Some Post-Oscar Thoughts on Forecasting

Some Post-Oscar Thoughts on Forecasting

On how his model may have missed two of the awards.

Nate Silver Predicts the Winners of the 2009 Oscars -- New York Magazine

Nate Silver Predicts the Winners of the 2009 Oscars

Oscar Observations

Just a few quick thoughts.

• In general the awards went to whom it was expected. There Will Be Blood was Daniel Day Lewis’s show, so he got that, and No Country for Old Men grabbed the bigger ones, with Diablo Cody getting best screenplay because movies like Juno can’t compete with movies like No Country.
• They should really do away with the montages. There were fewer this year than in the past, but people just want to see the awards. Do an Oscar retrospective special for the montage-hungry.
• Ditto the individual songs. Do one long medley with all the different performers.
• Jon Stewart did a good but not great job. He was a little tamer than last time maybe? Like he learned his lesson that Hollywood is too full of itself to handle being mocked by an outsider.
• Jack Nicholson is the King of Hollywood, I think. He’s won three Best Acting Oscars, and he’s developed the perfect persona that he can ride on his entire life. I can’t remember an Academy Awards ceremony when he didn’t get a front row seat, and at some point during the show someone always looks down, sees him with his “I’m wearing sunglasses with my tux because I’m Jack Fucking Nicholson” look and makes a reference to him.

Oscar-nominated short films in iTunes Store

Oscar-nominated short films in iTunes Store

$1.99 each. Link goes to story about them, with link to iTunes.

78th Oscars

Watching The Academy Awards is always an odd experience for me. As a movie-lover, you’d think it’d be a great experience for me, but as an entertainment-lover, it’s three hours of boring, thirty minutes of good TV, and twenty minutes of great TV, and usually ten minutes of awkward moments and contrived speeches.

Jon Stewart did a good job. Probably the best job he could have, considering how out of his element he was. And really, I think that’s a big part of his appeal at that gig. He’s the New York guy, here to make fun of Hollywood and throw in a few political jabs for color. Except that, while on every other night I’m sure all those actors love The Daily Show, on Oscar night they’re all so self-obsessed, so full of themselves, that they’re too cautious and/or defensive to be able to laugh at themselves. This is why Billy Crystal and Steve Martin make great Oscar hosts: they’re showbiz, and Stewart is not. They know the Hollywood jokes and they know who to make fun of and how far to go. Stewart’s not a performer. His jokes are based around delivering a dose of the truth with an ample helping of ridicule, and most actor’s aren’t that good at taking it, no matter how spot-on the joke was.

The evening did, to me, come out a bit understated, in a large part because none of the movies up for the big awards were mega studio productions. It’s not like the same people aren’t there every year, but somehow not having powerhouse films on the docket seemed to diminish the usual pomp of the event. There weren’t any memorable standing ovation moments. No tear-filled emotional speeches from underdogs to make the Oscar highlight reels. Crash’s win is being called an “upset”, but no one was all that shocked.

As for why this year was different, I don’t really have any guesses. I’m pretty sure that the movies and the people who were up for the awards had something to do with it, but I’m not sure how or why that came to be.

My favorite moments of the night: Three 6 Mafia’s performance and win, Steve Carrell and Will Farrell’s presentation of the make-up award, the attack ad on the sound mixer, and Ben Stiller’s presentation of the special effects awards. I’m sure there were others, but that’s what sticks in my head right now. Edit: forgot the fake attack ads for actress and sound editing. Brilliant.

Jon Stewart Slated to Host Academy Awards

Jon Stewart Slated to Host Academy Awards