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Every year we watch the Academy Awards, the pain lessens a little. We begin to spot and actually enjoy tracking the predictably off-base and bland, box-office driven voting trends. The mildew on Billy Crystal’s jokes start to smell like grandma's house instead of stale, vaguely relevant attempts at humor. Heck, this year we even tuned in a little early to catch Joan Rivers and crew pathetically fawning and clawing at the celebrity muckety-mucks.
What made this year most enjoyable was that it just so happens that we were right. In 100% of our Oscars rundown, we correctly predicted which nominees the Academy would pick to win, despite the fact that they were usually (in our humble opinion) wrong. Here's a rundown on the ChicagoFilm.com polling, our predictions and how we all fared.
Graphics include results from the Opinion Exchange polling tool, where voters responded as to who they thought would win ("Agree"/Red) and who they wanted to win ("Want"/Blue).
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Best Actor | Best Actress | Achievement in Directing | Best Picture
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Winner: Sean Penn
We all wept for good old Bill in this one. We were rooting for him on "Lost in Translation," he was the favorite in the polling, yet we were correct in guessing that the combined performances in "21 Grams" and "Mystic River" would take Sean Penn to the top.
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Winner: Tim Robbins
Again, the Academy went the safe route with Tim Robbins. We liked his performance in "Mystic River" and correctly assumed that he'd be the Oscar's boy, but DelToro's intense, emotionally explosive performance was a superior performance by a long shot. To his credit, this wasn't even Robbins' best performance by some measure.
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Winner: "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
Everyone was in agreement on this one, though "Lost in Translation" put up a good fight. As opposed to the vast majority of film in the epic sequel/prequel realm, adding another installment to this series in the form of "The Hobbit" is a great idea.
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Review of Oscar Shorts
Interview with Errol Morris
(Oscar, Best Documentary Feature for "Fog of War")
Interview with Nathaniel Kahn
(Oscar Nominee, Best Documentary Feature for "My Architect")
Check out all the Archives.
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