Oscar Winner Reactions

I haven't seen the ceremony yet, and I'm hoping I will, so I'm purposely not reading anything about the ceremony itself. I did check out the winners this morning, and they're definitely not terribly surprising. The lone surprise is the victory of "Departures" from Japan for Best Foreign Film over "Waltz with Bashir" and "The Class." This can be compared to "The Lives of Others" beating heavy favorite "Pan's Labyrinth," the difference there being that "The Lives of Others" had in fact been released in the United States (and seen by me) a week before the Oscars. The thing with that category is that voters have to have seen all five films, and as a result it's possible that the least-seen one is actually the best. I hope to see it if ever it falls within my reach.

I did much better with my predictions than last year, going up from 12/24 to 16/24, though it's actually worse since this was a very easy year. I'm happy to report that I correctly predicted all of Slumdog Millionaire's wins and no extraneous ones. I pegged Mickey Rourke and Viola Davis over Sean Penn and Penelope Cruz, but both are fine winners (Cruz was probably the best out of her category's poor crop of nominees). I thought "Iron Man" might have a fighting chance in its two nominated categories, but it lost to "Benjamin Button" in Visual Effects, and "The Dark Knight" in Sound Editing. My biggest downfall was those darn short films. I predicted all three incorrectly, but then again, I had only seen two of the animated shorts and none of the others, so I was guessing blind. Overall, I'm decently happy with my predictions, and I'm preparing next year to both have the biggest Oscar party I've ever fathomed and to be more wholly involved with the process of predictions (and do amazingly on my winner predictions!).

If I get to see the ceremony, I'll comment on it, but otherwise, be sure to check back Wednesday for the debut of the 2nd Annual AFT Awards and see my picks for the best of the year. Categories will be posted every day through the end of March. Don't miss it!