2014 Oscars Scorecard

Well folks, the Academy Awards have come and gone and it is once again time to see how all my predictions panned out. But first, a bit about the show itself. I didn't enjoy Ellen Degeneres as host all that much. Yes, she made me laugh a few times but for the most part she felt like a lot of pointless filler, like all that pizza nonsense. Without all that crap the show might have ended on time for once. And yes, I know the stuff the host does is pretty much just filler crap every year, but some of it is more worthwhile than others. I did like the bit with the record-setting Twitter selfie.

Anyway, how'd I do on the scorecard? Out the total twenty-four categories, I got twelve right for a respectable .500. Not great, but when you consider I didn't see any of the animated shorts, live shorts, or documentaries, it could have been worse.

Out of the big ten that I predicted in my blog post last week though, I got a much more respectable seven out of ten, for a .700 average.

I knew Frozen would deservedly get Best Animated and I knew Let It Go would ride its coattails to Best Song. Although let's be honest, the song itself wasn't that great and wouldn't have been nearly as popular if someone other than Idina Menzel had sang it.

Yeah, I said it. Big whoop. You wanna fight about it?

Or Adele Dazeem. Whoever.

Hooked on Phonics clearly did not work for Johnny T.

I split the screenplay categories, nailing Her for original but picking The Wolf of Wall Street over 12 Years a Slave for adapted. I hit both supporting actor categories, which were both pretty obvious locks, and I got director and best picture as well. Again, fairly obvious locks. So other than Adapted Screenplay, which did I get wrong?

The two lead actor categories. I was caught completely by surprise by Cate Blanchett winning out over Streep, Dench, or Bullock for actress. I wasn't as surprised by the actor result; while I figured Chiwetel to have a lock on things, I thought Matthew McConaughey had an outside chance and was pleasantly surprised to see him win, because he was brilliant in Dallas Buyers Club. And just to touch on it, I've seen a lot of people saying they thought his speech was a little too arrogant or self-aggrandizing with the bit about himself in the future always being his own hero. My take on it is that coming from any other actor, it would have been. But coming from him and the way he's turned his career around in the last year or two, surprising everyone with just how good he suddenly is, I think it was perfect. Although for the record I think Jared Leto gave my favorite speech of the night.

So there we go. I think this year might have been my most successful in terms of predictions. We'll wait to next year to see if I can improve that. Anyone else want to share how they did and what they thought of the show and the results? Meanwhile, I guess it's time to start watching the next crop of contenders!