Hardwood
Mighty Times: The Children's March (Winner)
Sister Rose's Passion

Best Animated Short Film:
Birthday Boy
Gopher Broke
Guard Dog
Lorenzo
Ryan (Winner)

Best Live Action Short Film:
Everything in this Country Must
Little Terrorist
7:35 in the Morning
Two Cars, One Night
Wasp (Winner)

Scheherazade

Last night I went to hear Lorin Maazel conduct the New York Philharmonic in Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade. In high school we did a twelve minute rendition for marching band and it's been my favorite classical piece ever since, but I'd never heard it live, so this was a real treat.

I'm most familiar with the recording of Sir Charles Mackerras conducting the London Symphony Orchestra with Kees Hulsmann on violin. A Russian epic, it requires a stereo pushed to thundering for the full experience; yet even with a full orchestra last night the performance didn't quite seem to get there.

Maazel took a middle of the road approach to his dynamics: they never reached a true triple fortissimo, but that also meant the softer parts were emphasized more, something listeners often miss, particularly on recordings. As a result, the sections of pizzicato and focus on countermelodies were like new discoveries for the well versed traveler.

An added surprise came during the intermission when I even bumped into the one friend I know who works at the Philharmonic. "Where are sitting," she asked, "you should come downstairs, there are plenty of orchestra seats." Well OK then! That was a nice bit of providence to top off the night.

Download Derek Webb Exclusives on iTunes

We are pleased to announce that you can now download exclusive material from Derek Webb on iTunes. They have just released the Derek Webb iTunes Unplugged EP - Special Edition, which includes acoustic versions of "I Want A Broken Heart" and "Medication" from Derek's I See Things Upside Down, and a rare, previously unreleased version of another song from that same record, "Nothing Is Ever Enough," which was originally recorded as part of The House Show live record, released last year.

Kaufman's Doing What?

Alright, who wants to buy a plane ticket to London?

Andy Wordsmith

I saw Andrew Peterson perform last week and he continues to prove himself to be one of the best songwriters alive today. Here are the lyrics to one new song he played at the show; inspired by the adventures of his three kids, I especially love the allusion to Aslan in the last stanza.

Little Boy Heart Alive

Open the door and run outside
Little boy heart alive
Into the morning light
Into the deep and wide

Dinosaur bones in the flowerbed
Rockets in the clouds
In a fight with a spider’s web
Tunnels in the ground

Winding to China
To the mist of the distant shore
Better be home by suppertime
Back through the planet core

Prechorus
Feel the beat of a distant thunder
It’s the sound of an ancient song
This is the Kingdom calling
Come now and tread the dawn

Chorus
Come to the father
Come to the deeper well
Drink of the water
And come to live a tale to tell

Pages are turning
This is abundant life
The joy in the journey
Is enough to make a grown man cry
Little boy heart alive

Kings and castles in the neighborhood
Swords on the forest floor
Dragons in the magic wood
Saddle your battle horse

Fighting Goliath
Better choose your weapons right
Five little stones and a faith on fire
In a little boy heart alive

Prechorus
Feel the beat of a distant thunder
It’s the sound of an ancient song
This is the Kingdom calling
Come now and tread the dawn

Chorus
Come to the father
Come to the deeper well
Drink of the water
And come to live a tale to tell

Met a kid at the railroad track
He had a stick and a nylon sack
I ran to the house to pack
I wanted to follow

Take a ride on the mighty lion
Take a hold of the golden mane
This is the love of Jesus
So good but it is not tame

Nueva Oleada Francés

Here are a couple pictures of my friend Deborah Correa on set directing her first narrative film (and in French no less when she speaks Spanish). It looks gorgeous; you'd honestly mistake shots in it for something that came out of the French New Wave. Truffaut would be proud, I certainly am. Definitely someone to keep your eye out for.

Fishy Shanghai Jelly

After church Yan led a group of us to Chinatown for Shanghai dim sum. We all forgot that it was the Chinese New Year and had to wait for a parade of dragons, floats, and Boy Scouts to pass before we could cross to the restaurant. They also had a stage set up for various musical acts including the international air guitar world champion; she rocked.

With ten people around an eight-person table, Yan ordered for all of us in Cantonese what her family would have normally gotten and we ate family style. There were so many different kinds of dumplings (pork, vegetable, crab; all great!), mock duck, bean curd, and scallion pancakes.

We also went for one daring dish—jellyfish. For those not bold enough to try here were our descriptives: Yan called it "Crispy," Libby first described it as "gristly," but later revised it to "buoyantly flavorful," and I just thought it was "uneventful."

Sharing Whispered Truths

The first novel I read when I got back to reading narrative last year was Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and it stands as one of the best books I have ever read—maybe that's why it won a Pulitzer.

So at two-thirty in the morning, when I should be asleep or trying to write in an all night vigil, I instead peruse the random website in search of just one more tidbit (being a child of the information age) about the people who inspire me most, so here's what I learned tonight:

At twenty-three, Mr. Chabon's thesis manuscript was bought for "the highest advance ever paid for a debut literary novel." Now a bestseller, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was followed by Wonder Boys, "a winking nod to fellow writers blessed and burdened by early literary success" (also made into a great film with Michael Douglas)...and then came Kavalier and Clay.

<sigh>

But just as I'm starting to make a noose out of the mouse cord I find a paragraph of hope buried at the bottom of one page, a truth I've shared in, and here is the exact reason I stay up late, to find quotes like this:

"Creative inspiration is a myth" he says, and he frets over what might lurk beneath the lavish reviews and jacket blurbs. "There's always a voice in my head saying, 'Oh, what do they know? They don't know the real you, the total reject.' You're alone in your office with your computer and the praise doesn't help you."

So when I'm sitting in Starbucks tomorrow, frustrated with the empty page, or worse, the page I know is full of crap but can't tell where, I'll just remind myself, "Well at least I don't have people praising me with a Pulitzer."

The Best Part About Football

In case Sunday night you had better things to do than watch the making of a dynasty you can still see the top Super Bowl commercials online. Here are my favorites:

1. Ameriquest: Cat Killer
2. Bud Light: Parachuting
3. Frito Lay: MC Hammer Makes a Comeback
4. FedEx: Dancing Burt
5. Budweiser: Designated Driver Dance
7. Anheuser Busch: Thanking the Troops
8. Careerbuilder.com: Monkey Business
9. Bud Light: While You Were Out
10. Pepsi/iTunes: Let the Music Out