I’ve just posted last night’s winners in the Oscar Balloon, but Oscar Ballon 2009 will be up and rolling sometime this weekend, certainly by Sunday night. I’ve already started this discussion but right now I’m looking for imaginative but not-too-loopy spitball nominations in nine major categories — Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Actress, Original and Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography.

In no particular order: Clint Eastwood‘s rugby-themed Mandela (or Playing The Enemy); Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, Terrence Malick‘s Tree of Life, Paul Greengrass‘s The Green Zone, Pedro Almodovar‘s Broken Embraces, Lone Scherfig‘s An Education (with a promising Best Actress nomination for Carey Mulligan), Peter Jackson‘s The Lovely Bones, and Rob Marshall‘s Nine.

Plus Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Biutiful, John Hillcoat‘s The Road, Mikael Hafstrom‘s Shanghai, Stephen Frears‘ Cher, Ang Lee‘s Taking Woodstock, Steven Soderbergh‘s The Informant and Nora Ephron‘s Julie and Julia.

Plus The Last Station with Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti ; Young Victoria with Emily Blunt, Miranda Richardson and James Broadbent; 1939 with Maggie Smith ; Bright Star with Abbie Cornish; John Madden‘s The Debt. And what else?

Hollywood & Fine’s Marshall Fine has five snippy pisshead complaints about last night’s Oscar show. “With the exception of Steve Martin and Tina Fey (who, I would imagine, wrote their own dialogue), the banter between presenters was incredibly thin,” he writes. I’m afraid that’s true, guys. “Jack Black and Jennifer Aniston gave me chills of embarrassment. While Hugh Jackman‘s opening number was clever and energetic, nothing he said afterward was worth repeating or remembering.”

Jeffrey Wells to Judd Apatow (privately and publicly): Your Pineapple-themed tube-watching short was far and away the best thing on last night’s show. By far the funniest, warmest, coolest and most sophisticated. Loved it, man. Seth Rogen and James Franco are kings of the realm. The world belongs to those two, or certainly belonged to them last night. It would be one of the most perfect moves of all time if they were to co-host next year’s show…seriously.

The sound on the above YouTube clip is out of synch. Is it just me?

I need to clarify matters on the Departures prophecy issue in lieu of this Japanese film having won the Best Foreign Language Oscar — another “gulp” episode in the Academy’s foreign- language voting record. Waltz With Bashir should have won, Waltz With Bashir should have won, Waltz With Bashir should have won. Expel those turkey-neck softies in the foreign-language branch who always vote for the stodgy, emotionally reassuring films. But I digress….

Three days ago (on 2.20) In Contention‘s Kris Tapley wrote in his column that Departures is “looking to spoil” and “waiting in the wings to upset” the presumed front runner (i.e., Bashir). Which was a fairly sage call on his part.

Tapley did not, however, predict a win in MCN’s Gurus of Gold chart. The only Guru who predicted that was The Envelope‘s Pete Hammond, who gave it a 5. (Which indicates some kind of emphatic support.)

And Variety-associated Anne Thompson, it should be noted, gave Departures a 2 vote, which means she had it on her definite possible list.

Update: Coming Soon’s Ed Douglas called the Departures win also.

12:13 pm Update: Tapley has reminded me that he posted an In Contention prediction on or about 2.20 that Departures would in fact win. He did, however, add a parenthetical “updated!” to the original post, and Tapley did write, “I might be making a mistake, but I sense an upset so I’m sticking my neck out for Departures after all.” So he’s not quite Chandu or Dunninger or The Great Carsoni, but he made a good call, all things considered.

He claims that If Poland was a vigorous as opposed to a sluggish updater (i.e., the last Gurus update was a week ago, he says), he would have called it for Departures along with Pete Hammond and Ed Douglas.