AN UNEXPECTED WIN
How embarrassing is this? I organized this stupid Oscar competition at work, then I went and won it. I should probably recuse myself after the fact. When Lani and Chad and I were discussing the whole thing, we never really addressed what would happen if one of us won. Lani had said maybe she shouldn't enter (she organized all of the prizes - a couple of DVDs, a couple of CD soundtracks, some movie tickets, and so on), but I encouraged her to go ahead on the grounds that we were all just doing this "for fun". When I was submitting my competition form, I even had Chad "certify" it just in case there were any questions (since I'd be doing the tally), but now that it's actually happened, I feel a tad awkward.
The only problem is that, if I do excuse myself, the next highest scorer was Chad. Doh. Instead, I was thinking of disbursing the prizes to other entrants: highest scorer who didn't predict a Reese Witherspoon win gets the Walk the Line DVD, for example, or lowest scorer gets the movie tickets. Any thoughts?
For the record, this is how my predictions worked out (actually there were two sets of predictions - the Virgin predictions that I made a week ago and the ones I posted here yesterday). Where they diverge, I record the Virgin prediction first. Correct predictions appear in red [in brackets if I didn't predict them]:
PICTURE
Prediction: Crash
ACTOR
Prediction: Philip Seymour Hoffman
ACTRESS
Prediction: Reese Witherspoon
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Prediction: George Clooney
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Prediction: Rachel Weisz
DIRECTOR
Prediction: Ang Lee
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Prediction: Tsotsi
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Prediction: Crash
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Prediction: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
ART DIRECTION
Will win: King Kong / Memoirs of a Geisha
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain
SOUND MIXING
Prediction: King Kong / Walk the Line
SOUND EDITING
Prediction: King Kong
ORIGINAL SCORE
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain
ORIGINAL SONG
Prediction: In the Deep
COSTUME DESIGN
Prediction: Memoirs of a Geisha
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Prediction: March of the Fucking Penguins
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Prediction: God Sleeps in Rwanda
FILM EDITING
Prediction: Crash
MAKEUP
Prediction: The Chronicles of Narnia
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Prediction: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello / The Moon and the Son
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Prediction: Six Shooter / Ausreisser (The Runaway)
VISUAL EFFECTS
Prediction: King Kong
I made four changes between the two sets of predictions - two from correct to incorrect and two from incorrect to correct. Either way, I got nineteen out of twenty-four - or 70% - correct. With the two combined, I got 87.5%. That clearly doesn't count, but it means there were were only three awards that I didn't see coming: Memoirs of a Geisha for Cinematography (which, on second thought, was pretty good - I just thought the Academy would go with Brokeback whenever they could), "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" as Best Song (which would have been my second guess - though with only three nominees, that's not saying much) and A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin as Best Documentary Short (which would have been the last nominee I would've guessed). When the short documentary is about the only unpredictable win, it makes for a pretty pedestrian awards ceremnony. Still, the cinematography award was a bit of an upset - though not exactly enough to have rendered the whole affair nail-biting.
All in all, though, I enjoyed this ceremony more than many in recent memory. I liked the fact that there was no sweep and that, on the whole, talent seemed to be rewarded as often as popularity. Four films (Brokeback Mountain, Crash, King Kong, and Memoirs of a Geisha) each won three Oscars, with another two - Capote and Walk the Line - taking home major awards. Cool.
The only problem is that, if I do excuse myself, the next highest scorer was Chad. Doh. Instead, I was thinking of disbursing the prizes to other entrants: highest scorer who didn't predict a Reese Witherspoon win gets the Walk the Line DVD, for example, or lowest scorer gets the movie tickets. Any thoughts?
For the record, this is how my predictions worked out (actually there were two sets of predictions - the Virgin predictions that I made a week ago and the ones I posted here yesterday). Where they diverge, I record the Virgin prediction first. Correct predictions appear in red [in brackets if I didn't predict them]:
PICTURE
Prediction: Crash
ACTOR
Prediction: Philip Seymour Hoffman
ACTRESS
Prediction: Reese Witherspoon
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Prediction: George Clooney
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Prediction: Rachel Weisz
DIRECTOR
Prediction: Ang Lee
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Prediction: Tsotsi
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Prediction: Crash
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Prediction: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
ART DIRECTION
Will win: King Kong / Memoirs of a Geisha
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain
SOUND MIXING
Prediction: King Kong / Walk the Line
SOUND EDITING
Prediction: King Kong
ORIGINAL SCORE
Prediction: Brokeback Mountain
ORIGINAL SONG
Prediction: In the Deep
COSTUME DESIGN
Prediction: Memoirs of a Geisha
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Prediction: March of the Fucking Penguins
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Prediction: God Sleeps in Rwanda
FILM EDITING
Prediction: Crash
MAKEUP
Prediction: The Chronicles of Narnia
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Prediction: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello / The Moon and the Son
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Prediction: Six Shooter / Ausreisser (The Runaway)
VISUAL EFFECTS
Prediction: King Kong
I made four changes between the two sets of predictions - two from correct to incorrect and two from incorrect to correct. Either way, I got nineteen out of twenty-four - or 70% - correct. With the two combined, I got 87.5%. That clearly doesn't count, but it means there were were only three awards that I didn't see coming: Memoirs of a Geisha for Cinematography (which, on second thought, was pretty good - I just thought the Academy would go with Brokeback whenever they could), "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" as Best Song (which would have been my second guess - though with only three nominees, that's not saying much) and A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin as Best Documentary Short (which would have been the last nominee I would've guessed). When the short documentary is about the only unpredictable win, it makes for a pretty pedestrian awards ceremnony. Still, the cinematography award was a bit of an upset - though not exactly enough to have rendered the whole affair nail-biting.
All in all, though, I enjoyed this ceremony more than many in recent memory. I liked the fact that there was no sweep and that, on the whole, talent seemed to be rewarded as often as popularity. Four films (Brokeback Mountain, Crash, King Kong, and Memoirs of a Geisha) each won three Oscars, with another two - Capote and Walk the Line - taking home major awards. Cool.