Vampire Lou, would you do the honors?

1) Sadly, no ultra-comprehensive preview for the Oscars tonight, although this is Reason One I’d Go Crazy Outside of the Country. Tonight should be interesting because while so many awards are locked up, it’s the usually easy-to-predict Best Picture that’s a toss-up between The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine and Babel. Only The Queen (this film gets honored through Mirren’s Best Actress) and Letters From Iwo Jima (not enough buzz) don’t have a shot at the big trophy at the end.

In the other awards, I’m taking the near-locks for all the acting categories – Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson in supporting, Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren in lead – even though there’s a chance – a very slim chance - Peter O’ Toole slips in. For screenplay, it’ll be Departed and Little Miss Sunshine winning, just as Crash and Brokeback took care of them en route to the Best Picture standoff. Scorsese finally gets his Best Director, although old friend Clint Eastwood is lingering just to spite him again, and Best Picture will go to…ummm….my mind says Babel, but my heart says Departed, so let’s say this turns into Martin Scorsese Appreciation Night.

The Departed = woah

A few other picks:

Best Foreign: Pan’s Labyrinth

Best Cinematography: Children of Men (in a rout)

Best Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore still doesn’t announce presidential intent)

Best Score: Apparently Queen is supposed to win this, which is a shame, because Pan’s Labyrinth lullaby-based background music is literally haunting. Obviously not Brokeback quality, but still great.

There's also an outside chance Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ends up with the most statues tonight, which would just cause me to laugh endlessly. Remember, the Oscars are deeply and terribly flawed, but when compared to the Grammys and especially the loathsome Emmys, they're the best of three main awards.

2) The OC finale was a little over-the-top, but really, really well done overall. A lot of great moments, and the one resolution we all knew would happen – Sandy ends up teaching at Berkeley – happening, along with Ryan’s final rise to the top as head of some construction project. PopWatch gets all misty-eyed watching it, and I recommend finding this online or just splurging for it on iTunes.

(Also, can’t stress how much Taylor Townsend and The Bullitt added to this final season. You will be missed, OC.)

3) A great week of television all around, with a knockout episode of Veronica Mars, your typically perfect Friday Night Lights (taking the time to say FNL was good is like taking the time to remind someone you’re breathing at the current moment in time), a terrible Lost that typifies why people hate the show and a great one-two of MTV programming, with both The Hills and Real World providing legitimate drama.

Kristen Bell doesn't even look that good in that picture, and she's still the best.

On The Hills, the constant presence of douchebag boyfriends finally cause a rift between our wonder team, while the Real World was the best one in, geez, I don’t even know how long. If it had just been Brooke flipping out, that would have made for an entertaining storyline, but they threw in the whole Alex/Colie/Corey/Jenn thing just to kick it up a level of awesomeness. Head over to MTV.com right now and watch it, or just tune in for the exciting two-parter in its entirety Wednesday night.