Good afternoon, b-rollers! Two quick things today: First of all, the SAG Awards are tomorrow evening, so of course I shall plan to live-blog them. Feel free to join in, if you give a good damn about the SAG Awards (and I honest-to-God can’t blame you if you don’t).

Secondly, I have a theory that I’m working on for a post. (I can’t tell you yet. Suspense.) But I’d like your opinions, to see how far off I am. So allow me to throw out the vaguest possible poll question: Who are your favorite actors, and why? And to get even more specific, what are your favorite film/TV performances? Past, present, whatever (and I’m using “actor” for brevity, but this includes both genders). Chime in, b-rollers. Please and thank you.

Well, the Oscar nominations are in, b-rollers. Let me tell you when I had my “oh, hell, my Drive prediction is screwed” moment this morning: I was watching Today Show, and just before the nominations were announced their Oscar analyst mentioned that the average age of the Academy voters was around 60. (For the record, I don’t really know who this person is and am completely taking her word for it.)

But…that makes total sense, doesn’t it? Hello War Horse, Gary Oldman, Janet McTeer; goodbye Drive, Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Shailene Woodley.

Now, I’m not saying that these aren’t worthy nominees (well, War Horse notwithstanding). By all accounts, Oldman and McTeer are phenomenal. And Rooney Mara beat out Tilda Swinton for the fifth Best Actress spot, so yay for edgy. I just think it’s worth mentioning, since Twitter promptly burst into flames.

Anyway, let’s take a look at some of the other surprises, shall we? Chime in with your thoughts, too.

• 9 Best Picture nominees! Holy hell. The only major surprise is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I have not seen yet. I wrote a while ago that I really wanted to, but then the reviews came out and I gathered that everything that made Oskar (the kid) endearing and interesting in the book played as cloying and creepy onscreen. Most of the critics I like have responded with “what the hell?” reactions to this nomination, and yet now I feel obligated to see it. Dammit.
• Speaking of obligated, I’ve moved The Tree of Life to the top of my Netflix queue. I’m 85% sure that I will be playing sudoku within the first 30 minutes. But onward.
• On the Supporting Actor race: Which Academy member did Albert Brooks murder? Honest question. He was a frontrunner, wasn’t he? Like, a month ago? Wow. (I was 4/5 – Nick Nolte got Brooks’ spot.)
• 4/5 on Supporting Actress, too (but I was damn close, saying it would come down to McTeer v. Woodley. Take that!). Also, a note on Melissa McCarthy’s nomination for Bridesmaids: I read approximately 692 tweets today with some variation of “You TOO can get an Oscar nomination for pooing in a sink!” Guys, let’s not whittle a really excellent comic performance down to its most basic, vulgar element. Grow up, please. If that’s all there was to it, Adam Sandler would be attending his 17th consecutive Oscar telecast.
• Best Actor, well, this was not my year. Clooney, Dujardin, Pitt in; Gosling and Fassbender out in favor of Damien Bichir and Gary Oldman. My plan is to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Shame this weekend, so I’ll be able to directly compare and contrast the Oldman-over-Fassbender decision then. Stay tuned.
• I’m a little perturbed that only one song from The Muppets was nominated for “Best Original Song,” (“Man or Muppet”) and that there were only two nominees overall. How do you leave off “Life’s a Happy Song” and rob us of a Jason Segel/Amy Adams/ENTIRE MUPPET GANG production number?! This wound is deep, Oscar voters. Deep.

Okay, well, them’s my initial thoughts. What say you? (For the record, I officially went 25/34 of the categories I predicted. If I were a baseball player, you would find that batting average ridiculously impressive. And give me 214 million dollars.)

Happy Sunday, b-rollers! I totally planned on bringing you my pre-Oscar nomination thoughts tonight, and I settled in to write as my beloved Patriots took on the Ravens for a trip to the Super Bowl. What a wonderful way to distract myself from the game so that I don’t get too nervous, I thought, completely forgetting that during Patriot playoff games I become anxious bordering on manic, and can only concentrate on repetitive and mindless things. So I played roughly 84 games of sudoku and ate a mountain of tortilla chips, but blogging, not so much.

(To give you an idea of how tense this game was, here’s the post-game exchange between me and my roommate.
Me: “We won! Ohmigod, it was heartstopping.”
Roomie: “But doesn’t that make it more fun?!”
Me: “No. Not at all.”
Roomie: “But it’s more exciting!”
Me: “No. I’ve lost three years of my life.”)

Anyway, I will make it up to you, I promise. I’ll be back tomorrow with my Oscar predictions and dream cast, and then on Tuesday with reactions to the actual nominees. Sound good? Awesome.

In the meantime, feel free to leave your good luck wishes to the Super Bowl-bound Patriots in the comments section. See you tomorrow.