Here’s the complete listing of this year’s Academy Awards nominees. For the top eight categories, we’ve included each nominee’s name along with a list of the accolades that have already been won, as well as betting odds according to historic London bookmaker Ladbrokes. Plus, we’ve added our own “Alibi Predicts” picks.

By Thursday, most of us are ready for the weekend and eager to release workaday tensions—what better way to accomplish this than to go dancing? Last Thursday I set out on a mission to find the best dance party in Downtown Albuquerque with my sidekick Miss Eva “Badass” Blaylock.

A transhuman cyborg plays creepy mascot for a show featuring Shoulder Voices, The Glass Menageries and CanyonLands. Witness the free rocking in the not-so-distant future Downtown at Burt’s Tiki Lounge (313 Gold SW) on Saturday, Feb. 26. (Jessica Cassyle Carr)

Red Light Cameras is a pretty new Burque rock outfit. Following the band’s last show a couple of weeks ago, murmurs floated about the exterior of Burt’s Tiki Lounge regarding how hard the group rocked. Catch Red Light Cameras again on Thursday, March 3, at Low Spirits with Shoulder Voices and Jenny Invert. We asked Kirsten Allard, the band’s drummer, to put her music library on shuffle. Here is what was found.

When the world is glued to the spectacle of the Academy Awards, I will, as I have for many years, gather a few hours’ worth of top-notch edibles and begin an Oscar snack attack.

Charlene Baldwin says the speed humps in her neighborhood could have caused her a major medical problem in the fall.

Things just went from bad to worse for small business owners in the area of the city's $26.5 million Lead and Coal renovation. On Monday, Feb. 21, the city blocked off Yale between Lead and Avenida César Chávez to rehab a storm drain system.

Incentive. Rebate. Giveaway. Boon. Whatever you call it, the business of the film business and all its related benefits and pains is heading for a resolution.

Hopefully, you’ll all be watching the Academy Awards telecast this Sunday night out of your pure, unadulterated love for the filmic medium. But honestly, aren’t such contests more exciting when you’ve got a stake in things? Well, the Alibi has teamed up with Regal Entertainment Group to give you a little added incentive this year. Here’s what you need to do: Log on to Alibi’s Oscar Contest page and register your guesses for the winners in 10 select categories. Then, tune in to the big awards show on Feb. 27. If you get the most winners correct, you win some cool movie action. The grand prize is 24 free Regal movie passes—that’s enough for you and a friend to go see a movie a month for an entire year! Second prize is 16 movie passes, and third prize is five movie passes. You need to register your guesses by 4 p.m. Sunday. Winners will be announced in next week’s paper.

Certain television events demand not merely your attention, but a modicum of ceremony as well. You can’t just casually flip on the Super Bowl one afternoon and watch it while you clean house. No! You’ve got to gather together as many screaming people in football jerseys as possible and devour a Crock-Pot full of nacho cheese while glued to the TV screen. Anything less would be an insult.

We all know Alan Arkin as the profane, heroin-snorting grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine. But he was also Ernie Lazarro in The Jerky Boys (worth seeing if only for Tom Jones singing “Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz) and Bean in Freebie and the Bean. It’s worth mentioning that he voiced Schmendrick in the classic The Last Unicorn and played the lily-livered George Aaronow in Glengarry Glen Ross. He’s been a part of your life.

Lewis Black makes a living being angry on television. On a recent “Back in Black” segment on “The Daily Show,” he railed against the merchandise tie-ins surrounding Eat Pray Love. On another he lambasted Glenn Beck for his incessant Nazi imagery. Black throws his hands every which way, seemingly in the midst of a nervous breakdown. His eyebrows sink into a sharp V and you can’t help but think: Man, this guy looks pissed.

The Cine en Construcción films series starts up again on Thursday, Feb. 17 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (1701 Fourth Street SW) in the Bank of America Theatre. Kicking off the series of recent Latin American films is the 2003 Colombian film Sumas y Restas at 7 p.m. The film relates the story of a middle-class engineer who, plagued by money problems, falls in with a childhood-friend-turned-drug-smuggler. Like all films in the series, it’s in Spanish with English subtitles and admission is free.

Kai Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano was born in Puerto Rico but spent most of her formative years in New Mexico. Her art, in part, explores the clash between the two cultures, as well as family history and sexual politics.

The 2011 Legislature has convened and is moving sluggishly forward. It’s the 60-day version this year, which usually means that more than the budget gets passed. This is the time when controversial policy issues take center stage.

Which companies use the most gas in New Mexico? How much do they use? Is it as much as, say, Española? More? And when the New Mexico Gas Company cut gas to thousands of homes in early February, was industry the first to get shut off?

The following albums are good places to start investigating.

Is the background image high art or was it ripped from the licentious pages of a girly mag? Who cares—that jazz age typeface is the most beautiful and titillating thing on this flyer. On Thursday, Feb. 17, beginning at 9 p.m., DJs Dame Diana, Bea and The Host play music at the Livin’ On dance party, an evening of Brit pop, shoegaze, punk, glam, garage and anything else that’s cool. Free to those over 21 at Blackbird Buvette. (Jessica Cassyle Carr)

Always spiffy, friendly and looking to enjoy Albuquerque to its fullest, Dan Mayfield is a true man about town. In addition to serving as editor-in-chief at Albuquerque The Magazine, Mayfield is a DJ—Dan the Doo-Wop Man—on Real Oldies 1600 AM. Hear his show on Sundays from noon to 1 p.m. We asked Mayfield to put his music library on shuffle—below are the first five cuts that appeared at random.

Valentine’s Day is a phony holiday created by cruel corporations to sell diamonds, chocolates and cards by provoking our insecurities. Of course, to those who get all kinds of diamonds, chocolates and cards, it’s a pretty good day.

The Alibi tries to help everyone feel good, hence the eighth annual Valentine’s Day Card Contest.

Don’t limit it by calling it music, man. Jazz derangements, electronic debris and heaving melts of guitar are just part of it. What Sabertooth Cavity offers up with its first album, En Lak Ech, is a little more meta. Or a little more Dada. However you want to take it.

It bummed me out when La Posada de Albuquerque closed in 2005. The lobby bar was one of my favorite places in Albuquerque—it was an elegant, jazz-filled, brown-and-white respite from the Downtown riffraff, the flashing neons, the ill-fitting fashions and questionable taste in mechanical beats. Little did I know that four years later the 1939 building—New Mexico native Conrad Hilton’s fourth hotel, and first outside of Texas—would open anew, having been reinvented as green boutique lodging. Hotel Andaluz not only has 107 rooms and suites, but also a fine Mediterranean-inspired restaurant (Lucia), rooftop bar (Ibiza) and, as of the end of January, a live music venue called Casablanca.

Red Light Cameras, Ya Ya Boom and the 5 Star Motelles invite you to be theirs on Valentine’s eve eve—that’s Saturday, Feb. 12, starting at 9:30 p.m. The bake sale, love poem contest, handmade Valentine sale and rock show happen at Burt’s Tiki Lounge (313 Gold SW) and admission is free. (Jessica Cassyle Carr)

Russell Pyle is a vocalist and guitar player in the lauded local bluegrass group The Porter Draw. The band will be your Valentine on Saturday, Feb. 12, when it performs at Blackbird Buvette. The show, called “An Arrow Through the Heart,” begins at 10 p.m. and is free. Below is a random peek into Pyle’s music library. “It made me realize how much punk and hardcore I have on my iPod,” he says.

Valentine’s Day tends to make me feel barfy. Another thing that makes me want to vomit is people who hate on gay folks. It’s a big deal. ... I will now get off my soapbox and give an enthusiastic shout out to It’s Just Love. What’s Everyone So Scared Of? put on by the New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus. I’ve never seen a gay men’s chorus live, only on television being used as a weapon against hateful people on a Michael Moore program. It was delightful. The concert series, to have the chorus people tell it, is about how love is unifying. Gay love is no scarier that hetero love; it’s also just as scary. Come hear cabaret, jazz and pop standards out at the VSA North Fourth Art Center (4904 Fourth Street NW) on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 11 and 12, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 13, at 3 p.m. Tickets are $20; $15 for students and seniors; $10 for kids ages 10-and-under. Show ’em some love.

I know Shakespeare is, well, Shakespeare. Many diehard theater lovers consider him the best playwright to have ever grasped an ink-imbued instrument. Most actors and/or theater companies want to eventually try their iambic-pentameter-loving hands at one of the man’s plays. I realize this will put me on the blacklist of a number of theater patrons in town, but the question I always ask myself before seeing one of Shakespeare’s works on stage is: Why?

With the 50th anniversary of Tamarind Institute still glimmering in the rearview mirror, I sat down to talk with gallery director Arif Khan about fast forward: four for the future, which features pieces by Anna Hepler, Fay Ku, Mark Licari and Ethan Murrow. The show is a mix of work made by these artists during their time at Tamarind and in their own studio practices, ranging from high-definition film to inflatable sculptures, wall drawings and watercolors.

As Christina Aguilera began to stumble through the national anthem before Sunday’s Super Bowl, nobody in the SCI stood up.

Praises were sung at the Monday, Feb. 7 Council meeting about the way city employees handled weather-related problems. Councilor Rey Garduño started the accolades, and others chimed in, thanking police officers, the fire department and street workers for keeping the city safe during some of the coldest February days in New Mexico’s recorded history.

Gov. Susana Martinez’ administration got started on the wrong foot.

She’s tried to create the image of a state in near-total collapse—one facing a “financial crisis” of historic proportions that requires a stern and steady leader. That diagnosis is wrong, and therefore the prescription (cut, slash, burn) is also sadly off the mark.

I have to chalk up her first state of the state address as a missed opportunity, a rehash of campaign stump speeches and standard-issue GOP sound bites. It was as short on substance as it was chilling—and not inspirational—in tone.

Dateline: China—China’s government is embarrassed after it was caught demonstrating its latest military hardware through old clips of the Tom Cruise film Top Gun. Footage supposedly showing the new J-10 fighter knocking another jet out of the sky with an air-to-air missile was broadcast by state-sponsored China Central Television on Jan. 23. Internet observers quickly noticed similarities between the training exercise footage and the ’80s action flick. The Wall Street Journal published a side-by-side comparison between the two videos online. Sure enough, the images are identical. The footage has since been removed from the CCTV website and network officials are refusing to comment.

There’s a major David and Goliath matchup in this year’s Oscar race. Wedged between multimillion-dollar, 3-D computer-animated films How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 in the Animated Feature category is the humble, hand-illustrated French film The Illusionist. The film is director Sylvain Chomet’s long-awaited follow up to his 2003 charmer The Triplets of Belleville.

What did we learn from this year’s Super Bowl, class? That turnovers are key to the game. That Christina Aguilera doesn’t know the words to the national anthem. That the Black Eyed Peas sound like ass outside of a studio. That the economy has obviously affected major advertising.

Noda’s Japanese Cuisine—I’m mourning the loss of one of the best Japanese restaurants in the state. Some friends and I were planning a night out and wanted to make reservations for Noda’s omakase dinner—a sumptuous, prix fixe feast prepared in a manner you’d expect from a four-star establishment. Noda’s inventive dishes included top-quality ingredients in distinctive presentations. I once had a dessert consisting of a sweet rice cake shaped like a fig, stuffed with sweet bean paste and partially wrapped with a fragrant, salty/sweet shiso leaf. Alas, Noda’s closed the doors at its Trinity Plaza location in Rio Rancho this winter.

The process by which restaurants get selected for this column involves equal parts strategy and serendipity. New restaurants, if they’re any good, are no-brainers for coverage. But sometimes a case can be made for older places, especially if the Alibi has never covered them.