Friday, March 02, 2007

Oscar Wrap-up (2007)

A few weeks ago, I offered some fearless predictions about this year's Oscars. Let's see how I did. (In 2006, I might as well have guess completely randomly. I know -- it's such a shock.)

Best Actor: Forest Whitaker (Me: Will Smith)

Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin (Me: Arkin). Conclusion: The Academy got this one right! (Arkin deserved this award beyond belief.)

Best Actress: Helen Mirren (Me: Meyrl Streep). Conclusion: Meryl got robbed!

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson (Me: Abigail Breslin)

Best Animated Film: Happy Feet (Me: Cars). This is total crap. And why weren't A Scanner Darkly and Flushed Away nomited. Criminal.

Best Art Direction: Pan's Labyrinth (Me: Pan's Labyrinth). Duh.

Best Cinematography: Pan's Labyrinth (Me: Pan's Labyrinth). Even more duh.

Best Costume Design: Marie Antoinette (Me: Marie Antoinette). Wow, three in a row. By the way, Marie got my pick for who would win. In my opinion, Curse of the Golden Flower should have won, but I was voting with my ... er ... "heart" rather than my mind as far as what I felt should have gotten the nod. Any, this is a victory as far as my predictions go.

Best Directing: The Departed (Me: United 93). In my defense, I made an arbirtrary prediction before I saw any of these films. Now that I've actually seen The Departed...

Best Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth (Me: An Inconvenient Truth). Everybody saw this one coming from a mile away. At least we now know Al Gore can win something. I heard he's keeping his statue in a lockbox.

Best Short Documentary: The Blood of Yinzhou District (Me: Yingzhou). I pulled this one out of my ass and picked a winner (as it were).

Best Film Editing: The Departed (Me: United 93). Once again, had I actually seen The Departed at the time I made these predictions...

Best Foreign Language Film: The Lives of Others (Me: Pan's Labyrinth).

Best Makeup: Pan's Labyrinth (Me: Pan's Labyrinth).

Best Musical Score: Babel (Me: Pan's Labyrinth).

Best Original Song: Melissa Etheridge, "I Need to Wake Up", An Inconvenient Truth. (Me: Randy Newman, "Our Town", Cars). When is the last time a documentary had the best original song? Back in the day, the best song almost always came from a Disney film, but the times they are achangin'.

Best Picture: The Departed (Me: Little Miss Sunshine). Oops. (Note that I was predicting which one would win. My favorite films weren't even nominated for this award.)

Best Animated Short Picture: The Danish Poet (Me: Time For Nuts).

Best Live Action Short Film: West Bank Story (Me: West Bank Story). Dig the title and dig it well.

Best Sound Editing: Letters from Iwo Jima (Me: Iwo Jima). I pulled another one out of my ass.

Best Sound Mixing: Dreamgirls (Me: Dreamgirls).

Best Visual Effects: Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest (Me: Pirates). Dude, another three in a row.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Departed (Me: Notes on a Scandal).

Best Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine (Me: Little Miss Sunshine).


OK, so how did I do this year? I got 12 right out of 24. Last year, I only got 8 right out of 24. The difference is a combination or randomness, a couple of obvious choices, and the fact that I saw more nominated films this year than last year and I made fewer wild guesses as a result. Actually, batting .500 in predicting Oscars (given the nominees) is actually pretty decent.

3 comments:

Lemming said...

And, had you seen The Departed, you might have even beaten .500!

Mason said...

Certainly, that supports what I'm claiming. :) The victories by The Departed all came from categories whose "predictions" I pulled out of my ass.

Though somehow I think you're mocking me with your comment. :) Bah, I choose to ignore that.

Lemming said...

No, not really. If I wanted to mock you, I'd say, "your mom has beaten 500!"