[stereoman]

Nothing too much in regards the technical categories but I've come across this over at Bookmaker.com.

The Art Directors Guild have handed their prizes out and the winners were There Will Be Blood, The Golden Compass and No Country for Old Men. The thing is, only two of those three are nominated at the Oscars...



The nominees for the ADG awards were:

* Period Film - American Gangster, Atonement, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and There Will Be Blood
* Fantasy Film - The Golden Compass, Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Ratatouille and 300.
* Contemporary Film - The Bourne Ultimatum, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Kite Runner, Michael Clayton and No Country for Old Men.

I think it's only between two nominees as to who will win 'Best Art Direction' and those two are the ADG award winners. I don't see how ST:TDBoFS was bet on like it couldn't lose. I don't factor 'Atonement' in as a possible spoiler either.

I don't think these odds for 'The Golden Compass' and 'There Will Be Blood' will be up for long. I've put £40 at 4/1 on 'The Golden Compass' to win £160 and £60 at 245/100 to win £147.

[trickrick]

Best Animated Feature Film intrigues me.. I had success last year with Happy Feet (with odds of around 3.5 with Betfair) which beat the hot Pixar favourite (whose name I can't remember..)

Pixar have the even hotter favourite this year with Ratatouille. This should win, but Blue Square appear to completed disgarded the hopes of 'Surfs Up' with odds of 12/1 Now that is a price I like, and I may have a fun bet on it to make the night interesting.

Other big(ish) prices I like is

Best Costume Design - Sweeney Todd (around 3/1 Betfair although hardly any liquidity at the mo) and I still can't get over the 20/1 on Atonement for Best Picture (Bodog).

Hmmm...I'll keep deliberating (no doubt until the prices disappear of course )

[stereoman]

Now I will be absolutely stunned if Ratatouille doesn't win 'Best Animated Feature' as it recently won big at the Annies (the US animation industry's version of the Oscars).

Aftereventing last year the fact that Warner Brothers spent around $500,000 to put some animated penguins onto the Oscars stage (and it didn't end up on the show!) probably alerted some folks that 'Happy Feet' was going to upset 'Cars' (a bit odd that an Australian news report starts off about taking about bookies!).

'Cars' was around 2/1 ON and worse but was an uneasy favourite (critics didn't seem to like it and it sneaked it's way to a win for the Annies' big prize) even though winners of the Annies' main prize have gone on to win the corresponding Oscar. The spell was broken last year but probably due to tactical voting from folks who didn't want to vote for Cars/Pixar.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Cars speeds to award show victory (at the Annies)

'Best Costume Design' is intriguing. Yeah, Sweeney Todd looks good to win this having won an award at the Costume Designers Guild (CDG) last week. 3/1 was a very good price to take a hack at it...it's now 2.02 though.



I'm also slightly nervous that most of the 'professional' pundits are picking 'Atonement' to win here though.

Costume Designers Guild nominees and winners ~

(KEY - Winners in bold, Oscar nominees in italics)

*Period Film - Atonement, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, La Vie En Rose, Sweeney Todd and 3:10 to Yuma.
* Fantasy Film - Enchanted, The Golden Compass, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and 300.
* Contemporary Film - Blades of Glory, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Into the Wild, Juno and Ocean’s Thirteen.

...and here's some PR guff and nonsense from yesterday's Bettingzone Market News:

1420: Sunday's Oscars ceremony could be a drama-fuelled event, according to Skybet, with Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston coming face-to-face for the first time. Brad Pitt’s ex and current girlfriend are quoted at 100/1 to have a cat fight on the red carpet!

This potential rumble could be overshadowed by the 33/1 chance that a streaker crashes the ceremony, which last happened in 1974.

However, a more likely scenario is either winner of the Best Lead Actress or Actor category to be so overwhelmed with their gong that they shed tears during their acceptance speech, priced at 6/4 and 10/1 respectively.

Sky Bet’s Entertainment Manager, Helen Jacob, said: "The Oscars are the showbiz event of the year and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for red carpet stumbles, rumbles and even a streaker!"

The bookie also goes 33/1 that any of the Best Actress nominees suffer an embarrassing ‘Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction’. With the likes of Ellen Page and Cate Blanchett in this category male viewers will have their fingers crossed!

Sky Bet Oscar Odds:

Best lead actress winner to cry during acceptance speech 6/4
Best lead actor winner to cry during acceptance speech 10/1
Any winner's acceptance speech to consist solely of one simple ‘Thank you!’ 10/1
Best actress nominee falls over on red carpet 20/1
Any actor/actress’ acceptance speech last longer than 5 mins 12/1
Best actress nominee suffer Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction (flash nipple) during ceremony. 33/1
Streaker interrupt the Oscars ceremony (last happened 1974) in 33/1
Infamous bachelor George Clooney propose to Sarah Larson during acceptance speech 100/1
Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston have cat fight on the red carpet 100/1

=============

OT: I dunno whether to put a tenner on Falling Slowly from Once to win 'Best Original Song' over at Paddy Power. It's up against those songs from Enchanted and some song from August Rush. It's been backed into 'evens' but I'm thinking I should stay away and should stick to the bets I've already got.

Sunday is effectively my 'Make-or-Break Me Day'. I hope the Razzies on Saturday night/Sunday morning don't screw me over like two years ago otherwise I'm gonna sink into a further funk! I'm probably gonna skip the Oscars if that's the case and just wait for the results on Monday morning.

[stereoman]

Well someone's beat me to the punch and taken the 'evens' on 'Falling Slowly' to win 'Best Original Song'. It's now 8/11.



General odds and sods elsewhere. Bwin have odds on 'Best Film Editing':



The Bourne Ultimatum beat out No Country for Old Men for the ACE (American Cinema Editors) award (the other nominees for the award were Into the Wild, Michael Clayton and There Will Be Blood) last week.

Big odds there for an upset to happen in 'Best Film Editing' but will 'No Country' sweep the awards? I'm not betting on it as I've got more than enough on my plate as it is.

Sky Bet have come up with a couple of props:



Can't say I'm too enamoured by trying to predict either of those for money (if I had to, I'd bet on two Brits winning ~ specifically Day-Lewis and one of Christie and Swinton ~ and wouldn't bother betting on the 'pensioners' prop). If you're going to oppose Julie Christie then you'd be better off doing it in some other manner...

Nice PR piece over at Bettingpro but they don't provide the meat and potatoes.



Yes, Julie Christie will be wearing a Tanya Gill dress BUT Marion Cotillard won't. There seems to be whispers that she can provide the upset in 'Best Actress'...I was listening to BBC Radio 2's 'The Weekender' and Julie praised Marion's performance! Does Julie know she might not be winning!?

Marion probably won't be wearing a Nina Ricci dress though. Chanel have apparently chosen Keira Knightley over Marion as to who'll be wearing their dress to the Oscars so I think People Magazine are wrong there. I'll try and figure this out before closing time.

EDIT: Ah fook it! I've put £11.32 at 10/1 on the off-chance that Marion Cotillard's wearing a Chanel dress AND wins Best Actress.

I don't have Sky Movies and have no plan of watching the show live over the internet as I'll be listening to play-by-play commentary over on Five Live and refreshing webpages on various websites for updates. The Barack or Hillary bet is just nuts. No bet there from me although I'd favour Obama getting a mention first.

Oh Gawd...I feel like I'm gonna have a breakdown on Monday morning!

[stereoman]

Some salvation for me at the end of the week for the moment at least as the favourites win at the Razzies. I'm surprised Eddie Murphy wasn't huge odds-on though like I Know Who Killed Me and Lindsay Lohan in their categories were.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Lohan and Murphy dominate Razzies

[stereoman]

Just for laughs here are Bodog's specials:

[trickrick]

After my deliberations on best animated film, costume and film, I have decided to place just one bet - which aint any of those!

Cate Blanchett to win Best Supporting Actress - 6 pt stake @ 5/4 (Skybet)

Just missed the 11/8 on Pinnacle..

[stereoman]

Marion Cotillard was wearing a...Jean-Paul Gaultier dress. D'OH!!

I got Art Direction hopelessly wrong and should have backed Marion Cotillard in the conventional way AND should have had a pop on Sky Bet's 3/1 on the pensioners all going away with nothing.

Although saying that, I think I had a generally very good night which more than makes up for the fook-ups in the past few weeks. I LOVE the Oscars!

More to report/afterevent on such as what the result of the Bodog props were.