My Oscar predictions and wagering
Jeff Bayer is not just my friend, colleague, and podcast co-host. He is also my rival and sworn enemy. So on this week’s “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider,” we wagered on who could correctly predict the most winners at Sunday’s Academy Awards. The loser has to watch and live-tweet an episode of “Two and a Half Men,” while the winner gets to not do that.
But Jeff doesn’t just like to wager! He likes to wager in a complicated fashion, hence the “confidence rankings” of our Oscar predictions. Here’s how it works: First you make your predictions for each of the 24 categories. Then you arrange them in order of how confident you are that you’re right. The one you’re most certain of will be worth 24 points if it actually wins; the one you were totally taking a wild guess on gets 1 point if it happens to prove correct. Whoever has the most points at the end of the show is the winner.
Here are my predictions, ranked in order of confidence. Jeff’s are here. Many of our predictions are the same, but we vary quite a bit in our levels of confidence. For example, if I’m right about the Best Makeup category, I’ll get 19 points, whereas Jeff will only get 3 if he’s right. And again, the loser has to live-tweet an episode of “Two and a Half Men,” so there’s a lot at stake.
24 – Animated Feature: “Toy Story 3″
23 – Actor: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
22 – Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, “The Fighter”
21 – Screenplay, Adapted: “The Social Network”
20 – Cinematography: “True Grit”
19 – Makeup: “The Wolfman”
18 – Picture: “The King’s Speech”
17 – Director: David Fincher, “The Social Network”
16 – Actress: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
15 – Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”
14 – Screenplay, Original: “The King’s Speech”
13 – Documentary Feature: “Inside Job”
12 – Sound Editing: “Inception”
11 – Sound Mixing: “Inception”
10 – Visual Effects: “Inception”
9 – Film Editing: “The Social Network”
8 – Original Score: “The King’s Speech”
7 – Art Direction: “The King’s Speech”
6 – Costume Design: “Alice in Wonderland”
5 – Foreign-Language Film: “In a Better World”
4 – Animated Short: “The Gruffalo”
3 – Documentary Short: “Killing in the Name”
2 – Original Song: “We Belong Together,” from “Toy Story 3″
1 – Live-Action Short: “The Confession”
February 26th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Live tweet Two and a Half Men? Wow, you play hardball.
February 27th, 2011 at 10:50 am
Good luck Eric! (Though I secretly hope you lose, since Jeff, while funny, is less experienced at hilariously mocking terrible, terrible things!)
I love scenarios where whoever loses, we readers win!
February 27th, 2011 at 11:07 am
…ooh, guess you guys will need to watch an old episode:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/219129/nbc-today-show-with-%E2%80%98men%E2%80%99-canceled-what%E2%80%99s-next-for-sheen
Poor Charley…
February 27th, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Good luck!
I feel the same as Dave. Can’t wait for the loser to do his thing… though I won’t be watching an episode of 2.5 men. I honestly thought that show was canceled back in the 90′s with other shows similar to Everybody Loves Raymond and the 958129681 other 90′s sitcoms that have showed reruns 10 times a day for the last 20 years.
I selfishly hope that The Social Network and Inception don’t win anything, but overall your picks seem very likely to be right. You can’t really argue about the visuals of Inception, though everything else is up for debate in my opinion…
February 27th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
.
233
February 27th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Did you hear the collective thump of millions of women throwing their bras at the television when Mr. Darcy won?
February 28th, 2011 at 12:16 am
Looks like Jeff won. I’m switching my Movie BS fan membership card from “Team Eric” to “Team Jeff”.
February 28th, 2011 at 7:27 am
All the live-action short films were great, but God of Love was most deserving. The Confession would have been my #2, though the people we watched it with were laughing at all the wrong times (it wasn’t a comedy…..)
I would be very interested to see the tally of the votes, for example, who was second, third place. I would think that Black Swan would be right up there, but I’m glad to see that True Grit wasn’t riding on the Coen’s name, other than Bridges great performance.
But good gracious, those Oscars were BORING. Anne looked like she was having a good time, and excited to be there, but Franco just about killed me with his boredom and stiffness.
February 28th, 2011 at 9:46 am
I have them each getting 16 of the 24 categories correct, but Jeff winning on weighted points 246 to 225.
March 1st, 2011 at 8:13 pm
I didn’t watch any of the Oscars except the intro video on the website. It was pretty funny, classic Jimmy F (that’s what his friends call him [I'm not his friend, BTW {sometimes I pretend to be though}]).