Oscar post-mortem

The nice thing about having a blog is that you can write things on it that people would tell you to shut up about if you actually tried to talk to them about, like how you did on your Oscar picks. Providing you don't fall asleep now out of sheer boredom, if you're looking at the blog, you're stuck with finding out how I did.

Of the 24 categories, I picked 14 correctly. That was good enough to squeak by in first place in the pool at my classmate's Oscar party, where two people had 13 correct,. As a result, I walked home through the snowstorm with a cool two dollars -- a 50 cent ante times four people. My Oscar dorkiness has some limits, so I don't save ballots from past years, but I believe that's right around or slightly below my yearly average, since I don‘t think I‘ve ever gotten less than half right.

In the major categories (picture, director, the four actors and two screenplays), I was seven for eight, picking Eddie Murphy over supporting actor winner Alan Arkin. I think Eddie should have won, but maybe those stupid "Norbit" ads really did hurt him. In general “think will win” picks corresponded well with who I wanted to win. Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson and Scorsese were all great.

I’m happy The Departed won best picture, since the other two “front-runners,” Little Miss Sunshine and Babel, I didn’t care for. Babel was sort of dull and seemed like it thought it was making way more profound points than it was, and LMS was just vastly overrated. I can’t believe it was even nominated. It made me laugh, but I thought it was just a bad movie, a 90 minute sitcom spiced up with “edgy” material (a heroin-snorting grampa and a suicidal gay Proust scholar are quirky, but not good filmmaking). If it had won, which I’d heard predicted, I would have lost it.

I think I may have liked The Queen a bit more than The Departed (I’m the only one), but two of my favorite films weren’t nominated for best picture: United 93 and Dreamgirls -- too depressing and too frothy and joyous respectively, I guess.

I thought the show and Ellen were fun, if you can look past the stupid montages and dance numbers and other filler. One montage I missed the introduction to, and I couldn’t even tell what it was about -- there was shots of the Klan, Muhammad Ali, Saving Private Ryan...can anyone tell me what the heck that was? Anyway, I’m beyond judging the show on it’s merits -- it’s the Oscars, I’ll always watch it no matter what.

Last year, I managed to see every blessed movie in every blessed category, except for one of the foreign films which hadn't yet been released in the U.S., and the shorts, naturally. This year, with much less time but the advantage of living in New York, I was able to see 25 of the 43 nominated films, (minus the shorts). I actually saw all but four nominees in the major eight categories (for the record, I missed Volver, Notes on a Scandal, Pursuit of Happyness, and Children of Men). If you care.

And now, in the height of narcissism and navel-gazing, here’s the list of actual winners and how my picks matched up. I’m really doing this for my own amusement...I can’t imagine anyone would actually be interested.

*CORRECT* Best Picture: The Departed

*CORRECT* Best Actor: Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland

*CORRECT* Best Actress: Helen Mirren for The Queen

*INCORRECT* Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine (I picked Eddie Murphy)

*CORRECT* Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls

*CORRECT* Best Director: Martin Scorsese for The Departed

*CORRECT* Best Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine

*CORRECT* Best Adapted Screenplay: The Departed

*INCORRECT* Best Cinematography: Pan's Labyrinth (I picked Children of Men)

*INCORRECT* Best Editing: The Departed (I picked United 93)

*CORRECT* Best Art Direction: Pan's Labyrinth

*CORRECT* Best Costumes: Marie Antoinette

*INCORRECT* Best Score: Babel (I picked The Queen)

*INCORRECT* Best Original Song: An Inconvenient Truth, Melissa Etheridge("I Need To Wake Up") (I picked Beyonce's song from Dreamgirls...I guess three nominations in one category canceled each other out)

*CORRECT* Best Makeup: Pan's Labyrinth

*CORRECT* Best Sound Mixing: Dreamgirls

*CORRECT* Best Sound Editing: Letters from Iwo Jima

*CORRECT* Best Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

*INCORRECT* Best Animated Feature: Happy Feet (I picked Cars, which I really liked. I didn't
see Happy Feet, but I don't see how it could not be annoying)

*INCORRECT* Best Foreign Language Film: The Lives of Others (I picked Pan's Labyrinth, and given all the other awards it won, it's pretty shocking it didn't win here. But Lives of Others is great.)

*CORRECT* Best Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth

*INCORRECT* Best Documentary Short: The Blood of Yingzhou District

*INCORRECT* Best Animated Short: The Danish Poet

*INCORRECT* Best Live Action Short: West Bank Story (I'm not sure I've ever picked the shorts right, since I never see them...)

Phew. And now, I can get on with the rest of my life.