Post-Oscars: What I Learn

This year's prediction got only a 54% accuracy. 

However, if we include the ones where I mentioned that it's a close race between two choices and I name the other film that was likely to win (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Foreign Film, and Best Original Screenplay), then it goes up to 71%. 

For the categories where I got it completely wrong (Best Animated Film, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Original Score, Best Short Film, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects), here's what I learned. 

I underestimated Disney's marketing. I thought Dreamworks Animation did a better marketing campaign than Disney and so that was a critical oversight. Shouldn't underestimate Disney in animation. 

Best film editing, I thought the award would have gone to Boyhood because that's 12 summers of material. I underestimated Wes Anderson's popularity with the Hollywood crowd. The Grand Budapest Hotel is a great film and so I'm not discounting its editing, I just thought Boyhood had an edge. 

Best makeup, I should have mentioned The Grand Budapest Hotel as a possible alternative because the makeup really is amazing in the film. I just thought that the voters would reward something more commercial.

Best visual effects, again, I thought the voters would vote for something more commercial this year. Interstellar has strong visuals, but I thought that Groot would help convince voters for Guardians of the Galaxy.

Best original score, I rewarded Interstellar for this category because Hans Zimmer was crucial to the story (Chris Nolan asked to hear the score so he can find the emotional core of the story) and I thought that the voters would reward him for that. However, Alexandre Desplat is competing against himself and the safe choice would be to name him as a possibility. Also, he's been nominated various times and should have been awarded. 

Best sound mixing, I should've mentioned a film about music as a possible contender for this category. Whiplash deserves the win and I'm a bit embarrassed for not rewarding it more. 

In summary, I learned that the Oscars is still wary of commercial fares (Guardians of the Galaxy) except in the animation category, to not underestimate Wes Anderson's popularity (Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, and Best Original Score where I didn't consider his film), and to name a film about music in a category dealing with Sound Mixing. Till the 88th Academy Awards.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1348.0"] From http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-oscar-winners/ [/caption]