What I loved about 2004, instead of 2005, is how all of the awards went to those who deserved it because they were due. They gave awards to Peter Jackson, Sean Penn, and Renee Zellweger, all of whom had at least two previous nominations. It was one of the happiest nights of my life.
2005, however, was one of the saddest nights of my life. First of all, Chris Rock was not that great of a host, and I don't expect him to return to the job. Second, the idea of giving out awards in the audience, or having the nominees already on stage was horrible! This is one of the highlights of these people's lives, so they deserve the honor of making the famous walk to the stage. Also, it suggests that their categories are of little importance, which isn't true. Third, getting Beyonce, Antonio Banderas, and Carlos Santana to sing the nominated songs was wrong. If those who sang the song in its original version are available, they should be the ones singing it on stage. It's a pathetic attempt to grab ratings. Fourth, everything, and I mean everything, was cut shorter. The speeches, monologue, in memorium, the walks to stage, the film clips, and much more was all cut short so that the broadcast could be a whole hour shorter. This was too noticeable. It was noticeably rushed, and that took away so much of the fun. I would have been willing to watch another hour of it.
Of course, the most depressing event of the night has to be Martin Scorsese's tragic loss to Clint Eastwood. Don't get me wrong. I think Clint is a great director, and a great person, and I do believe that his directing in his film was slightly better than Marty's in his film. But if the man has been nominated five times, and Clint has already won, why can't they just give it to him and get it over with? If the academy doesn't begin looking at bodies of work, then they should do away with nominations and just have winners. That way, there won't be the depressing feeling of knowing that you've come close to winning five times, but never made it. I think that it would be better to not know that you were close. I'd like to remind academy members that losing really hurts. And it hurts more every time that it happens. So please, consider who really deserves it.
On another note, I'd say that I'll remember this year as the year that every statistic was broken. If you look at my Statistics page, you'll see that only 15 out of 50 statistical correlations were obeyed. Do you realize how statistically improbable that is? Well I don't feel like calculating it, but it's very low. The most unique thing in general is that this is the first time in at least 20 years, maybe more, that the winner of the most oscars is not the winner of best picture. Baby took picture, but only has four wins compared to Aviator's five.
In terms of competing, I'd say I did a mediocre job. I got 15/24, which means that I beat And the Oscar Goes to, Oscar Beachhouse, Everything Oscar, Only Cinema, Oscar Igloo, Oscar Jam, Oscar Race, Oscar Sights, Utlimate Oscar, and Kris Tapley and Sasha Stone of Oscarwatch, all of whom got 15 or less correct. Kudos to those who did better than me: Award Speculation, Critics Socitey, Oscar Central, Oscar Bait, Oscar Guy, Rac O Awards, and Sijmen.
My thoughts on the individual races are below. They are ranked in my most likely prediction to least likely. Italics means it's the actual winner. Bold means that it was my preference.
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Best Picture 1. Million Dollar Baby 2. The Aviator 3. Sideways 4. Ray 5. Finding Neverland |
Strangest results ever. How could the winner of the most Oscars not win best picture? I predicted it correctly anyway, yet I did so only because I favored Million in other unlikely categories like Adapted Screenplay, and shunned Aviator in Art Direction. I was wrong about those, but I still think it would have been more likely. |
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Best Director 1. Martin Scorsese (The Aviator) 2. Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) 3. Alexander Payne (Sideways) 4. Taylor Hackford (Ray) 5. Mike Leigh (Vera Drake) |
When Julia Roberts read the winner, I reached over and strangled the closest person near me (lightly though). I cannot believe how the academy's directors can be so cold-hearted and step on a man's triumph five times. Does Clint really belong among Spielberg, Stone, and Foreman as one of the few modern directors with two oscars? |
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Best Actor 1. Jamie Foxx (Ray) 2. Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) 3. Leonardo Dicaprio (The Aviator) 4. Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) 5. Johnny Depp (Finding Neverland) |
I was somewhat hoping that Eastwood would pull an upset here, therefore he would probably lose director to Scorsese. Yet it didn't happen. I still would have been happier seeing Dicaprio get it over Foxx. Oh well. Foxx was good, and it's good to see the seventh African-American actor win. |
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Best Actress 1. Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) 2. Annette Bening (Being Julia) 3. Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) 4. Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) 5. Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) |
I really can't believe that history has repeated itself. Swank undeservingly beats Bening again!! Bening's performance was superior in every way to Swank's. The actor's branch is almost as bad as the director's branch at not looking at who is due. |
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Best Supporting Actor 1. Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby) 2. Clive Owen (Closer) 3. Thomas Haden Church (Sideways) 4. Alan Alda (The Aviator) 5. Jamie Foxx (Collateral) |
This was one of the few pleasing categories of the night. I'm glad to see the academy looked to see who was due in at least one category. Even though I found Owen's, Church's, and Alda's performances to be superior than Freeman's, I'm glad that he won. He is one of America's greatest actors anyway. |
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Best Supporting Actress 1. Cate Blanchett (The Aviator) 2. Virginia Madsen (Sideways) 3. Natalie Portman (Closer) 4. Laura Linney (Kinsey) 5. Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda) |
Well, this makes up for her not winning for Elizabeth. I was almost expecting an upset here, but glad to see that it didn't happen. Blanchett really deserved it for her outgoing performance. I really hope to see Laura Linney win some day though. |
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Best Original Screenplay 1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2. Vera Drake 3. The Aviator 4. Hotel Rwanda 5. The Incredibles |
The only other category where the overdue nominee won. I'm happy to see Charlie Kaufman finally win after such an original writing career. I seriously don't know how he imagines what he writes. His speech was also one of the better ones. Some were predicting Vera Drake here, but I knew it wouldn't happen if the academy wants to avoid controversy. |
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Best Adapted Screenplay 1. Million Dollar Baby 2. Sideways 3. Finding Neverland 4. The Motorcycle Diaries 5. Before Sunset |
I still believe that my logic of predicting Million was justified. I didn't think that it could win best picture having only won Actress and Supporting Actor, so I had to give it screenplay as well. But it won director instead, so it didn't need screenplay. Funny isn't it? Even though I didn't like Sideways that much, they probably did deserve it, so congrats Payne and Taylor. |
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Best Art Direction 1. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events 2. The Aviator 3. The Phantom of the Opera 4. Finding Neverland 5. A Very Long Engagement |
I also believe that my logic here was somewhat justified. First of all, the ADG has a strong oscar correlation, so that would point to Lemony Snicket winning. Also, Aviator couldn't win here (as well as four other places) and lose best picture to Million, so I had to go with Snicket. But unexplainable things happened instead. Okay. |
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Best Cinematography 1. The Aviator 2. The Passion of the Christ 3. A Very Long Engagemnt 4. House of Flying Daggers 5. The Phantom of the Opera |
I'm guessing that there was no stopping Aviator from taking this. It had to sweep at least a couple of technicals. However, I definitely believe that the long-lasting, continuously-moving, camera work in Phantom deserved this. |
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Best Editing 1. The Aviator 2. Million Dollar Baby 3. Ray 4. Collateral 5. Finding Neverland |
I was almost ready to pick Million here just so that it would help to explain its best picture win. However, I couldn't help go with Aviator who won the ACE. |
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Best Costumes 1. The Aviator 2. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events 3. Finding Neverland 4. Ray 5. Troy |
This was a pretty sure thing, despite not winning the CDG. This really was a strange year with the guilds not matching up at all. |
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Best Makeup 1. The Passion of the Christ 2. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events 3. The Sea Inside |
This was a bad blunder. I didn't predict Lemony Snicket because I had it picked to win Art Direction instead. If I could have changed this prediction after Aviator won Art Direction, I would have. Interesting how this is the second time in four years that this category was won by the makeup applied to Jim Carrey's face. Also, I guess that the academy really wanted to avoid controversy by not having Passion win anything. |
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Best Visual Effects 1. Spider-Man 2 2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 3. I, Robot |
This was pretty easy. They had to give Spider-Man a win in one of its three categories. I personally thought that I,Robot had much better effects, but that doesn't matter. What matters to the academy is that Spider-Man was a better film and made more money. |
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Best Sound 1. Ray 2. The Aviator 3. Spider-Man 2 4. The Incredibles 5. The Polar Express |
I still don't understand what makes musicals like Ray and Chicago win this category. Well, I had to go with what everybody else was saying here, despite the other nominees having mixed more original and difficult sounds. What is so hard to mix about music? |
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Best Sound Editing 1. Spider-Man 2 2. The Incredibles 3. The Polar Express |
I guess I should have known that they weren't going to give more than one win to Spider-Man. I guess this makes up for this category being lost by Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc. |
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Best Score 1. Finding Neverland 2. The Passion of the Christ 3. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events 4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 5. The Village |
The nominees in this category were an unlikely bunch. Therefore, we knew that the only one with a Golden Globe nomination had to go on to win. It's also good to see a new composer win this award when it usually goes to the same composers repeatedly. |
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Best Song 1. The Polar Express 2. Shrek 2 3. The Phantom of the Opera 4. The Motorcycle Diaries 5. The Chorus |
This was the biggest shocker of the night, as sad as it is. I must say that this was a particularly weak year for songs. None of the nominees seemed to be that great. And who would have thought that the award would go to a song with no Golden Globe or BFCA nod, and a foreign-language song? That is so strange. I liked how he resung the song during his acceptance speech in protest of him not being able to sing it in the ceremony. Take that Mr. Cates. |
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Best Animated Film 1. The Incridbiles 2. Shrek 2 3. Shark Tale |
This was a pretty obvious win. It is strange to see the Disney/Pixar film take this two years in a row, but it would have been stranger to see both Shrek films win this. I'd like to see one of the two claymation films next year win this (Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride, The Wallace and Gromit Movie). |
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Best Foreing Language Film 1. The Sea Inside 2. The Chorus 3. The Downfall 4. Yesterday 5. As it is in Heaven |
This was pretty obvious to win considering House of Flying Daggers wasn't nominated. I could have seen an upset by The Chorus though. |
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Best Documentary Feature 1. Born into Brothels 2. Super Size Me 3. The Story of the Weeping Camel 4. Tupac: Resurrection 5. Twist of Faith |
After the other three minor categories were surprises, I was expecting an upset here as well. Didn't happen though. Despite Spurlock's fascinating take on fast food, Brothels did deserve it. |
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Best Documentary Short 1. Autism is a World 2. The Children of Leningradsky 3. Sister Rose's Passion 4. Mighty Times: The Children's March 5. Hardwood |
I'm not so sure anybody had this one predicted correctly. It doesn't sound like nearly of good of topic as the predicted winner is. |
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Best Short Film 1. Little Terrorist 2. Everything in this Country Must 3. 7:35 in the Morning 4. Wasp 5. Two Cars, One Night |
Another surprise. Who would have thought that neither of the political-related topics would win? |
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Best Animated Short Film 1. Birthday Boy 2. Gopher Broke 3. Ryan 4. Lorenzo 5. Guard Dog |
After seeing a preview for Ryan I felt like it had the potential to win. Yet I went with the majority instead, because it's the easiest way to predict these small categories. |