Circuit Round-Up, 05/01

* Last week, Joey Magidson reviewed The High Cost of Living, Arthur, and Jane Eyre, while Michael Ward lent his thoughts to the animated hit Rio.

* Joey had a barren slate to work with for his DVD Picks of the Week.

* Luckily, Joey was very enthusiastic about the screenplay for Jodie Foster’s upcoming film The Beaver.

* Anna Belickis paid tribute to recent Oscar winner Natalie Portman for Women in Cinema.

* Sadly, she also had to bid farewell to the likable Chris Jericho in her "Dancing with the Stars" recap.

* Guy Pearce got the Under the Circuit treatment from yours truly.

* I also looked into my (snarky) crystal ball for possible heavy hitters of the summer.

* Finally, the staff gave their long-anticipated early predictions for the next Academy Awards. Whose will be the most accurate? Guess we’ll all find out on Tuesday, January 24^th!

Joey's year in advance Oscar predictions!

Taking a blind stab at next year's Oscar predictions...

It seems like the first thing we Oscar pundits do once the big night is over is begin to fret over next year. It’s a funny thing really, look at anyone’s predictions a year out and they’re bound to be horrifically wrong. For my part, just look at the 10 films I had predicted early on for the 2010 Oscars: Black Swan, Blue Valentine, The Fighter, Get Low, The Kids Are All Right, Love and Other Drugs, Shanghai, Shutter Island, The Social Network, and The Tree of Life. I wound up 4 out of 10, which isn’t bad, but none were the winner. I even managed to pick two that didn’t even come out (though one is going to be a big contender this year) in 2010! Obviously, it’s a fool’s errand, but what kind of prognosticator would I be if I didn’t press on anyhow? As such, I humbly present to you how I see the Oscar nominations going in a few of the big categories, with suitably clueless and half-hearted commentary to boot. This will be funny to look at this time next year, I promise. They always do…