Oscar flush

Every year when the Academy Awards ceremony airs my fiancée and I watch. Every year she prints out two copies of the official "ballot" (from the Oscar website) and we each separately make selections about who will win each category. Every year at the end of the show we compare who guessed more categories correctly and that person gets bragging rights for the duration of the time it takes for the end credits of the telecast to roll.

Every year I do not participate in any other "Oscar pool," even though there are those who seek my involvement.

Is it that I dislike these others or have anything against the people organizing them? Absolutely not. I simply cannot comply with the basic requirement of these pools: the selections must be made prior to the beginning of the show.

That's not how I roll, Oscar-pick-wise.

~

The way the little head-to-head competition with my fiancée operates is this: Your pick must be made prior to the envelope for that category being opened. It's perfectly within the rules to choose as the presenter is starting to slide his or her finger under the flap; all that matters is a selection is made before he or she says "And the Oscar goes to…."

That makes it seem like all my selections are capricious and made in the last moment, but it's not that I have no ideas prior to the ceremony. We watch the Golden Globes each year as well (but do no such competition for that). We watch entertainment news (er, "news") programs and read magazines that feature stories about who the front-runners for the various categories are, et cetera. Heck, usually we have seen at least some of the nominated films.

The thing is: There's only really six awards that get discussed in those forums, but the ceremony (that airs) features 24 categories. To "win" a pool, one needs to get a bunch of the (shall we say, with no intended disrespect) lesser categories right as well.

Those I do not have the time nor inclination to research ahead of time. And researching them would be unlikely to make much of a difference.

It's a matter of paying attention as the show proceeds to pick up on what the pattern is.

I shall give you a glimpse into my process below.

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For the "big" ones (Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture), I followed "The DaColbert Code" (prior to the ceremony, Stephen Colbert made his picks in the style of The Da Vinci Code), which proved to get all but one correct.

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The DaColbert Code - Oscar Predictions

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Granted, these were already noted as favorites or at least in the top two in the given category; it was playing it safe, but with those categories playing it safe tends to pay off. (Colbert did not choose Best Director, but Danny Boyle's name was bantied about most heavily.)

My fiancée did not watch that episode of The Colbert Report. She did not score 5 out of 6 there. (She got 4 of 6, which, while still a good percentage, is one more than one can afford to miss with the "biggies.")

This year, another category was simple: When it came to the Best Animated Feature category anyone who didn't choose Wall-E did so out of spite; that was a phenomenal slam dunk, and anyone who had even heard of the film should have known as much.

But that leaves us with 17 more categories—many of which being the technical ones where as a layman I really have little basis for gauging. And maybe the Academy voters for those categories paid closer attention to that specific aspect of the nominated films, and maybe they didn't.

That doesn't matter. As I said, it's about discerning the pattern.

Many times there's a wave of momentum behind a given movie—not only with the big categories but with the technical ones as well. (For the 2004 ceremony, for example, that was Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.) However, there's no way to know that ahead of time. That only can be discerned by careful scrutiny of the first couple categories for which that movie is nominated. If a movie gets the nod for, say, Cinematography and Sound Mixing, and it doesn't seem like there was any real justification for that, then jump on that bandwagon.

Now, there are years when there is no pattern; that is the pattern. Then it's a crapshoot.

This year, of course, there was a pattern, and that pattern was all geared around the love fest over Slumdog Millionaire. I had a feeling about it, but it wasn't until I chose against it in Sound Mixing (or something) that I knew to ride the Slumdog express for the rest of the night. (Sure, that didn't pan out when The Dark Knight stole Sound Editing away, but that is something of the exception to prove the rule. Not that exceptions prove anything, but that seemed like a good spot for an unnecessary aphorism, didn't it?)

Oh right. I should clarify something. That is the true test of a pattern: choosing something else in one of those early technical categories, and having that backfire. It is a necessary sacrifice made toward the greater goal.

One other rule of thumb: When there's two movies with multiple nominations (as there was this year with Slumdog and Benjamin Button both garnering them in double-digits), if the "bandwagon" film is not nominated but the other one is, go with that. So, Benjamin was the auxiliary mini-bandwagon when Slumdog had no horse in the race (Makeup, Art Direction, Visual Effects).

Of course, there's only so far mining the pattern (and auxiliary pattern if applicable) will get you, when there is one. There's the documentary categories (full-length and short) and others where the pattern cannot apply (because the movie in question won't be nominated in them). Alas, with those you'll have to rely on your gut.

Sometimes if I cannot decide between two movies for, say, Animated Short, I just go with a very quick eenie-meenie-minie-moe. However, that more often blows up on me; typically it's the other one that I didn't "pick" that ends up winning (and then I am wrought with completely unjustified anger until the next presenter comes on).

So, one thing is certain: However you pick, don't overthink them.

And with documentaries, if you've even heard of one, go with it. I got Man on Wire (and my fiancée did not) because the filmmaker had appeared as a guest on The Colbert Report back in January. (Hmm. Noticing a pattern there….) That may backfire as well (we were both losers by taking Waltz with Bashir in the Foreign Language category), but it's better than nothing.

The reality is that you're probably going to take a bath on most of those non-biggie and outside-the-pattern categories. The thing is: Everybody else probably will as well.

You don't have to get them all; you just have to get more than whoever you're competing against.

And for the second year in a row, I did so. (By somehow pulling 8 of those 17 out of my behind.)

Which was undoubtedly just dumb luck. That's the real key to victory with this.

(I probably should have mentioned that earlier, shouldn't I?)