Everything looks to be on pace for the May 1 redesign. I've got two new contributors, and might have a third in the next week or so. John Foote is moving over to general blogging duties in addition to his Toronto coverage, and of course, Brian and Gerard will be back for the ride.

We'll take flight in just over a week with a review of "Iron Man" and the new phase of In Contention. Until then, keep an eye out...

Yeah...uh...sorry about that. Things just kind of turned into a ghost town around here for the last two weeks, a bit too abruptly. Midterms have kind of owned my butt for a while, but now I can finally, and properly, put a bow on the 2007 Oscar season (great...since everyone else is WAY past that!)

Gerard's piece has finally landed, which gives his mini-reactions to the tech winners. Like me, Gerard has been dealing with higher education this season (and law school has to be a hell of a lot more difficult than graduate journalism), but I have to say thank you for his hard work in spotlighting those fields this year. And what a year it was for crafts categories. I found myself jealous at times of his beat this season, so much so that I had to poach the cinematographers for that "best shots of the year" piece a few weeks back. Hopefully Gerard will forgive me.

Most of my reactions landed at Red Carpet District, but two weeks later, I feel this strange void in Oscar history. I don't quite understand why. Maybe it was the strike or other factors, but 2007 felt like the year that just...happened. I touched on this a few days ago, but honestly, I can't put my finger on why. I was unhappy with some of the major winners, but that's never brought this feeling out before. The glut of coverage this year certainly added a numbing effect, though haven't we seen that coming? Maybe the Oscars are seeming more and more (personally speaking) like a pointless exercise, and therefore, the coverage isn't as satisfying as it once was.

I don't know. Not that that's gonna stop us from blabbering on about them.

With that in mind, I thought I'd note that next year's In Contention experience will be much more streamlined. Hopefully. I'm working on a few things here and there, brainstorming this and that, but mostly, I want to develop a lighter, swifter experience on the whole. So, on that note, I'm interested as to whether there are a few skillful souls out there who'd like to join as contributing bloggers here at the ole' homestead. If you think you'd be interested, send me a shout.

With that, I'm locking up the joint. Spring break is...well, now...and I have nothing on my mind but the white sands and deep blue waters of Kauai, so enjoy your time away from the fray. We'll be back in no time.

Strangely enough, 2007 was my favorite year for movies in nearly a decade.

ANYWAY, all that is the lead-up to say that I'm not QUITE done for the season. Poor Gerard has a wrap-up column that I've been dragging my feet in editing and turning around, and I haven't exactly given a proper send-off. I just needed some decompression, I suppose. Back with more later...

Another year another set of wins...and another look ahead at what's in store NEXT year.

It's never too late to take a long gander at what we might see dominating the film awards landscape in 365 days, and with that in mind, I've been doing my usual mulling over the possibilities for a few weeks to put together the sadly thorough examination of the 2008-09 award season that follows. Let's get into it. There are some major considerations to take into account. right off the top.

Like Leonardo DiCaprio, for instance, who is set to be the entertainer of the year. With performances in "Body of Lies" (Ridley Scott) and "Revolutionary Road" (Sam Mendes), DiCaprio is working with a duo of awards proven talent this yearr. Perhaps that will work against him, much like it did in 2006, and no major Oscar success will come knocking. But we'll wait until we see the performances. Each of them could be enticing.

This year's Best Picture Oscar victor Scott Rudin is back again, by the way, with "Revolutionary Road," recently inherited by Paramount Vantage and probably one of the true "frontrunners" this far out that we could put our finger on. The only other film in Vantage's arsenal is Edward Zwick's "Defiance," which could simply b a commercial success, but might find its way to multiple nods like "The Last Samurai" and "Blood Diamond" in recent years.

Alright, so that's a wrap on the 80th annual Academy Awards. A snooze for the most part, but I had a hell of a time doing the podcasts with John and the boys. I hope you enjoyed them as well. I'll be back later on to finalize the season, and then, of course, check back here tomorrow for our annual Year in Advance Oscar column.

How I did: 18/24

And the Oscars went to:

Best Costume Design: "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
Best Animated Feature Film: "Ratatouille"
Best Makeup: "La Vie en Rose"
Best Visual Effects: "The Golden Compass"
Best Art Direction: "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Best Short Film - Live Action: "The Mozart of Pickpockets"
Best Short Film - Animated: "Peter & the Wolf"
Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"
Best Adapted Screenplay: "No Country for Old Men"
Best Sound Editing: "The Bourne Ultimatum"
Best Sound Mixing: "The Bourne Ultimatum"
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
Best Film Editing: "The Bourne Ultimatum"
Best Foreign Language Film: "The Counterfeiters"
Best Music - Original Song: "Once"
Best Cinematography: "There Will Be Blood"
Best Music - Original Score: "Atonement"
Best Documentary - Short Subject: "Freeheld"
Best Documentary - Feature: "Taxi to the Dark Side"
Best Original Screenplay: "Juno"
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
Best Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Best Picture: "No Country for Old Men"

I won't be live blogging this year. Instead, I'm doing something different. Check out Red Carpet District for the news, and thanks so much for sticking with In Contention this season, despite the obvious need to split my facilities with Variety. It's been a good ride, if an uncharacteristically anemic one, and I have to thank Gerard Kennedy, Brian Kinsley and John Foote for keeping the content rolling throughout the season.

A final note on predictions. I've made all updates to my last second guesses and feel secure in them now...I think. As secure as anyone can be, I guess. Now it's time to see how the cards fall.

There is a weird energy behind Marion Cotillard in the closing days of Oscar, and frankly, it's getting a bit difficult to ignore. I'm going with it. Christie may have benefited form the 100,000 DVD mailers that went to SAG members and, who knows, maybe her film is touchy subject matter for older members. Add it to the fact that Cotillard has been out there, getting the PR job done and, really, it just fits.

Hope I don't hate myself tomorrow.

Another Oscar season is coming to a close. On Sunday, the 80th Annual Academy Awards will wrap up an exciting and unique season. Here’s my final look at the state of affairs in the crafts categories.

Best Art Direction

This strikes me as a race between Sarah Greenwood, BAFTA winner for “Atonement,” and Jack Fisk, guild winner for “There Will Be Blood.”

I think it’s a close call, but I give the edge to Fisk, as his film seems to have more love overall and the work has been acclaimed since people laid eyes on the film. It would be a long time coming for Fisk, even though this is his first nomination after a career spanning almost four decades. Even so, the work is awfully sparse for the typical winner here so I’d say Greenwood has a great chance to upset.

Prediction: “There Will Be Blood”
Alternate: “Atonement”
Preference: “The Golden Compass”

Let's take a look. More after the jump:

"NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN"
Director of Photography: Roger Deakins

What's gonna win? You can see in the charts what my current feelings are, but it seems these are so up in the air. "Convince me. Convince me."

Let's dive in:

We were completely ripping off New York filmmaking from the 1970s, things like “Klute” and pretty much everything Owen Roizman has ever shot. But Tony’s sense of these things was not lots of little pieces; he loves making kind of graphic frames that play as long as possible.

--Robert Elswit

Robert Elswit had a hell of a year in 2007, finally getting his due from the American Society of Cinematographers who awarded his work in Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood." There was another film featuring Elswit's unique signature, however, that flew under the radar for its considerable attention to composition and camera movement: Tony Gilroy's "Michael Clayton."

Much is made of the film's final sequence, a long shot focused on Clayton as he rides away from the hysteria in his life, desperate for his cab driver to "just drive." But a companion shot from earlier in the film was just as arresting, if not more so, as a purposeful point of transition to the second half of the endeavor. A long tracking shot that never misses a beat, both behind and in front of the camera, the scene detailed is the expert, painfully clinical execution of Arthur Edens, played to an award-worthy T by Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson.

The final image is steeped in theme, and an initial tracking sequence under Edens' opening monolgue pulls the viewer into the film's interior world, but this particular shot is so cold as to be frozen in its depiction of something at once gruesome and strangely beautiful, fluid. I'm not privy to whether it may have been a directorial decision, though I suspect it may have been, but it is the crown jewel in a film packed with precision from Elswit.

2007 was, to my mind, the greatest year for cinematography in a long, long time. I can't recall the last time I was so thoroughly impressed with the visual artistry of film after film like I was last year, and I attribute that to the intriguing spark of creativity underway in the film medium as of late. Newcomers and veterans alike were putting awe-inspiring images on film, some of the seasoned pros besting their already exceptional portfolios.

I wanted to do something special in the way of commemorating the efforts of these individuals, and so I set out to interview a number of them as the year drew to a close. Sadly, I was never able to piece those interviews together in a proper story like I would have wanted, but in recent weeks it has occurred to me that it may be just as beneficial to offer up something you don't regularly see: a personal compilation of the greatest single images from the cinematic year.

And so it goes that I offer the Top 10 Shots of 2007, a two part piece that will run down what I felt were the best of the best in a year full of exceptional cinematographic work. Today, I'm running down shots 10 through 6, and tomorrow, we'll wrap it up with the top 5. Mixed in you'll find sporadic comments from the lensers in question, as I feel it only appropriate that I give that small gateway into their process for readers and viewers alike.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did compiling it.

With six days left in what has become both the most exciting and the most exhaustive Oscar season I’ve ever witnessed, we come to a stretch of second-guessing and faux reasoning against the frontrunner in valiant attempts at steering clear of boredom.

I’m just as guilty. And though my prediction that “Letters from Iwo Jima” would win Best Picture wasn’t as off the rails as less than a few would like to think (talk to voters – it was in the thick of it), it would be silly not to concede that I just couldn’t swim with most of the school due to the need for excitement.

Even still, last year was the most wide-open phase two we’ve ever seen, while this year, phase one left a million holes to be filled by prospective nominees. Once the films were slated late last month, the frontrunner emerged – and it hasn’t backed down.

So no, I won’t be stepping out onto unnecessary limbs this season because it is quite obvious that “No Country for Old Men” will be the year’s Best Picture winner. It shocks me to the core, because hey, I was the guy saying it didn’t have a snowball’s chance of a nomination. Yet here it is, tied for the most nods with that other film I didn’t think had a snowball’s chance.