How Did I Do?

Full list of nominees is available in many places, including the Official Oscar website and the Internet Movie Database.

So this is how I fared on my Oscar nomination predictions:

Picture 10/10

How do you like that? Okay, there were really only two spots up for grabs. Well, one to be honest. But still, when there were only five nominees in this category I usually only got 4/5.

Director 4/5

I missed the Coen brothers in favor of Christopher Nolan (snubbed yet again for this award). The Coens, however, can hardly be denied status as legendary film makers at this point. Joel Coen has now been triple nominated 3 times (counting his pseudonymous Film Editing nomination for Fargo). Technically speaking Ethan can't be counted as a triple triple nominee because he was not a credited director on Fargo, although it's widely recognized and accepted that they shared equal responsibility from their first film.

Anyway, I'm not sure if anyone else has ever been thrice nominated three separate years. When I have more time I'll look into it because I'm a fan of all things Oscar statistic-related.


Actress 5/5

An unusually strong showing for me.

Best Actor 3/5


I called Robert Duvall a lock. I really thought he was. Ouch. That hurts because it bumped me down to only 60 percent in this category. I had a real expectation/hope that Jesse Eisenberg wouldn't make it, but I was wrong. Javier Bardem was the other one I missed.

Supporting Actor 5/5

Good thing I made a last minute switch while actually writing my predictions. I went with John Hawkes over Andrew Garfield and it paid off.

Supporting Actress 4/5

I made an epic screw up here. I think while writing my predictions for this category I must have thought I included Hailee Steinfeld in my Best Actress predictions. Because as it stands I predicted her to miss out completely on a nomination, which is not what I intended. And I ended up picking Julianne Moore. Still, seventeen out of twenty in the acting categories is pretty good.

Animated Feature 2/3
The French film The Illusionist by Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) caught me a bit by surprise.

Original Screenplay 4/5
Never underestimate Mike Leigh, who came through for me with a fifth writing nomination (seventh overall). But Black Swan let me down in favor of The Fighter.

Adapted Screenplay 4/5
Toy Story 3? Really? Well, it came at the expense of The Town, a middling entertainment that hardly deserved anything more than its Supporting Actor nod for Jeremy Renner.

So through the top nine categories I score 41/48. That might be the best I've ever done.

Foreign Language Film 3/5
Surprised at the absence of Spain's También la lluvia. Vexed by the presence of Greece's Dogtooth.

Film Editing 3/5
Okay, Shutter Island was a long shot, but how did I miss by including Inception?

Cinematography 5/5
First. Time. Ever. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

Art Direction 4/5
I picked TRON: Legacy, the Academy went with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I.

Costume Design 4/5
I'm just racking up the points here. I went with Black Swan while the Academy favored I Am Love, a film I completely discounted from categories outside of Best Actress.

Original Score 5/5
How does he do it?

Original Song 4/4
I'm calling this a perfect score (and my first time ever!) even though I predicted five nominees. The voting rules in this category don't guarantee five nominees. Songs have to achieve above a certain score in a special procedure. So there can be anything from 2 to 5 nominees, or no award may be given. Two years ago, for example, there were only three nominees. I suppose the real coup of predictions would be to predict exactly how many songs will make the cut and what they will be.

Makeup 1/3
Ugh! No Alice in Wonderland? I'm stunned. I've not seen Barney's Version, but this category always seems to include some crap movie (Wolfman) that has good makeup effects. This brings Rick Baker an astounding twelfth nomination.

Sound 1/5
There goes my average. Inception was the one I got right. This category always seems to throw me for a loop because there's typically some action movie included (Salt) that I otherwise wouldn't have considered and I always seem to think it's going to go to more effects driven films, but the prestige films (The King's Speech) often make it on the ballot.

Sound Editing 2/5
Jesus! Again with the action film I would never have considered (Unstoppable).

Visual Effects 4/5
Not bad, I suppose. I can't believe Hereafter made this list. I thought this category was so easy to pick considering the Academy narrows it to seven finalists before choosing the final five.

My score is 36/52 in the remaining categories for a total score of 77/100. That may be slightly better than average for me.