Predict the Oscars 2006

Erik Bates | March 6, 2006
[hidden by request]

Scott Horowitz | March 6, 2006
Erik, I have an idea for next year, just copy Scott Hardie's final answers before the oscars... I think you'll get it right! :)

Michael Paul Cote | March 6, 2006
Considering that I saw NONE of the movies nominated for best picture, I am quite content with my score.

Kris Weberg | March 6, 2006
The only Best Picture nominee I'd seen was Crash, which I thought was technically brilliant filmmaking but a bit hollow in retrospect.

Looking back, I realize that I saw exactly three new movies last year.

Jackie Mason | March 6, 2006
[hidden by request]

Amy Austin | March 6, 2006
Dude, Ed & I just decided that Scott is the "Rain Man" of cinema. And we want to take him to Vegas for the Oscars next year.

Jackie Mason | March 6, 2006
[hidden by request]

Scott Horowitz | March 7, 2006
This is another record low for Oscar viewership. March of the Penguins made more money than all best picture nominees combined. When there is no blockbuster in the running, it affects viewership.

I loved all the anti-DVD plugs that were going on throughout the night. It isn't piracy and DVDs that is hurting movie viewership, it's the amount of crap put out.

Scott Hardie | March 8, 2006
Final contest outcome: (link)

Everybody has a different strategy for winning, but if you ask me, Jackie is on to something: You have to go with the top players if you want to win, and you have to be willing to predict wrong. If I predicted the things that I genuinely thought would win (Sophie Scholl, Michael Kahn, Michelle Williams) instead of the things that everybody else was already predicting (Tsotsi, Hughes Winborne, Rachel Wiesz), I'd have lost for sure.

Every year, I use the same mathematical formula to get a high score -- I won't share it, but the principle is this: If you align yourself with the top players in the categories you're not sure about, then you neutralize their threat against you, and you will win solely on the categories that you are sure about, even if there are only a few of them. Remember: You don't win because you make accurate predictions; you win because you have the highest score. Once you let the math take over, it doesn't matter what you think will receive Oscars; you'll win either way. It's sick and it's devious, but it works like a charm. (And despite actual accusations, I don't cheat by having php or mysql do the math for me. I do it myself with Notepad and Calculator, right off of my start menu. You can do it too.)

That doesn't mean there aren't still surprises. Holy crap was I floored when Crash got the top prize. I sincerely expected the PriceWaterhouseCoopers guys to come running out and announce that Jack Nicholson had made a mistake! Crash is a good movie, sure, but to me there's a vast difference between it and Brokeback Mountain. There has been all kinds of punditry on the matter, speculating the politics behind the upset, but to me it seems obvious: The Academy had a moment of weakness and sided with the cloyingly sentimental and more emotional satisfying film instead of the artistically superior but more challenging one. It's Shakespeare in Love beats Saving Private Ryan all over again. I really believe that if the Oscars had come two weeks earlier or two weeks later, the Academy would have come to their senses and chosen the rightful winner. But then, I'm biased, and there are plenty of people who really do believe Crash is the better film. I hope they're happy about this. I haven't been this disappointed by a wrongful Best Picture win since Gladiator -- which is, incidentally, another year when Ang Lee's emotional insulation robbed his movie of the prize it deserved against a more gratifying popular title.

What was with all the film montages? Jesus, even Jon Stewart was making fun of them. Enough already! Gil Cates said in an interview that he showed so many classic film montages because there were no box-office champs among the major nominees and audiences want to recognize something during the broadcast. Fair assumption, but you couldn't accomplish this with the fine (and brief) CGI montage at the very top of the show? You had to have a half-dozen of them that dragged on forever? Every year the producers claim they're trying to get the running time of the show down to a reasonable length, and every year they pull crap like this that makes the show run long. It's so stupid.

Speaking of montages, where was Ossie Davis during the memorial one? Was he not a member of the Academy? He wuz robbed.

With his grace, sharp humor, and quick improvisation, am I the only one who would like to see George Clooney host the show next year?

Scott Horowitz | March 8, 2006
My favorite line of the night, "In case your keeping score, Martin Scorsese 0 Oscars, 36 Mafia 1"