Oscar Pool

[dr.girlfriend]

I've re-activated the Oscar Pool for this year, if anyone wants to play.  It's on

www.funofficepools.com

Pool Name: GBCN Oscars
Password:  GBCN

[niemand88f]

Made my picks, but I'm really not confident about any of them this year :?  (not that I ever do particularly well in these!)

[osumelissa]

OK I made my picks.

[dr.girlfriend]

Where is julesf84 ?  :-)

[oscarnerdjulief]

I am the JulieF who is in the Oscar Pool. I am not JulesF84.

What do you think of this year's race? What movies have you seen? Of the Oscar nominated movies, I've seen some of the main ones: Boyhood, Birdman, Imitation Game, Theory of Everything, Grand Budapest Hotel, Gone Girl, Foxcatcher, Ida, plus I'm seeing American Sniper on Friday.  I missed Selma and may see Nightcrawler later in the month.  We get gift cards to theaters around Christmas, so I splurge after seeing maybe two or three movies during the first 9 months of the yr.

The race is all of a sudden hard after I thought the top categories were easy. Actor, director, and picture have opened up. Probably the winner of the pool will be who can get the most of these right: score, screenplays, makeup, costumes, editing, and the sounds. We'll see.  There are a couple of guilds this weekend: editing, animated...  DGA's next week.

My favorite movie of the year was Gone Girl, followed by Birdman and Boyhood. I want Boyhood to win, though, and will feel badly if it doesn't, esp. Linklater. Right now the big question is how Budapest will show. It could win four or one. Don't know.

Foreign or Doc could be an upset that no one's seeing.  I pretty much know I'll miss at least one of the shorts.  I always do.

[Deleted]

I'm going to see Whiplash and Theory of Everything this week which will be my last two Best Picture nominees to see.

I feel like this year all the movies are more on the same level than usual. I've liked everything, but nothing stands out as amazing.

I'm not sure I'll get a chance to see much more than the BP nominees this year though. DH really wants to see Fox Catcher, so we may see that too.

[dr.girlfriend]

Jan 28, 2015 15:57:30 GMT -5 oscarnerdjulief said:

I am the JulieF who is in the Oscar Pool. I am not JulesF84.

What do you think of this year's race? What movies have you seen? Of the Oscar nominated movies, I've seen some of the main ones: Boyhood, Birdman, Imitation Game, Theory of Everything, Grand Budapest Hotel, Gone Girl, Foxcatcher, Ida, plus I'm seeing American Sniper on Friday.  I missed Selma and may see Nightcrawler later in the month.  We get gift cards to theaters around Christmas, so I splurge after seeing maybe two or three movies during the first 9 months of the yr.

The race is all of a sudden hard after I thought the top categories were easy. Actor, director, and picture have opened up. Probably the winner of the pool will be who can get the most of these right: score, screenplays, makeup, costumes, editing, and the sounds. We'll see.  There are a couple of guilds this weekend: editing, animated...  DGA's next week.

My favorite movie of the year was Gone Girl, followed by Birdman and Boyhood. I want Boyhood to win, though, and will feel badly if it doesn't, esp. Linklater. Right now the big question is how Budapest will show. It could win four or one. Don't know.

Foreign or Doc could be an upset that no one's seeing.  I pretty much know I'll miss at least one of the shorts.  I always do.

Oops, sorry!  Welcome back!

I've seen hardly anything...Grand Budapest and Imitation Game.  My husband has seen all of them I think, except for maybe Ida?

[oscarnerdjulief]

I saw Ida. It was well-made, brilliantly shot, but it didn't leave as big an impact on me as I might've hoped. It was decent, not great. The performances by the two actresses named Agata were good.

I have listened to every awards podcast imaginable for the last year, and I can tell you that I am only confident of around 6 or 7 of these categories.

I wish that I had more access to the documentaries and shorts.

[dr.girlfriend]

Feb 5, 2015 15:58:02 GMT -5 oscarnerdjulief said:

I saw Ida. It was well-made, brilliantly shot, but it didn't leave as big an impact on me as I might've hoped. It was decent, not great. The performances by the two actresses named Agata were good.

I have listened to every awards podcast imaginable for the last year, and I can tell you that I am only confident of around 6 or 7 of these categories.

I wish that I had more access to the documentaries and shorts.

Does a theatre near you do a marathon of the shorts?  Our local indie theatre usually does.

[oscarnerdjulief]

I wonder if more of the people from previous years are going to join this pool. There aren't as many of us this time.

Just because I have time to kill and always like to blab about the Oscars, here are big five snubs for Oscar noms:

1) Lego Movie not getting nominated for Animated. I thought that would win.
2) Life Itself being left out of Documentary. I saw it and thought it was really good, but maybe they thought that the craft of it wasn't as good.
3) Gone Girl----it bugs me that it only got actress. I figured it'd be in the mix to win score and screenplay, plus it could've gotten one of the best picture slots. I knew toward the end that Fincher wasn't happening.
4) Jake Gyllenhaal and Jennifer Aniston missing---these are people who hit the later awards but didn't get Oscar nods.
5) Selma just getting song and picture. It seems like they didn't like the movie but felt like they had to give it something, so they voted for it in best picture out of obligation.

Force Majeure was a movie that was supposed to get in foreign but didn't.

[oscarnerdjulief]

Dr. Girlfriend,

Not to the best of my knowledge. I think they were eventually on video on demand, though. I had a chance to see the Voorman Problem and the others in that category last year, but didn't because I'm cheap. :-) I just saw Crisis Hotline today on HBO On Demand, which I didn't even know I had. (part of a free promo this month)

[oscarnerdjulief]

What categories have you spent the most time deliberating over? I had the stupid Her mistake last year, and I think Original Screenplay is infuriating this year, too. Actor is also hard, and a lot of the minor techs are a crapshoot. (like the two three-time Oscar winning costume designers facing off, Into the Woods vs. Budapest)

[oscarnerdjulief]

I think the final hour of this year's Oscars will be the most exciting and unpredictable in years. This is one year where I wish I hadn't seen the films or listened to their backstories. I will probably have good overall picks but lose in the final 10 minutes of the ceremony because I just can't believe that the Academy will snub ___________ and his beautiful movie. I know the precursors, but I just can't do it. I still might change my mind. I will clarify after the ceremony who I'm talking about. It's probably obvious. Well, it will be now that I'm explaining it.

I don't get why people are saying if there's a split it will be Boyhood and Inarritu. The whole smear campaign against Boyhood has been that it's a gimmick, that it was a boring, plodding movie. Wouldn't that signify that if there's going to be a split, it would be Birdman for pic but Linklater for director since it's his vision, his 12-yr plan, etc. I do not get it.

I understand the PGA/DGA/SAG "Birdman" precursors and what they mean. But I just cannot believe it. Birdman doesn't seem like an Academy movie, and I can't believe that the Academy can ignore Linklater's achievement and pick Inarritu, who continues the trend of foreign directors winning the Oscar but seems so ick. I am stunned at this development.

When I had both Birdman and Inarritu picked, I wanted to lose this contest.  I hear all this blah blah blah, Birdman's the "actors' movie," well, guess what?  There were two other actors' movies; they were called "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle" and they won 1 award out of around 17.

[msmerymac]

I've seen all of the BP nominees, except American Sniper. So:

Boyhood
Birdman
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Grand Budapest Hotel
Selma
Whiplash

Other nominated films I've seen:

Wild
Gone Girl
Foxcatcher

I've also see all of the live action shorts (Aya, Boogaloo and Graham, Butter Lamp, Parvaneh, and the Phone Call), and all of the animated shorts (The Bigger Picture, The Dam Keeper, Feast, Me and My Moulton, A Single Life).

I haven't seen any foreign language or documentary shorts or features. I might be able to swing Last Days in Vietnam and CitizenFour and maybe one foreign language nominee by this weekend. Whatever is on HBO or Amazon Prime or whatever else I have.

My favorites are Birdman and Selma, and Boyhood and the Imitation Game are right behind that. It's actually a bit tough to choose this year, since I agree that the real contest is down to Boyhood and Birdman in the major categories. I think the Academy is willing to split Director/Best Picture moreso lately. The question is if Boyhood peaked too soon, or if Birdman is too Hollywoodish (lol, it's not, the Academy will like that).

[oscarnerdjulief]

Citizenfour is on HBO Monday. I have it set to tape; I wasn't able to get Last Days of Vietnam in time.

This may be the first time in quite a few yrs that every best picture nominee gets something.

I think that the "it's boring/gimmick/nothing special" campaign against Boyhood has worked, plus Birdman has most of the guilds. There's a bandwagon effect where people will vote for Birdman to win because they wish to be "on the winning team." Maybe Boyhood always just had the support of the critics, not the industry. Plus Birdman is about actors...

I am shocked that so many pundits are still picking Boyhood when there's not a film as far as I know in the modern era that has lost all four major guilds and won best picture. I would love for Linklater to win. Most of the pundits in the Oscar podcasts I am listening to are picking him, plus I know Sasha Stone has been an advocate for Boyhood and Linklater since the beginning.

I'm most intrigued by sound mixing, score, and original screenplay at this point. Can't believe that they will let Linklater walk away empty-handed.

[dr.girlfriend]

Here are the pool results!  Who is "Another Loser"?  Stand up and claim your bragging rights!  :-)

A shoutout also to the aptly-named oscarnerdjulief who got the most wins vs. losses despite missing out due to the point system.

If anyone's curious, "Keaton" is mr.drgirlfriend.

The first numbers after the name are wins-vs.-losses, the last number is total points.

1 Another Loser 16-8 80
2 MattFe 17-7 74
3 JulieFe 18-6 73
3 dr.girlfriend's 17-7 73
5 msmerymac 16-8 70
6 Keaton 17-7 58
6 sunnysally 17-7 58
8 jigsy 10-14 48
9 fuck yeah picks 10-14 44
10 osumelissa 9-15 39
11 Lorelaireadsagain 5-19 33
12 niemand88f 6-18 27

I'm glad that Whiplash got some awards, even if they were mostly technical. It was a great movie. I'm also really glad that Imitation Game won the adapted screenplay...it was a really great screenplay and the guy's speech was quite a tear-jerker. I'm also really glad for Big Hero 6 for the win! It deserved it. Overall, I think most of the times when my pick lost, it was because a "will win" lost to a "should win" which makes me happy. I didn't see Boyhood, so I wasn't upset about it getting snubbed. :-)

[oscarnerdjulief]

This was a horrible year for me, and I really wish I hadn't changed to Linklater yesterday. I should've known how reliable a predictor the DGA was, only 7 times wrong out of 65. In the $10 pool I joined, I picked Inarritu.

I am so relieved now that this season is over. It felt oppressive toward the end. Birdman was ridiculously overpraised, and Boyhood getting a single award was a crime. On the plus side, I was excited I broke the curse of getting two shorts out of three.

MattFe is my husband.

This was the first year I went to bed before the ceremony was over. I made the mistake of watching the movies and caring, and I felt that Boyhood really deserved director, editing, and picture. They gave Alejandro three and Linklater and Anderson none. NOT RIGHT. If you like the Oscars, I suggest reading Sasha Stone at Awards Daily. She advocates for the movies she likes and has great podcasts.

Here are some movies that are named as possible Oscar bait for next year: The Revenant, Hateful Eight, St. James Place, Demolition. Jake G. is coming up as a potential winner. Who knows?

(Holy cow, there's a guy on Gold Derby who only missed one!)