Thanks to all who participated in our 3rd Annual Oscar Pickin' Contest. Despite adding categories this year, we had our first ever 6-way tie for first place.
Congrats to our overall contest winner, Emily Dahm, who correctly picked the winner in all twelve categories, and then nailed the tiebreaker, coming closest to guessing the length of the broadcast. Check your email, Emily!
Shout outs also go to our runners up. These five folks correctly picked all 12 categories, but were edged out of the tiebreaker by Emily: Geraldine Rodriguez, Naghmana Siddiqi, Brian Bedard, Preston Nicholson, and Dulcie Holtz.
It was a fun Oscars show with a couple of truly standout moments. Here are my two favorites.
The acceptance speech from Jared Leto - Best Supporting Actor (Dallas Buyers Club).
The acceptance speech from Lupita Nyong'o - Best Supporting Actress (12 Years a Slave).
Thanks again for playing and hope we see you on Oscar night again next year!
Best Actors: DDL, Jennifer Lawrence
Best Supporting: Anne and Christoph
Marathon movie-watching days, internet articles about the indecipherable politics of the Academy, coffee shop chats about amazing films that were totally overlooked (The Impossible- just sayin').
If you're a mega movie nerd (like me), you need one more day to ease out of Oscar season, and this post is for you.
I've already been online and read the panoply of opinions about Seth McFarlane's performance as host (and apparent offender of some, but not all, women). Now, it's time to nerd out with fun facts from our online Oscar pool.
We didn't totally suck. On the whole, our contest participants did pretty well. If you look at our majority picks, we nailed the winners in seven of nine categories. The two categories we blew were "Best Director" ( 67% of us picked Spielberg, not Ang Lee) and "Best Supporting Actor".
We whiffed on Christoph Waltz. "Best Supporting Actor" was far and away our worst showing. Though a handful of people picked Waltz, as a group we awarded him the least votes in the category, apparently expecting a win from someone in the tried-and-true crowd.
We weren't fooled on Best Picture. Of the nine Best Pic nominees, only three received any of our votes at all. Some expected Lincoln to sneak the win, and a few thought Silver Linings might pull a major upset, but 76.5% of us correctly picked Argo as the winner.
Optimism usually pays, but not this time. Most of us (foolishly?) expected the Oscar broadcast to run close to its 180 minute time slot on ABC. In our Oscar pool, 92% of participants underestimated the actual length of the broadcast, although one person pegged it exactly. (You killed in the tiebreaker, Beth Peery, now if you could only pick the categories right!)
Our average guess for the length of show was 190 minutes.
The actual broadcast ran 215 minutes from opening through the final credits - a whopping 35 minutes over the scheduled time.
Contest math is not for sissies. The spreadsheet I created to track and calculate contest results involved 24 columns of data, 11 different Excel formulas, and one reassuring technical call to Jane Regenstreif.
Overall, I loved this year's crop of Oscar films, and I had a great time putting together the contest. Thanks again to everyone who participated!
Our grand prize winner for the 2nd Annual Way Things Turn Online Oscar Contest is Emily Matthews! Your $25 gift card will be in the mail shortly, Emily!
Congrats also to our runners up Mike Lee andRodney Worsham.
Emily, Mike, and Rodney all guessed 8 of 9 categories correctly, but Emily won our tiebreak with her guess of 200 minutes for the Oscar broadcast duration (which clocked in at 215 minutes). Mike - if the broadcast had run one minute longer, the glory would have all been yours. Your guess of 216 minutes was closest, but sadly, not closest without going over. Sorry, friend.
If you missed any of the show, here's a list of all the Oscar winners. I'll update the blog tomorrow with a few more fun facts and stats from our contest.
"I was committed to watching all of your movies. That’s one of the things you have to do when you host. I made it through the first five minutes of every single one of them. Some of them start pretty slow. I will tell you that right now."
- From Seth Rogen during his recent stint as host of the Independent Spirit Awards, an awards show that is traditionally held in a beachfront tent in Santa Monica, CA on the Saturday before each year's Academy Award ceremony.
Maybe the Academy should consider inviting someone like Rogen to host next year's ceremony. The 2011 Oscar show was a forced low-energy affair from start to finish (Cirque du Soleil notwithstanding), in large part due to the staid and unoriginal performance of Billy Crystal as host. In his defense, Crystal was inserted as a safe "last-minute" substitute, after original plans to have Eddie Murphy emcee the show fell through (which honestly, only leads me to imagine how much worse it could have been). Nonetheless, Crystal added an air of nostalgia to the broadcast when what it needed was an element of comedic creativity and an infusion of energy.
The Academy is nothing if not cautious (boring? traditional? staid?), and with a broadcast that is essentially the same year after year, they must endeavor to find a host who genuinely freshens things up.
Moviefone put out their wishlist of potential hosts, including Rogen. Let's just hope that next year we can let the awards themselves deliver the tradition while the host is someone a little edgier and more interesting like Rogen, or Maya Rudolph, maybe?
The very first Way Things Turn - Oscar Pickin' Contest is open for business, and the online survey is linked below and ready for you to make your picks!
Choose the most correct winners in the eight pre-selected Academy Award categories, and win a $50 Gift Card to the movie theater of your choice!
The rules are simple and the contest is free. You may enter only one time, and we can accept only the first 100 respondents so don't wait until the deadline or you may miss out!
Here's all you have to do:
Click the survey link below before 7:30PM (Eastern) / 4:30 PM (Pacific) on Sunday February 26. After the cutoff times listed, the survey will be closed and no more entries will be accepted.
Follow the electronic survey instructions and mark your answers for ALL ten questions listed; be sure to provide your name and email address in the space provided.
Click "Done" at the end of the 10 question survey.
Check The Way Things Turn blog site on Monday February 27 to see if you won.
You'll want to be sure to record your answers for yourself to track your progress during the Awards show. Here's a link to a printable list of nominees in all the categories for your reference.
2011 was not a banner year for original songs in movies. In fact, it might be the worst year in the eighty-four year history of the Academy Awards.
This year only two songs were nominated in the "Best Song" category - "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets and "Real in Rio" from Rio - and to be brutally honest, not only is there a lack of nominees, but these nominees are lacking.
I'd describe the two nominated tunes as cute and full of kid appeal, but neither is particularly catchy, poignant, or memorable. Songs from prior years have been helped out by superstar performers, successful musical formulas (a string of Disney classics won in the 80s and 90s), or music/dance-oriented movie themes, but this year there is nothing of the sort. For that matter the last decade's meager crop of songs, offers little by way of comparison.
Consider some of the classic winners from previous years. These songs are not only synonymous with the movies in which they were featured, they are often representative of an era.
Among the "Best Song" winners from the 70s:
- Theme from Shaft (1971)
- The Way We Were (1974)
- Last Dance (1978)
Winners from the 80s include:
- Flashdance (1983)
- I Just Called to Say I Love You (1984)
- I've Had the Time of My Life (1987)
In the 90s, there was an impressive string of Disney winners (songs from Beauty and Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, Pocohantas), and we had popular hits like:
- Streets of Philadelphia (1993)
- You Must Love Me (1996)
- My Heart Will Go On (1997)
Now, can you name any Best Song winner since 2000? Well, "Falling Slowly" from Once was a beautiful song that won (but do you remember it?). I did dig that "Jai Ho" song from Slumdog, and Eminem's "Lose Yourself" was a winner, but in total, the quality and popular appeal of hits coming out of Oscar nominated films since 2000 has significantly diminished, when compared to prior decades.
Even the Academy appears underwhelmed by this year's song choices, and for the first time in my memory, none of the nominated songs will be performed during the awards show broadcast. Having said all that, you might still be curious to hear this year's nominees. You can listen to both tunes in this YouTube clip. If you get bored with the Muppet song, the Rio track comes in around the 3-minute mark.
The big lesson I'm taking away from this year's Oscar nominated songs - we can't let Randy Newman take any more time off.
I'm putting finishing touches (or as some people would call it, getting started) on the e-survey we'll use to record entries into The Way Things Turn's first-ever Online Oscar Pickin' Contest. By Friday, you'll be able to access a link through the blog and make your selections in the eight major categories we'll use to award cash and prizes (okay, just prizes) to the participant who knows their movies best.
If you're a regular, responsible, and gainfully employed adult (as opposed to say, a blogger), then the odds are you haven't managed to see as many of this year's Academy Award nominated films as you would like. It's not too late to squeeze in a few more movies this week though, and I'm even giving you a cheat sheet to help you prioritize your last-minute movie watching.
If you're too lazy to click the link and use the cheat sheet, here's a quick mashup that features all nine of the "Best Picture" nominees. Good luck, everyone!
Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo,
stars of The Artist
I readily admit to feelings of dread and despair when I first heard that a new silent film had been released and was receiving universally rave critical reviews. A French director making a movie about the decline of the silent film era and using no spoken dialogue in the process? None for me, thanks. Call me skeptical by nature, and you would be right; call me shallow, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong. I imagined The Artist to be a haughty artsy thing, filled with cryptic imagery and laced with industry insider references, an esoteric critic's wet dream (albeit in black and white), that set out to prove something. As it turns out, my fears were mostly unfounded.
The Artist revolves around the tragic demise of a silent film star named George Valentin and the smoldering passion of starlet Peppy Miller, his secret love interest. Third billing goes to Uggie, George's wonder-dog and constant companion, who provides charm and laughs, and a save-the-day rescue effort that would make Lassie proud. With these three stars, a more-than-adequate supporting cast, and a team of technical wizards, director Michel Hazanavicius does a phenomenal job of creating a film that manages to look like the films that were made eighty years ago, without feeling dated or out of place.
There is no doubt that The Artist should be a major Oscar contender in the "style" categories - art direction, costumes, musical score - stuff like that. The performances of the lead actors, Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, are also sublime and noteworthy. Considering the boldness of the concept and the aforementioned technical prowess of the film, Hazanavicius should be a top contender for Best Director as well.
Having said all that, it's only logical for The Artist to be my choice for Best Picture, right? Not so fast. For all that is has going in its favor, there are a few gaping holes in The Artist that all the style and technical mastery in the world just can't fill.
The Academy Awards show airs on Sunday February 26. That means you have just over two weeks to get caught up on your movie-watching, especially if you want to participate in our first ever Online Oscar Pickin' Contest.
Entry in the contest is free.
Ballots will be collected via online survey (I'll publish a link a few days before the show).
Participants will vote on the following 8 categories:
Best Picture
Best Director
Leading Actor
Leading Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Original Screenplay
Adapted Screenplay
The participant with the most correct picks wins a (maybe not so) fabulous prize, and of course, the winner will be announced on The Way Things Turn website.
Here's a link to the entire list of nominees for reference. See you at the movies!
It's February and that can only mean one thing - Academy Awards season is here! Okay, two things - if you count Valentine's Day. Three things, if you consider President's Day. But who the hell cares about all that when I'm announcing...
...the first ever WTT (Way Things Turn) Online Oscar Pickin' Contest!
In years past, we commemorated Oscar night with "Jeff's Annual Honey Baked Ham and Academy Awards Party." This was a particularly raucous and rowdy event when I lived in Tampa, where I celebrated the glamorous ceremony with the many friends I have in the sunshine state who love cinema, and honey baked ham, as much as I do.
On a typical Oscar night, we gathered at my house well in advance of the show, allowing us ample time to belittle the red carpet segment, and giving us plenty of opportunity to gasp, shriek, and debate the worst outfits of the night. We also leveraged those last precious minutes before the start of the show to conclude our Premiere Magazine research, prior to tossing $5 into the Oscar pool and submitting our picks for winners. There was usually only about $75 at stake, but the competition was fierce nonetheless. We had our pride and a year's worth of bragging rights, after all.
I'm too old and tired to host a party this year, but I'm pleased to announce the launch of an online Academy Award selection contest. Here's how it will work:
Entry in the contest is free!
Ballots will be collected via online survey (I'll publish a link a few days before the show)
Participants will vote on the following 8 categories:
Best Picture
Best Director
Leading Actor
Leading Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Original Screenplay
Adapted Screenplay
A super-fantabulous prize will be awarded to the person who makes the most correct picks (okay, probably a $25 gift card - but what do you expect to win for a free contest!). If needed, we'll use an official "end-time" of the show as a tie-breaker.
Check the blog for more details and more of my movie reviews in the weeks ahead. Until then, here is a printable list of nominees in all categories you can use as a reference to help you decide what movies you still need to see before Oscar night. The Academy Awards show airs on Sunday February 26, so get thee to a theatre!
With the Academy Awards coming soon (Feb 26), the British website theshiznit.co.uk has given us a peak into what's really behind some of the top films.
FYI - I'll publish details of The Way Things Turn Oscar picks contest soon. We will only pick 7 or 8 categories, but for your reference, here's a link to a complete printable Oscar ballot. Now, get your butt off the couch and get to the movies so you're ready to make your picks!
The Golden Globes have come and gone, and Oscar season is here. With only a few weeks to go until awards night, it's time for me to seriously step up my moviegoing game. As I get into theaters and check films off my "must see" list, I'll review a few of them, and I'm starting with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Based on a John LeCarre novel, Tinker Tailor is a cold war espionage thriller about an MI-6 officer who is resurrected from a shameful forced retirement to ferret out a Russian infiltrator from the British intelligence service.
This film stands out for a host of reasons. Tinker Tailor is complicated, as a spy thriller should be, but without being overly dense. The pace of the film is incredibly deliberate, but never butt-cheek numbingly slow. It's as realistic an international spy movie as I can imagine (and having been rejected by the CIA in my twenties, imagination is all I have to go on), without ever feeling documentary. When the closing credits rolled, I felt as though I had just seen a compelling "action" movie, and yet Tinker offers a generally quiet tone and nary a car chase.
