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Issue #5

Nomination Fallout

Introduction:

So the Oscar Nominations were announced today. One of the coolest days of the year. And overall, it's a very successful list, and indicative of the powerful year that was 2005: ten different films got at least four nominations. Last night, I deprived you all from my FONPs (Final Oscar Nomination Predictions, obviously) due to the intense busy-ness that college very sporadically hits you with. But as virtually none of you would've caught the article before today anyway, here's the best place for us all to catch up. On the left is my final predictions. On the right, the actual nominations. Italics on the left denote a change from the predictions in my last column. Red denotes where I was wrong.

The chart:

Commentary on changes from first predictions to final predictions:

So, how did I do? Excellent, actually. When I change my preliminary predictions, I make sure to only make significant changes very sparingly. That helped and hurt me today. Changing Scarlett Johanssen to Frances McDormand seemed like increasingly more of a no-brainer after seeing Match Point. She was great, but it wasn't an Oscar performance, and unlike McDormand, she didn't get much preliminary notice. So that part worked out. Terrence Howard for Hustle & Flow was half-skill, half-luck. Luck, because the reason I didn't replace him with Russell Crowe was only because I just plain don't like the guy. Skill, because I previously had Jeff Daniels, but decided Howard had the better chance. Score. And the final two really had nothing to do with skill, but simply a convenience: Syriana was announced that it was eligible in the ORIGINAL Screenplay category and not in the ADAPTED, because apparently the Academy found the script different enough from the source material. This cleared up a problem I had, which was leaving Munich out of the Adapted Screenplay category, which looked more and more like a sure bet to me. With Syriana gone, Munich fit neatly into its place. Over in the Original Screenplay category, meanwhile, to fit Syriana, I took out the weak link: Cinderella Man. Clutch.

Commentary on the stuff I got wrong:

Problem was, I didn't change ENOUGH. Every year, there's a director surprise, and the year I screw up enough courage to throw a left-field contender in there: no director surprise. Well, that's life. Unfortunately, Cache also came back to haunt me in the Original Screenplay category, where I had placed it in order to give the Director a companion nomination (a la The Barbarian Invasions a couple years ago). I just plain shouldn't've done that: this was the perfect place to award Match Point its obligatory nomination, and I was stupid for not realizing that. My stubbornness (and own personal taste, which always screws me over at least once) also led me to stick with Walk the Line for Best Picture when the writing was on the wall that Munich was going to come and take it. In my defense, a relatively small five nominations (for a Best Picture nominee) shows that Munich's the least popular of the Best Picture nominees, but hey: it got one and Walk the Line didn't. And finally, I screwed up A History of Violence. William Hurt got nominated, whom I didn't predict, but Maria Bello didn't, whom I did. That's the way it goes. I'm not too disappointed about that one though, because I've grown to love the film and at this point I'm just happy it was recognized at all. Hurt gives a strange, perfect performance definitely worthy of a nomination -- and he's on the screen less than fifteen minutes.

Bragging Rights:

Percentage Correct: 88%
Amount Correct: 35/40
Perfect Categories: 3
Categories in which I got more than one wrong: 0

My many excuses for not predicting all the categories:

These eight are the ones that matter. I didn't research the other ones as much. No one cares about the other categories. It would've royally screwed my percentage correct. I would've just plain done bad. So there.

All of the other official nominations:

Tallies (except for the Docs and Short-Subjects):

8: Brokeback Mountain
6: Good Night, and Good Luck
6: Crash
6: Memoirs of a Geisha
5: Capote
5: Munich
5: Walk the Line
4: The Constant Gardener
4: Pride & Prejudice
4: King Kong
3: Cinderella Man
3: The Chronicles of Narnia
3: War of the Worlds
2: Hustle & Flow
2: Syriana
2: A History of Violence
2: Mrs. Henderson Presents
2: North Country
2: Transamerica
1: Junebug
1: Match Point
1: The Squid and the Whale
1: Howl's Moving Castle
1: Corpse Bride
1: Wallace & Gromit
1: Harry Potter
1: Batman Begins
1: The New World
1: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
1: Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith

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