I made my Oscar predictions some time ago. Tonight, we'll find out how off my rocker I am. Here are my daring prognostications, along with a side-by-side, real-time comparison with the Huffington Post's Oscar predictions:
Best Picture: "Lincoln"
WINNER: "Argo." Surprise, surprise! I consider this a nod to Ben Affleck, who wasn't even nominated for Best Director. Ben, you done good.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Argo." (With a 92.7% probability of winning.)
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln"
WINNER: Daniel Day-Lewis. Comme prévu.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: Daniel Day-Lewis (99.6% odds that he would win).
ADVANTAGE: Neither.
Best Actress: Emmanuelle Riva, "Amour"
WINNER: Jennifer Lawrence! Amazing. She deserves it.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: Jennifer Lawrence.
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Supporting Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, "The Master"
WINNER: Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained." I'm glad the guy won, and I'm glad Tarantino continues to be recognized, despite the controversial nature of his film.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: Christoph Waltz.
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Supporting Actress: Sally Field, "Lincoln"
WINNER: Anne Hathaway, "Les Misérables."
HUFFPO PREDICTED: Anne Hathaway. HuffPo knows its stuff.
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Animated Feature: "Brave"
WINNER: "Brave." Called it.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Wreck-It Ralph."
ADVANTAGE: Hominid.
Best Cinematography: "Anna Karenina"
WINNER: "Life of Pi." I'm surprised the palace drama didn't win.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Life of Pi."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Costume Design: "Anna Karenina"
WINNER: "Les Misérables." Yeesh. I'm shocked at how well "Les Mis" is doing, given its tepid press and equally tepid viewer reactions.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Anna Karenina."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Director: Steven Spielberg, "Lincoln"
WINNER: Holy shit, it's Ang Lee!
HUFFPO PREDICTED: Steven Spielberg. Their stats gave Spielberg a 78% chance of winning, versus Lee's 21% chance.
ADVANTAGE: Neither.
Best Documentary Feature: "The Invisible War"
WINNER: "Searching for Sugar Man." Well, it was just a guess.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Searching for Sugar Man." Damn those HuffPo creatures! Damn their eyes!
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Documentary Short: "Inocente"
WINNER: "Inocente." I can't believe I got this right.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Open Heart."
ADVANTAGE: Hominid.
Best Editing: "Argo"
WINNER: "Argo."
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Argo."
ADVANTAGE: Neither.
Best Foreign-language Film: "Amour"
WINNER: "Amour." Et oui!
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Amour."
ADVANTAGE: Neither.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
WINNER: "Les Misérables."
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey." Guess we both got it wrong.
ADVANTAGE: Neither.
Best Music (Original Score): "Lincoln"
WINNER: "Life of Pi." Well, damn. I was sure that John Williams was going to clinch this.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Life of Pi."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Music (Original Song): "Skyfall"
WINNER: "Skyfall." Easy prediction. Adele is the flavor of the month.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Skyfall."
ADVANTAGE: Neither.
Best Production Design: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
WINNER: "Lincoln."
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Les Misérables."
ADVANTAGE: Neither.
Best Short Film (Animated): "Adam and Dog"
WINNER: "Paperman."
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Paperman."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Short Film (Live Action): "Death of a Shadow"
WINNER: "Curfew." Never woulda' guessed.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Curfew."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Sound Editing: "Django Unchained"
WINNER: A tie! "Skyfall" and "Zero Dark Thirty."
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Zero Dark Thirty."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Sound Mixing: "Lincoln"
WINNER: "Les Misérables."
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Les Misérables."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Visual Effects: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
WINNER: "Life of Pi." Wow. I would never have expected the Peter Jackson juggernaut to be stopped by some Chinese guy.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Life of Pi."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay): "Beasts of the Southern Wild"
WINNER: "Argo." Should've known better.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Argo."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo.
Best Writing (Original Screenplay): "Moonrise Kingdom"
WINNER: "Django Unchained." I should've gone with my gut on this one. Tarantino is a ferocious writer. The man knows dialogue, and should be giving Scriptwriting 101 classes to poor George Lucas.
HUFFPO PREDICTED: "Django Unchained."
ADVANTAGE: HuffPo, which is kicking my ass right and left in these predictions.
Having read some of the pro scuttlebutt, I'm going to assume that, in cases where my predictions go wrong, the likely winner will have something to do with "Silver Linings Playbook," a feel-good dramedy about mental illness that Academy insiders apparently adore. That's my only hedge for the evening, and it's not really a hedge: I'm sticking to my guns and holding firm with the predictions I've listed above.
Good luck to me!
FINAL COMMENTS: The Huffington Post explains its Oscar prediction algorithm this way: "Chance of Winning is HuffPost's synthesis of all this data [i.e., box-office gross, audience and critical rating, other awards] along with the latest prices from the Intrade, Betfair and Hollywood Stock Exchange prediction markets." That's a formidable method for making predictions, and I have to admit that it works a lot better than my often-blind intuition. Hats off to HuffPo and other insiders who did a much better job of predicting tonight's winners. My own track record tonight is a shameful 6 out of 24 predictions correct. HuffPo did a lot better; if we count up the "advantage" points, HuffPo gets 15, Hominid gets 2, and Neither (we were both right or both wrong in our predictions) gets 7.
_
Monday, February 25, 2013
Oscar night
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I still have yet to see Lincoln (I did have a chance to see it on the plane to/from Cambodia, but didn't want to see it while tired), and Django doesn't even open here until spring (March 21st)!
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen "Lincoln," either, and I'm predicting it'll win six Oscars.
ReplyDeleteWell, now that it's all over, my thoughts:
ReplyDeleteIt was a bit disappointing to see the Hobbit get nothing... but I can't say that I am actually all that surprised. I think the Academy will wait for the third and final installation before passing judgment, and the last film will be nominated a bunch of times. I predict that it will not be nominated as many times as LOTR:ROTK, and also that it will not sweep its nominations.
It was nice to see Argo come away with three, especially best picture. I really did enjoy that film. On the other hand, I think Life of Pi was a bit overrated. I also enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it was as good as everyone seems to think it is.
I never saw Brave, but I did see Wreck-It Ralph on the way back from Cambodia, and it was surprisingly good. I had heard that there was some critical disappointment with Brave, so I was a bit surprised that Wreck-It Ralph did not pull through.
23 days until I can see Django in the cinema...
I saw ever damn one of the films nominated, and I can justifiably say that the best film, director, and actress were not honored this year. You can also say the same thing once you watch Zero Dark Thirty. Jennifer and Ben deserved their awards, but for their previous, and better, works.
ReplyDeleteI am still having trouble coming to grips with how an award that is presented by the First Lady of the United States can be anything more than an obvious sham showing just how liberal the Academy is when it comes to quashing anything that might give the liberal excess of Hollywood or the current administration a black eye. Shameful doesn't even begin to describe the injustice done to those who brought that, nearly unfilmable, story to the big screen in all its nail-biting intensity as it truly makes you uneasy as you watch the story play out. I guess it just made those in Congress and the administration nervous enough to do their own underhanded lobbying among their Hollywood friends of the President to ensure the film's relegation to the slag heap with those previous countless injustices over the years due to blatant Oscar voter hypocrisy that shows no signs of letting up.