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There is absolutely nothing new to say about the Oscars anymore. Having a snarky viewpoint about the voters is cliche. Having a noble viewpoint about the legacy of the Oscars is cliche. Having an ironic indifference to them is cliche. Articles like those are so boring.

Here's something new? Co-director of 5 Broken Cameras detained at LAX airport on his way to the Oscars.

mfunk9786 wrote:There is absolutely nothing new to say about the Oscars anymore. Having a snarky viewpoint about the voters is cliche. Having a noble viewpoint about the legacy of the Oscars is cliche. Having an ironic indifference to them is cliche. Articles like those are so boring.

The Oscars are like a transmogrified moose(-icles) standing on the back of an ovarian platypus, and the voters are merely exiled to the eponymous cloud. Know what I mean?

You know those women who bring out the Oscar statuettes, the women who don't speak, go totally unnoticed, and are forgotten about 3 seconds after they leave the stage? Well, this year the Academy is getting less attractive people to do that job.

The Spirit Awards were, as usual, much more entertaining than the Academy Awards have any hope of being.

Best Film: Silver Linings Playbook
Best Director: David O. Russell, Silver Linings
Best Cinematography: Ben Richardson, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Best Male Lead: John Hawkes, The Sessions
Best Female Lead: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings
Cassavetes Award: Middle of Nowhere
Best Screenplay: David O. Russell, Silver Linings
Best International Film: Amour
Best Supporting Actress: Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Best Supporting Actor: Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike
Best First Feature: Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
First Screenplay: Derek Connolly, Safety not Guaranteed
Best Documentary: The Invisible War

So it's noon here on the east coast which means everyone should officially be able to pull out a case of Natty and start pregaming without having to read more predictions, but wait! Here comes Nate Silver to ruin all of your fun, with math, ugh.

Silver acknowledges that his success rate is only 75% (he did predictions in '09 and '11) but he's got a brand new method that'll kick your ass in and you won't even know what happened. He has Argo, DDL, and Anne Hathaway as sure things, Tommy Lee Jones and Jennifer Lawrence with good leads, and Spielberg just edging out Ang Lee. Lots of earth-shattering stuff.

It seems obvious that the type of statistical analysis that gives pretty much 1:1 results in elections can't work for the Oscars since the voting pools for the data Silver is working with (the Director's Guild, Producer's Guild, etc.) don't align perfectly with the Academy, but he's tried to cover himself there by double weighting awards where more of the voters are also Academy members. The obvious hiccup in a system like this is, as usual, Brokeback Mountain, which won the DGA and PGA top awards - the two most highly weighted predictors, to which Silver gives 80% and 70% accuracy, respectively - but still lost. The Academy's quirks are always going to be a factor, but I'll be curious to see how well Silver's new method does this year.

Aside from films, Silver has Obama's chance of winning last November's election at 90.9%. He might want to update his sidebar.

Jeff wrote:The Spirit Awards were, as usual, much more entertaining than the Academy Awards have any hope of being.

Best Film: Silver Linings Playbook
Best Director: David O. Russell, Silver Linings
Best Cinematography: Ben Richardson, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Best Male Lead: John Hawkes, The Sessions
Best Female Lead: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings
Cassavetes Award: Middle of Nowhere
Best Screenplay: David O. Russell, Silver Linings
Best International Film: Amour
Best Supporting Actress: Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Best Supporting Actor: Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike
Best First Feature: Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
First Screenplay: Derek Connolly, Safety not Guaranteed
Best Documentary: The Invisible War

First feature? Not according to IMDB.

By the sounds of it it is a long form short rather than an actual feature. Plus it not being traditionally screened probably has a lot to do with it.

Ah fuck it, I'm already drunk, last minute upset predictions :
Director - David O Russell
Actress - Emmanuelle Riva
Sup Actor - Christoph Waltz
Orig Screenplay - Amour
Adapted Screenplay - Silver Linings Playbook
Animated - Frankenweenie

God, so glad Seth is just doing a monologue instead of those one of those boring vignettes Crystal did all the time.

You spoke too soon.

Well, that was self-absorbed.

Oh yeah!

I hope the results stay that interesting.

Didn't think Waltz would do it, but I'm happy he got it. (Hoffman would've my pick by a thin margin.)

Brave? Ehhh....well, not a strong batch of nominees anyway.

I liked Paper Man

Paranorman was the best American animated feature in years. You should really reconsider it.

Great to see Lucious Malfoy win Best Cinematography

I'm offended because of what this pairing says the academy thinks of cinematography.

The Jaws music brings the first real laugh of the night.

Unfortunately, it drowned out a serious note about the effects company going bankrupt.

Yeah that was genuinely frustrating. Here's more info.
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/events/vfxan ... 78302.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

David Chen tweeted this article about it.

I'm sad Cloud Atlas didn't get a makeup nomination, let alone a win.

Has there been a tie before in the Oscars?