When a Hollywood producer talks about reducing a movie concept to a poster, he or she probably wasn’t thinking of the work of Franciszek Andrzej Bobola Biberstein-Starowieyski. The great Polish painter, graphic artist and poster designer died February 23 at the age of 79. Many Polish film posters transcend the genre with their nightmarish, black comic imagery and visual wit, but Starowieyski was the doyen of them all, his work evocative of Hieronymous Bosch, Francis Bacon and, inevitably, Salvador Dali

I lucked out with my predictions this year, getting them all right. But in future contests I could do worse than by referring to the Boston Society of Film Critics (of which I am a member) and their choices for the best of the year. This time around they predicted the Oscar in nine out of the 12 categories they awarded. Exceptions being: Best Foreign Language Oscar, which they gave to"Let the Right One In," a film which Sweden didn't nominate as it's candidate in deference the dreary "Everlasting Moments;" Best Actress to Sally Hawkins; and Best Cinematography to Christopher Doyle and Rain Kathy Li for "Paranoid Park

Here are some notes taken during last night’s broadcast of the Oscars while I watched it with my associate YH.

8 pm, The Red Carpet

As usual, inane, shrill, tasteless and with its sheer awfulness making the following broadcast seem like it was written by George Bernard Shaw.

A sample: Miley Cyrus, referring apparently to her upcoming film “Hannah Montana: the Movie,” says to her red carpet interviewer that she hopes to be back at the ceremony next year, one assumes as a nominee.

Ever since the fluid dried up in my Magic Eight Ball I’ve been at a loss trying to come up with a formula to avoid total humiliation when I have to make my annual Oscar predictions. Make-up use? Facile parallels to political developments? Boring interns to death compiling Oscar statistics over the past decade and comparing them to Golden Globes results and sunspot activity? At best I get maybe 2/3rds right, probably slightly better than totally random selections.

Not to be morbid, but the Boston Society of Film Critics video below might be the last on-screen appearance of Loki, Mickey Rourke’s beloved animal companion. The Chihuahua was pushing 18 years old and no cause of death was mentioned, though to be honest he wasn’t looking too spry in the brief segment as Rourke and Sean Penn swapped strange remarks in thanking the critics organization.

Although the Boston Society of Film Critics released its annual award winners back in December, it held off until February to throw a party -- which left plenty of time to track down Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke. Captured on tape in sunny LA, the two came together to accept an award for Best Actor, after the BSFC awarded it to both of them in a rare tie.

The apparent box office success of “She’s Just Not That Into You” and its nearly universal critical disdain plus the dreaded upcoming release of “Confessions of a Shopaholic” has aroused some controversy about whether Chick Flicks should be wiped from the face of the earth. I don’t think any viable expression should be censored, though that conviction was strained while listening to an audience of besotted women oohing when [spoiler] Ben Affleck breaks down and buys a wedding ring for a shrewish, nagging and grotesquely needy Jennifer Aniston.

Let's face it: you're not getting that invitation to the Oscars. But you can still attend the Boston Society of Film Critics Ceremony this Sunday. It starts at 5 p.m. with a reception at the Casablanca in Harvard Square. Then the awards will be presented at the Brattle, including one to Maureen Ryan, the producer of the Best Documentary winner, "Man on Wire."

The rest of the economy is in the shitter, but the movies seem to be doing better than ever (wasn’t that true in the Great Depression, too?). At any rate, last month apparently was the most lucrative January at the box office in history, taking in about a billion dollars. Not that there is a lot of competition, January being the year's nadir for film releases.