How I Did Prediction-Wise. How 'Bout You?

I'm not much for stats but for what it's worth, here's how I did on my Oscar predictions.

74% (89/120) if you include all categories, including those very few others predict like the short features.
77% (81/105) if you drop the three shorts categories which very few people bother with, thus upping their predictive ratio ;). If you'd like to know how I stack up with other pundits, I'm hearing Kris Tapley edged me out with 84/105 but am I in second place this year? Does anyone know? 81 is a good score. Yay me!
88% (40/45) in "the big eight" director, picture, acting and screenplays

Best Categories: I went 100% in Animated Feature, both Actress categories and Lead Actor -- if I'd only seen Hawkes over Garfield, I would have had an historic 100% in all acting categories --  correctly assuming those Big Hollywood Players raving about Javier Bardem (Ben Affleck & Julia Roberts among them) would do the trick for him. Another category I'm really proud of is Animated Short, which is often difficult to guess and I went 4/5 after viewing clips from all the finalists.

Worst Categories: I totally biffed Makeup (1/3) which is, in my defense, year after year the most baffling category (though I think The Way Back is very deserving and I also nominated it in my own awards). But I'm much much more surprised to have done so poorly on the Sound Categories (3/5 in each). In my defense there this is a very unusual year: for once the Sound Mixing and Sound Editing nominations are not virtual mirror images of each other. In fact, I can't recall a year ever with less overlap. Only two films Inception and True Grit show up in both categories. Usually these categories are 4/5 overlaps. Frustrated that I didn't predict the Angelina actioner Salt since I nominated in my own awards and it was my "alternate" that I nearly went with but in the end I chickend out and just used the Sound guilds nominees, which turned out to be not at all what Oscar's sound branch was thinking ;)

Just Curious: Did anyone predict I AM LOVE for costumes? I'm so thrilled that happened for Antonella Cannarozzi.

Very deserving if I do say so myself.

What are you most proud of from your predictions? Where did you fail most spectacularly?

all Oscar race posts
complete list of nominations

Sad News and My Ballot For Best Costumes

First, the very sad news. If you've been reading the past couple of days you probably saw the "visual category film bitch nominations". While adjusting coding today, to finalize the page, I accidentally somehow  erased the entire page. I've lost four categories worth of published nominees and writeups (animated film, visual effects, makeup, and editing) as well as preliminary stuff that wasn't published. I can't seem to find a cached url that will display it -- i'm not sure it would display now in anyone else's "history" or cached pages?  I am d-e-p-r-e-s-s-e-d. That was probably eight hours of work and there are no extra minutes this time of year. Let this be a lesson to everyone: never keep your files only in one place. I'm not even sure i'll remember what I nominated or wrote. It may take me much longer and post-oscar noms to do this now. I always complete the Film Bitch Awards in the traditional categories before the Oscar nominations but this looks like the year where tradition might finally die. Sniffle. Blotchy tears will short circuit my keyboard now.

But there's no sense in not posting what I'd already written about costumes. But IF you think your computer will display a cached version of the visual nominations page don't click on this new version ;) and try it and email me a pdf or something.

Just for the hell of it, for example's sake, I want to talk about two costumes pictured below (I chose them at random) in the absurd hope that a few of you out there will reveal a previously hidden obsessive love of costume design. I want to create a series devoted to it but I need to know you're out there first.

Amy Westcott and Mary Zophres done good.

What can costumes tell us about characters? Quite a lot. Amy Westcott (Black Swan) and Mary Zophres (True Grit) will probably be Oscar nominated tomorrow, each for the first time, and I've also nominated them. Westcott is undoubtedly benefiting from Rodarte's "Swan Lake" ballet costumes (Rodarte can't be nominated with her due to contractual issues) but her own work is very fine, too. Maybe Westcott wouldn't be nominated without the Rodarte bells and whistles but that says more about the Academy's resistance to contemporary character costuming than about the quality of her work.

The color coding of all of these similarly dark and vaguely possessed women is delicious, just subtle muted variations (blacks, greys, white, pinks, etcetera) since they're distorted reflections of each other. Isn't it perfect with a capital P that Winona Ryder's evening wear on the night she's thrown in the trash heap --  excuse me, retiring --  is basically a big silver "X" . She's a goner.

Over in True Grit Mattie's clothes don't quite fit her (amusing smart choice) and Rooster's look like they desperately need to be laundered but isn't it perfect that LaBoeuf's outfits look so new and fastidious and that they're fringed. His pride takes a beating in the film but he's wearing it, you know? He cares about how he looks.

MY NOMINEES IN COSTUME
alas none of the other visual categories that have vanished like tears in the rain

Would you like to see a recurring series on costume design in 2011?

Follow the Red Carpet Road

Just for kicks -- synchronized kicks while singing "We're Off to See The Wizard" -- I've been casting some of this year's behind the scenes Oscar hopefuls as denizens of the that magical land Over the Rainbow. It's less gay than it sounds, I promise. I blame Hailee Steinfeld's pigtails for the inspiration. It's all her fault.

Find out which character each Best Director candidate plays and help me cast the other players. Read the article at Tribeca Film

I Link You Phillip Morris

Link Almighty?
How the Link Stole Christmas?
Ace Ventura: Link Detective?

• Towleroad Jim Carrey Black Swans himself for Saturday Night Live
• In Contention is Jim Carrey on the rise again? It's a good question.
• My Life as a Blog interesting piece on great acting and how we (generally) define it. Plus more praise for Jeon Do-yeon in Secret Sunshine (2007) and that's always worth rubber-stamping.
• Cinema Blend Trent Reznor to score The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The Fincher collaboration continues.
• EW the Coen Bros pick their favorite westerns on such criteria as "good hat brims"
• Scanners best shots, opening and ending of the year
• /Film Wicked film in the works. But not the one we were waiting for, damnit.
• Brown Okinawa Assault Incident has a list of indelible fashion moments in 2010 films from The Runaways to I Am Love to Never Let Me Go. Fun/interesting.
• Roger Ebert a little more detail on the NSFC awards as well as an official statement about the MPAA and the Blue Valentine controversy and such.
• In Contention BAFTA's rising star list. Go Tom Hardy (though I wonder why he wasn't nominated last year? That's when we honored him.

Finally, you should check out StinkyLulu's 5th annual Supporting Actress Blog-a-thon if you haven't yet. Each year, Stinky's enthusiams for "actressing at the edges" provides an interesting eclectic look at a broad swath of performances from their passionate fans. The blog-a-thon often feels quite personal so I respond to it that way in turn. Thus, it was most interesting to read about roles and performances that I... 

a) didn't personally care for (Patricia Clarkson in Shutter Island) 
b) didn't see but am now curious about (Anne Hathaway in Valentine's Day)
c) hadn't thought twice about until the interesting write-up (Tammy Blanchard in Rabbit Hole) or
d) obsess over on account of the film.

Regarding the latter, you know I'm talking about Black Swan which as you can imagine hogs quite a bit of the blog-a-thon being an actressy effort. Mila Kunis gets more writeups than I've ever seen anyone get in these parties and Julian at Movies and Other Things made me giggle with this bit on Barbara Hershey.

She refrains from extremes, ...never dipping into Mommie Dearest-like histrionics. I don’t think she cares if Nina uses wire hangers for her clothes...

Hee. True enough, Julian. But she sure does care if Nina eats cake. "WELL, IT'S GARBAGE NOW!"

Podcast: "You Haven't Seen The Last of Us" Pt. 2

You listened to Part One already, right?

PART TWO (23 min)
Topics Include:

• Why is 127 Hours still falling like a rock?
• Will there be a surprise nominee Best Pic nominee? If so, what?
• Deep thoughts about the rise of James Franco
• Art Direction & Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland, Inception
• Nick predicts an Oscar night Black Swan gag from Anne Hathaway
• Original Score: Alexandre Desplat, Hans Zimmer, Trent Reznor, Daft Punk?
• Debra Granik and Best Director
• "Hip Young Directors" Chris Nolan, David Fincher, Darren Aronofsky
• Burlesque

Podcast: You Havent Seen Pt 2