Monday, February 28, 2011

Academy Awards Contest: The Envelope, Please...

....and the winner of the 1st Annual Quivering Pen Academy Awards Predictions Contest is:
Allison Kucera
(please keep your acceptance speech to a respectable 90 seconds; if we hear you start to thank your publicist's dog-walker, we're going to lower the microphone through the floor)

Allison correctly guessed 21 Oscar winners out of 24 (she only missed on Best Director, Foreign Language Film, and Animated Short).  She did a lot better than me with my paltry 13 correct guesses.


Thanks to all who participated in this year's contest.  I was thrilled to see there were so many fellow Oscar enthusiasts out there....or, at least, a number of bored internet surfers who were hoping to win a boxed set of Criterion DVDs (Great Adaptations).  Here are the results of the top-two finishers in each category of the Oscar race, as voted by you, the Quivering Pen readers (I've highlighted the actual winners):

Best Picture:
The King's Speech (84% of your votes)
The Social Network (9%)

Best Director:
David Fincher (56%)
Tom Hooper (30%)

Best Actor:
Colin Firth (99%)
Jeff Bridges (1%)*

Best Actress:
Natalie Portman (90%)
Annette Bening (6%)

Best Supporting Actor:
Christian Bale (80%)
Geoffrey Rush (18%)

Best Supporting Actress:
Melissa Leo (60%)
Hailee Steinfeld (30%)

Best Original Screenplay:
The King's Speech (84%)
Inception (10%)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
The Social Network (87%)
127 Hours (6%)

Best Animated Feature Film:
Toy Story 3 (91%)
The Illusionist (5%)

Best Art Direction:
Alice in Wonderland (43%)
The King's Speech (33%)

Best Cinematography:
True Grit (62%)
Inception (15%)

Best Costume Design:
Alice in Wonderland (50%)
The King's Speech (41%)

Best Documentary (Feature):
Inside Job (44%)
Exit Through the Gift Shop (34%)

Best Documentary (Short Subject):
Strangers No More (38%)
Killing in the Name (26%)

Best Editing:
The Social Network (68%)
The King's Speech (13%)

Best Foreign Language Film:
Biutiful (48%)
In a Better World (32%)

Best Makeup:
The Wolfman (73%)
The Way Back (15%)

Best Original Score:
The Social Network (56%)
The King's Speech (30%)

Best Original Song:
"We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 (60%)
"If I Rise" from 127 Hours (22%)

Best Animated Short Film:
Day and Night (46%)
The Gruffalo (26%)
Only 12% of you picked the winner, The Lost Thing

Best Live Action Short Film:
Na Wewe (27%)
God of Love (24%)

Best Sound Editing:
Inception (80%)
Tron: Legacy (9%)

Best Sound Mixing:
Inception (70%)
The King's Speech (15%)

Best Visual Effects:
Inception (88%)
Alice in Wonderland (7%)


*Am I the only one who thinks Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network deserved at least 2 percent of your votes?

Photo credit: Reuters

3 comments:

  1. I voted for Colin Firth, not because I thought he should win it but because I thought he would win it. I thought Eisenberg uniquely inhabited the role of Zuckerberg, so much so that he became his character to me and when I saw them standing side by side on the SNL stage, it was Zuckerberg who seemed wrong for the part.

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  2. Sophmom,
    I completely agree with you. Eisenberg was more than just an actor playing a character, he *was* that person. I walked out of the theater completely blown away.
    Of course, the same could be said about Firth, who equally deserved the award. This was a tough year to choose. I would have liked to see a tie with both of them holding the Best Actor statuette.

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  3. Agreed. I suppose that when that sort of thing occurs, the "body of work" becomes the tie-breaker. Hopefully, that won't turn out to be THE PART of Eisenberg's career.

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