I look forward to Academy Awards night every year. I love the show and in the past several years my girls have developed a taste for them as well. To me, the Academy Awards are great family entertainment with glamour, fun, humor, cultural knowledge, and a touch of politics and current events. Something for everyone! (Like 1967's Best Music winner A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.)

I have been watching the Academy Awards since I was young. I can't even remember the first year I tuned in. I always watched with…

Note: 2008 Oscar Red Carpet and event photos can be found here and the 2008 Oscar Winners are here.

First off, my Oscar picks.

Sound Mixing - Ratatouille
Sound Editing - Transformers
Live Action Short - Le Mozart des Pickpockets
Animated Short - Madame Tutli-Putli
Original Song - "Falling Slowly" from Once
Original Score - Atonement
Visual Effects - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Makeup - La Vie En Rose
Film Editing - No Country for Old Men
Documentary Short - Sari's Mother
Documentary Feature - No End in Sight

The 2008 Oscar Winners

Costume Design: Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Animated Feature: Ratatouille
Makeup: La Vie En Rose
Visual Effects: The Golden Compass
Art Direction: Sweeney Todd
Live Action Short: Le Mozart Des Pickpockets
Animated Short: Peter and the Wolf
Sound Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Sound Mixing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Film Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Original Song: "Falling Slowly" from Once
Original Score: Atonement
Documentary Short: Freeheld
Documentary Feature:Taxi to the Dark Side
Cinematography: There…

I was originally going to go through all the major nominations and predict the winners but that's become really boring these days. The winners for the Best Lead and Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Picture and Best Director are almost always easy to pick by the time the telecast comes around, right? So if you're doing an Oscar pool, it doesn't help if I tell you to pick No Country for Old Men for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor because everybody else is going to pick the same darn thing. So let's look…

Now, I don't want you all to be jealous, because there are only so many people I can invite to the world famous FlickFilosopher.com Oscar party every year. And with Vanity Fair having canceled its world-famous after-party this year, there really is no other game in town -- and by "town" I mean "Hollywood as an industry," of course, and not "the Bronx," because as far as I'm aware, Vanity Fair has never thrown a party in the Bronx, and never will, the wimps. But you know how Hollywood is: exclusivity is everything. So this…