Friday, February 23, 2007

Scramble! Scramble!


Doping out your ballot for your big Oscar party on Sunday night and still have a few categories you're not sure about? A few thoughts on predicting the winners. (These are all generalizations and don't always work out. Please predict responsibly.)


1. Most Nominations = Most Wins

The film with the most nominations usually gets the most awards. That’s even true this year, as Dreamgirls – despite not picking up a nod in Picture or Director – has the best chance to land the most hardware by the end of the night.


2. Six is a Magic Number

Six nominations usually equals at least one award. This year's six-and-over crowd: Dreamgirls, Babel, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Queen. Make sure you’ve got those four movies listed somewhere on your ballot. Hmmmm, I wonder what award The Queen is going to win…

3. Lead Roles get Supporting Awards

This happens every year: true supporting performances get overshadowed by "supporting" performances that are actually lead (or co-lead) roles. The respective studios push these performances in the supporting category to increase their actor's chance of winning. Jennifer Hudson and Abigail Breslin certainly qualify in Supporting Actress; the Supporting Actors this year are true supporters, so you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself.

4. BP Nominees Get an Award

Usually. If you’re stuck on who to pick in Sound Mixing, you might want to throw Letters from Iwo Jima in there based on this (especially if you don’t think it’ll win Best Picture. Funny how that movie’s chances to win are either the biggest prize of the evening or an obscure Tech award. Did I mention this was a weird year?)

5. Know Your Guilds

When it comes to techs, the BP front-runner usually gets the lionshare. This year we don’t have a BP front-runner, so you should know who won the respective Guilds. They don't always go hand-in-hand, but if you're stumped, it's a good guess. Check out my post entitled “Guild Round Up.”


6. Documentary Short, Short Film Animated, Short Film Live

Guesses all. Have you seen them? Probably not. Roll the dice.

And…I’m spent. Have fun Sunday and we'll recap Monday morning...

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