Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Pleased with my placement this year. "It came true" last year & I look forward to 2014.

Mister Tee wrote:I'll try not to have my feelings hurt at being left off this list. By my calculation, I had 50 points -- a good-but-not-quite-good-enough showing.

I'm so sorry, Mister Tee! I calculated your score but I neglected to put it in the post. So sorry.

Great podium in the bottom 3

Sabin wrote: And there is a box they can check that honors it all: Best Foreign-Language Film.

Not all Academy members though. Only those who attend the screenings of all five nominees can do that. If you're an Amour fan within the Academy and you don't have the time or the drive to sit through all five Foreign Language Film nominees, you'd vote for Amour in one of the four other nominations it got. I thought it had the best chance in Screenplay (or Actress).

Christoph Waltz unless I'm mistaken is the first person to win the Oscar after not being nominated in this category.

Marcia Gay Harden won without a SAG nomination. They're the only two people since the SAG awards began that have won Oscars without a SAG nom.

FYI: Had someone put both Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall as a winner and runner-up in Sound Editing, I was gonna give them the full 3 points.

Wow. Was I not expecting to do remotely that well! I clicked on this link to see how poorly I did.

IN PRAISE OF MATH -- if I pick no runners up, my score is 57. I gain nothing from my runner up choices of Waltz for Supporting, Les Miserables for Makeup (+2), but I do not lose a point from hedging my bets (-7) for Animated Film, Actress, Original Screenplay, Sound Mixing, Doc Short, Live Action Short, or Animated Short (though if anything deserves spreading the odds it's those because who the fuck knows?).

IN PRAISE OF MY GUT -- either Brave for Animated Film or Django for Original Screenplay. My gut didn't pay off incredibly this year. For Brave, I just asked myself if I was a sixty year old Academy voters what movie did I like that I watched with my daughter. And for Django, I thought comparisons between Amour and Talk to Her make no sense because Almodovar's film wasn't going to win anywhere else and it's also a film more "about" writing. With Amour, dialogue and directing are almost interchangeable as well as with acting and cinematography. And there is a box they can check that honors it all: Best Foreign-Language Film. Zero Dark Thirty wasn't going to win.

DAMN MY GUT! -- yes, yes. David O. Russell did not win Best Director. I seem to recall having Ang Lee as my runner up at one point but then changing it to Steven Spielberg. That would have tied me FTW. Nor did Robert De Niro, which only proves to me that most SAG voters did not have time to watch Django Unchained before filling out their ballots. Christoph Waltz unless I'm mistaken is the first person to win the Oscar after not being nominated in this category.

WEIRD -- Lincoln for Production Design. Not the strongest lineup in this category but I doubt many saw the admittedly meticulous interiors of Lincoln besting the lavishness of Les Miz and Anna Karenina, neither of which I have seen it should be said.

WRONGEST YOU CAN BE ALL NIGHT -- Life of Pi for Sound Effects. Argo isn't going to win. Django is not likely. It really comes down to Life of Pi or Skyfall with Zero Dark Thirty. Take your pick.

I'll try not to have my feelings hurt at being left off this list. By my calculation, I had 50 points -- a good-but-not-quite-good-enough showing.

As to my earlier expressed theory, however: had I simply, as they used to say in sororities, "gone suicide" -- picked no runners-up -- I'd have had 57 points. However, I doubt this proves going without back-up is necessarily the way to go, since it arose from my surely never-to-be-repeated 3 for 3 in the shorts categories.

OscarGuy wrote: I'm supposed to be looked at as someone who knows their shit and is largely infallible.

Maybe you should change your monkier to OscarPope.

It was my own belligerence that lost this contest. I insisted that something other than Paperman would win considering how much the Academy's short film contest has dissed Pixar the last several years. However, I found out too late that they had sent screeners of all the nominated shorts out to Academy members, which meant that on a broader whole, it was far more likely Paperman would dominate. I had also wavered on putting Lee at the top of my list for Best Director and should have seen the Brave signs coming. In one of the other contests I came in 5th, which netted me $30, so it wasn't a complete loss, but I look at people getting three or four more right than I got and I feel disappointed. I'm supposed to be looked at as someone who knows their shit and is largely infallible. Sorry, this is me being depressed that for another year I have disappointed myself.

Congratulations to Italiano and Oscar Guy and Sabin for coming so close and everyone, really, for interpreting the tea leaves better than me.

Well, today I am certainly not proud of Italy - after the elections, I mean - but yes, I am kind of proud of myself. I've won the Golden Globes contest before, but I don't think I've ever won this one.

But this also shows how predictable these Oscars were, at least for me. I didn't even need to think of runners-up in most categories - by now we have all become sort-of experts of this field, and this game is getting easier and easier. Next time probably I'd rather lose and be surprised.

THE RESULTS!!!

mlrg - 34 points

Big Magilla - 35 points

Reza - 36 points

rudeboy & Precious Doll - 39 points

Bog - 40 points

ksrymy - 41 points

Greg - 42 points

criddic3 - 43 points

FilmFan720 - 44 points

anonymous - 46 points

Franz Ferdinand & The Original BJ - 48 points

Heksagon, Snick's Guy, dws1982 and sijmen - 49 points

Mister Tee - 50 points

Jefforey Smith - 51 points

RUNNERS-UP:
Oscar Guy & Sabin - 52 points

But our winner with 53 points is....

ITALIANO!!!!

Take a bow! You make Italy proud!

Picture: Argo
Director: Steven Spielberg
Actor: Daniel-Day Lewis
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence
Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones
Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway
Adapted Screenplay: Argo
Original Screenplay: Amour
Cinematography: Life of Pi
Costume Design: Anna Karenina
Editing: Argo
Foreign Film: Amour
Make-Up: Les Miserables
Music: Life of PI
Song: Skyfall
Art Direction: Les Miserables (r.u. Anna Karenina)
Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty
Sound MIxing: Les Miserables
Visual Effects: Life of Pi
Animated Feature: Wreck it Ralph
Animated Short: Paperman
Live Action Short: Death of a Shadow (r.u. Curfew)
Documentary: Searching for Sugar Man
Documentary Short: Open Heart (r.u. Inocente)

Picture: Argo (Lincoln)
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (Emmanuelle Riva)
Supp. Actor: Tommy Lee Jones (Christoph Waltz)
Supp. Actress: Anne Hathaway (Sally Field)
Director: Steven Spielberg (Ang Lee)
Original Screenplay: Amour (Django Unchained)
Adapted Screenplay: Argo (Lincoln)
Cinematography: Life of Pi (Skyfall)
Editing: Argo (Zero Dark Thirty)
Production Design: Lincoln (Anna Karenina)
Costume Design: Anna Karenina (Les Miserables)
Sound Mixing: Les Miserables (Argo)
Sound Editing: Argo (Life of Pi)
Makeup: Les Miserables (The Hobbit)
Visual Effects: Life of Pi (The Avengers)
Original Score: Life of Pi (Argo)
Song: Skyfall (Everybody Needs a Best Friend)
Animated: Wreck It Ralph (Frankenweenie)
Foreign Language Film: Amour (A Royal Affair)
Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugarman (How to Survive a Plague)
Animated Short: Adam & Dog (Paperman)
Live Action Short: Death of a Shadow (Curfew)

Kind of a combo amongst all the ideas...

Picture: Lincoln (Argo)
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Actress: Emanuelle Riva (Jennifer Lawrence)
Supp. Actor: Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Tommy Lee Jones)
Supp. Actress: Anne Hathaway
Director: Spielberg (Michel Haneke)
Animated: Frankenweenie (Brave)
Cinematography: Lincoln (Life of Pi)
Costume: Anna Karenina
Documentary: Sugar Man
Doc. Short: Kings Point (Inocente)
Film Editing: Argo
Foreign Film: Amour
Makeup: Les Miserables
Original Score: Life of Pi
Original Song: Skyfall
Production Design: Life of Pi
Animated Short: Paperman (Head over Heels)
Live Action Short: Death of a Shadow (Curfew)
Sound Editing: Life of Pi
Sound Mixing: Life of Pi
Visual Effects: Life of Pi
Adapted Screenplay: Argo (Silver Linings Playbook)
Original Screenplay: Amour (Zero Dark Thirty)

Mister Tee wrote:Seems like even longer since we hard from you.

...It may have been three years, I'm not sure.

Any new members since then? The names I'm seeing look pretty familiar.