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!
It's on, baby! The 3rd Annual Way Things Turn Oscar Pickin' Contest is underway!
The rules are simple and the contest is free. You may enter only one time. Choose the most correct winners in twelve pre-selected Academy Award categories, and win a $25 Gift Card to the movie theater of your choice.
We've added three categories to amp up the competition: Animated Feature, which could actually be competitive this year, Original Song, and Visual Effects. (I added the latter so my super nerd friends, and you are many, would have a chance to cast a vote for the likes of The Hobbit, Iron Man, or Star Trek.)
To enter the contest, click the link below and mark your picks before the awards show starts at 8:30PM (Eastern) / 5:30 PM (Pacific) on Sunday, March 2nd. After the cutoff time, no entries will be accepted.
Here's a link to a printable listof nominees in all the categories for your reference. You won't be able to print your completed contest picks from the online survey, so be sure to record your answers to track your progress during the Awards show.
Stay in touch on Twitter, as I'm planning to live Tweet the awards show and hopefully provide contest updates on Sunday night.
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.
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.
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.
