How'd I Do?

Several weeks ago, I posted a blog about what to expect out of this year's Oscars, including my projected winners and my picks on who I thought deserved to win. So how'd I do? Here's a wrap-up.

I correctly picked the winners of best picture ("The Artist"), best director (Michel Hazanavicius, "The Artist"), best supporting actor (Christopher Plummer, "Beginners") and actress (Octavia Spencer, "The Help"), best original screenplay (Woody Allen, "Midnight in Paris"), and best foreign language film ("A Separation"). I also correctly picked the winner for best original song (no one cares, and the Oscar broadcast's lampooning presentation of the award, I believe, says it all).

And my misses? I didn't pick the winner in the best actress category (Meryl Streep, "The Iron Lady"), although I did say that I thought she deserved to win, so I'll take half-credit on that one. In the best actor category, I saw the contest as a race between George Clooney ("The Descendants") and Jean Dujardin ("The Artist"), with Clooney as the winner, although the Academy apparently believed otherwise, choosing Dujardin. And, in the best adapted screenplay category, I incorrectly picked "Moneyball" over the eventual winner, "The Descendants," an outcome that, in hindsight, doesn't surprise me; the Academy often relies on the writing categories to hand out its "consolation prizes," awards given to films that win no other Oscars, and, given that Clooney lost in the actor category, that opened the door for "The Descendants" to take home the adapted screenplay award as its only award of the evening. Had I called the best actor race differently, I, too, likely would have chosen "The Descendants" as the adapted screenplay winner.

For a complete wrap-up on the awards, be sure to check out my VividLife post, Conscious creation films fare well at Oscars, available by clicking here.