Today's Oscar nominations were undoubtedly over-shadowed by the very sad news of Heath Ledger's death. He was a very fine actor and his death at such a young age, whatever the circumstances, is shocking and saddening.

I just hope that this year's Oscars ceremony does get to go ahead as normal, so that tribute can be paid.

And what of the potential winners? Beware: bar the documentaries and shorts (none of which I've seen so have left off the full list of nominees below), I have an opinion on each category! I am somewhat limited in not having seen all the films yet, especially There Will Be Blood (I need to see this! Now!), Juno and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. So my ardent "No Country for everything!" approach may change once I've seen more, but here are some initial reactions for now:

#1 No Country for Best Film. I don't get all this Michael Clayton love. It was decent but hardly spectacular. Likewise with Atonement. I expect to like Juno and There Will Be Blood more than those two, but it's No Country for now.

#2 Daniel Day-Lewis seems to have Best Actor wrapped up, which I'm fine with based on what I've heard of his performance. I will allow a big "yay!" for Viggo though - about time!

#3 Laura Linney is the only one of the Best Actress nominees I've seen. Thought she was great in The Savages but the momentum seems to be with either Christie or Cotillard. Everyone loves Juno though!

#4 Best Supporting Actor, always one of the more interesting categories. I think this is Bardem's to lose and it's well-deserved. In any other year would like to see Casey Affleck win, if only to give some much needed love to the criminally overlooked "Assassination...", and he did good work in Gone Baby Gone too.

#5 Best Supporting Actress is strong this year. Would love to see Saoirse Ronan win, for reasons of national pride (plus, she was very good). Cate Blanchett was great in I'm Not There though, and she's unlikely to win the Best Actress so could get the votes here instead.

#6 Nice to see young PTA get his first Best Director nomination. I love the Coens in general, and No Country in particular, enough that I really want them to win this. Also, would finally recognise their joint director role properly. (Poor even-younger Joe Wright drew the short straw in the usual "we'll only nominate four directors of the five best films" this year; Julian "I'm an artist who directs, not the other way around" Schnabel benefits)

#7 Lots of females nominated in the two screenplay categories, which is nice (but come on ladies, direct already! ). Diablo Cody is the current darling methinks, but of the films I've seen, I like The Savages for original and No Country for adapted.

#8 Cinematography is always one of my favourite categories, I just love these guys! Such a solid list of nominees, so much so that I'm torn: want Deakins to win but afraid his vote will be split, and also can't decide if I'd rather he won for No Country or Assassination; Irish pride for Seamus McGarvey, but just don't think Atonement deserves it out of this bunch, bar that incredible tracking shot; then Janusz Kaminski and Robert Elswit are another two old hands, though I haven't seen either of their two from this year.

#9 Bourne deserves at least one, Editing should be it.

#10 Despite my disappointment with the Todd, I'd give it Costume, and Art Direction to Atonement (which, if nothing else, looked great)

#11 Thanks to Best Make-up, Norbit is now officially an "Oscar-nominated" film?! With Pirates 3 also here adding to the shitness, I'd give it to La Vie en Rose by default!

#12 I quite liked what Atonement did with its music. That, or Ratatouille. Can't really remember the rest.

#13 Come on Sam's dad's film! Come on Once! With 3 of the 5 songs nominated being from Enchanted though, it does enjoy some sort of statistical advantage.

#14 Sound and Sound Editing should really go to No Country. Barely any score to speak of, the sou

In an attempt to keep tabs of all cinema viewing this year, I'm going to update this blog as I go instead of just providing the latest updates on my profile. Having watched 89 of Cineworld's films this year, I'm sure I can beat that in 2008!

The league table so far (in decreasing order of viewing pleasure):

1) There Will Be Blood (16/02)
2) No Country for Old Men (26/01)
3) Wall-E (14/07)
4) The Dark Knight (22/07)
5) 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (12/01)
6) Cloverfield (03/02)
7) The Savages (19/01)
Lars and the Real Girl (25/03)
9) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (29/03)
10) Man on Wire (19/07)
11) Waltz With Bashir (24/10 - LFF)
12) Anvil! The Story of Anvil (23/10 - LFF)
13) The Wrestler (26/10 - LFF)
14) Blade Runner: Director's Cut (30/06)
15) In Bruges (11/03)
16) The Brothers Bloom (27/10 - LFF)
17) The Good The Bad The Weird (30/10 - LFF)
1 Hellboy II (05/0
19) I'm Not There (10/01)
20) Iron Man (04/05)
21) Gone Baby Gone (13/01)
22) Horton Hears a Who (16/03)
23) The Fall (19/10)
24) The Mist (16/07)
25) Synecdoche, New York (29/10 - LFF)
26) Pineapple Express (14/09)
27) Rachel Getting Married (30/10 - LFF)
2 Hunger (03/11)
29) I've Loved You So Long (10/11)
30) Australia (29/12)
31) Of Time and The City (16/11)
32) Juno (03/02)
33) Burn After Reading (19/10)
34) My Brother is an Only Child (22/06)
35) The Visitor (20/07)
36) Gomorrah (06/10)
37) Persepolis (26/04)
3 The Orphanage (27/03)
39) Changeling (26/11)
40) Kung Fu Panda (10/07)
41) La Antena (22/07)
42) The Incredible Hulk (10/06)
43) The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (22/06)
44) Zack and Miri Make a Porno (16/11)
45) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (20/06)
46) RocknRolla (07/09)
47) Ghost Town (03/11)
4 The Wackness (30/0
49) Be Kind Rewind (22/02)
50) Margot at the Wedding (11/03)
51) Mongol (30/06)
52) In Search of a Midnight Kiss (24/06)
53) Quantum of Solace (31/10)
54) The Duchess (10/09)
55) Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (05/02)
56) Somers Town (09/09)
57) The Baader-Meinhof Complex (28/10 - LFF)
5 Mamma Mia! (17/07)
59) Lakeview Terrace (11/12)
60) Teeth (last year at the Horrorthon, but it's an '08 general release)
61) Tropic Thunder (22/09)
62) Red Belt (29/09)
63) Twilight (29/11)
64) W. (30/10 - LFF)
65) Step Brothers (14/09)
66) Get Smart (19/0
67) Married Life (10/0
6 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (17/01)
69) Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (24/01)
70) Semi-Pro (04/03)
71) Definitely, Maybe (30/01)
72) Transporter 3 (07/12)
73) How To Lose Friends And Alienate People (30/09)
74) Hancock (02/07)
75) Dan in Real Life (13/01)
76) Charlie Bartlett (18/05)
77) The Other Boleyn Girl (16/03)
7 The Escapist (24/02)
79) Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (25/11)
80) Honeydripper (09/05)
81) Sex and the City (28/05)
82) Step Up 2 The Streets (21/03)
83) High School Musical 3: Senior Year (09/11)
84) Made of Honour (14/05)
85) 27 Dresses (29/03)
86) Vantage Point (25/03)
87) Penelope (04/02)
8 Deception (08/05)
89) What Happens in Vegas (08/06)
90) Harold & Kumar: Escape from Guantanemo Bay (08/06)
91) The Happening (22/06)
92) My Blueberry Nights (05/03)
93) Wanted (19/06)
94) The Golden Compass (15/01)
95) The Kite Runner (02/01)
96) Balls of Fury (01/01)
97) Puffball (31/07)
9 10,000 BC (02/04)
99) One Missed Call (20/02)


03/11 Upon further reflection, I like Hunger more, although I think there's a good debate to be had around it. Art v Film, Imagery v Morals, stuff like that. Liked Ghost Town more than I expected too.

31/10 Eight new additions from the London Film Festival (three from yesterday alone!). I've also re-jigged a few other titles throughout the list - time is a great leveller.

14/07 Ah, Wall-E!

23/06 It proved tough to place Wanted and The Happening. The latter is total rubbish in many ways, but by taking itself so seriously, it provided ma

...All That Jazz...Cell Block Tango...Cellphane, Mister Cellophane, shoulda been my name...etc!
Yes, dear reader, you've guessed correctly - I went to see Cats!!
I treated myself to a good old fashioned Broadway experience on Wednesday night - Chicago in the Ambassador. It was most excellent, I haven't stopped singing the songs since. Which isn't so excellent for my travelling companions.
It took me until my last night here (tonight!) to finally hit the cocktails - Cosmopolitan (natch) and some form of alcohol-based iced tea. Scrummptious. It also took me until my last night here to steal a glass - a bad return for an eight day holiday, as I'm sure you'll agree. I'm losing my touch!
Have fit in lots of other New Yorkie things over the past few days. New York being what it is though, you can't do one thing without thinking of five others you'd love to do too! A great city, which demands another visit. And another. And another...