I forgot to sit down and take a look at my year-in-advance predictions for this year and see how I did. Not too great.
In the Best Picture field (before the announcement of an expanded category, mind you), the only film I listed that made it through was “The Hurt Locker.” Kathryn Bigelow was also the only director I correctly projected, so that’s 1/10 and 1/5 in the top two categories.
Morgan Freeman, Carey Mulligan, Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz were the only actors I got correct, while in the screenplay categories it was just “An Education,” “A Serious Man” and “Up.”
All in all, including the crafts categories, I got 24 nominees of the 88 I predicted in 18 categories. I’ve lost track of how well I’ve done with this silly experiment over the years, but I don’t think that’s one of the better tallies. Maybe it is.
Which brings me to this announcement. After a lot of consideration I’ve decided to forgo my nearly decade-old process of predicting the nominees a year in advance. There will be no post-Oscar assessment of the year ahead. The reasons are plenty.
First and foremost, who fucking cares? Am I right? Also, it’s a pain in the ass to have a slate of predictions in the sidebar throughout the first half of the year and into the summer, because generally speaking, I’m not comfortable digging back into things until July or August. So the pressure is on to update consistently when there isn’t a whole lot to take into account.
I may not even bother with my annual massive collective of contenders (which I know for a fact numerous outlets use to glean and frame their looks at the race from afar). It’s just a lot of work at a time when I’d frankly rather be winding down, but I haven’t totally given up on that yet. Maybe.
Anyway, back to report card stuff, as I mentioned this morning, I nailed 85 of 116 predicted nominees (94 of 116 with alternates) and 35 of the 45 major category nominees (40 of 45 with alternates). I haven’t exactly covered all the terrain out there, but I think that’s tops in this little corner of the web. Go me, I guess. Guy, meanwhile, nailed 78 of the 106 nominees he predicted, a noble stat by anyone’s measure.
How did you do?
Comments
63 responses to “How we did today (not bad) and a year out (not so much)”
I hope you don’t stop the year in advance thing. It’s a great way to know which films to keep an eye out for a while, without having to get into the thick of things until September/October.
As an alternative, you can do the year in advance and then issue some notice that you won’t update them until a certain date, so you don’t feel the need to get back in too early? I.e. you say they are stale from the moment you type them in, it’s just an experiment.
I was so very looking forward to the year-in-advance. This is worse than hearing the news that The Blind Side is a Best Picture nominee.
Kris…you lazy banana slug…you sleepy eyed sloth…
I fucking care, Kris. I fucking care.
May as well repost this since I’m all a-gloat that I beat both you guys! I didn’t predict the shorts categories though, so I had 85 / 106 (93 with alternates) which I’m pretty happy with.. Though I would’ve rather been wrong about many of them had it meant something more worthy had been nominated instead.
Perhaps, instead of doing year-in-advance predictions, you could just do a brief profile of some of the movies coming down the pike this year. That’s really the major draw of the year-in-advance feature; seeing what’s coming up.
As for the whole year-in-advance thing, perhaps you could just do the three major categories — Picture, Actor and Actress — without it becoming a huge undertaking, just for the fun of it. Maybe not put them in the sidebar, but just as a post you can link back to this time next year.
I mean, it’s gotta be pretty fun to be able to say that you correctly predicted The Hurt Locker for a BP nomination a whole year ago when few people had even heard of it and even fewer people ever imagined it could go this far.
The year in advance thing is useless. A number of the movies always get pushed into the following year while others that never had any release date end up being released out of no where (Crazy Heart).
I agree with the other comments! I love your year-in-advance predictions!
I CARE!
What was amazing this year was how many prestige projects turned out to be absolute duds: Invictus, Nine, Amelia, Shutter Island (well, that didn’t even get released yet, but it doesnt’ look like Oscar bait to me anyway). That ought to learn you to stop relying so hard on the easy guesses for next year.
Please continue with the year in advance! I was really looking forward to it, and it helps me plan my movie viewing for the year. Thanks to you guys and this site, I saw all of the Best Picture films before the list was announced! You guys are great – keep up the awesome work!
I wouldn’t worry about doing predictions, Kris, as you say it’s a silly thing to do so early in advance.
On the other hand I’d love to know what you’re looking forward to in the year, regardless of oscar prospects or box office potential. You and Guy both seem to have a good grasp of what makes a quality film (even when I disagree with you) so I’d love to know what will be making you fork out $10 this year.
i got 70/96 categories i predicted!:)
The year in advance is fun. You should reconsider. No one is holding you to it.
Like the other users said it doesn’t have to be a sidebar thing, just a post.
We really appreciate them Kris.
Ditto!
We love your analysis… even if its just a review of what’s ahead, and not a list of predictions. Your site seems to get right what we generally have to slog through in more mainstream outlets that try and provide year-in-advance information.
Plus… I don’t know about any of you – but I’m exhausted debating this year, and need something fresh to look forward to this year – and the beauty of this site is that it provides an outlet for all of us fans who love to get caught up in it the whole year… not just the last and first quarter.
Thanks for all you do, Kris.
Sounds like your mind is made up regarding the year-in-advance predictions, so convincing you to reconsider is moot. But eliminating the Contenders section altogether would really be a shame. I’ve followed a lot of Oscar blogs over the years, and yours here is the best. It gets better every year with new bells and whistles, but for me, the Contenders component was always one of the most consistently valuable. Thanks for all the work you do to make this a great community.
80/101, or 79%. Foolishly forgot all about foreign, and I never touch the shorts. Pretty good! I’m especially proud about calling supporting actress 5 for 5.
80/106 84/106 with alts.
Help us, Kristopher Tapley; you’re our only hope. Please continue your year in advance predictions! :(
Don’t worry everyone, I’ll pick up the slack.
Next year, Toy Story 3 will be nominated for Best Animated Feature. Tron will be nominated for Visual Effects. Avatar will still be number one at the box office. And whoever won Best Actress five years ago will be stuck in Loreal commercials that air during the ceremony
Though I understand, I hate you for it.
The year end post of “the year to come” makes for excellent reading and a reference as to what to expect and seek out in the coming year. Not to mention the fact that I’ve become I big fan of you and your work and am really interested i.e. “I care” about your thoughts of what is to come.
In regards to the side bar thing, yeah… who fucking cares? Let’s compromise.
Only 7 wrong in the top categories (Though why is it 49?) and 81-106 in the fields i predicted. Might be the best I’ve seen. Here they were. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqainmM9OVJIdGxFQzhzY29GNThnRVFPai03eHk3dVE&hl=en
Still can’t believe D9 missed for makeup, 500 days missed for screenplay and that song from a movie I’ve never even heard of got in.
Can a brother get an update on the Shots column? End of the week, you thinkin?
Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.
Ryan: It’s not, should have said 45. I’m a typo machine today.
Kris, someone else could put together such a list if you don’t want to, Hell I could. But I’d be relying on IMDb and gut feelings….
In the categories I predicted, I got 49/60. I correctly predicted Invictus being left out, but I replaced it with The Messenger instead of The Blind Side. My worst categories were supporting actress (I missed Gyllenhaal and Cruz) and documentary.
http://thekingbulletin.blogspot.com/2010/02/final-oscar-predictions-for-2009.html
Yeah, the year in advance is fun. Do it, pretty please.
I hear you and your arguments but will miss that year in advance thing…
No it is not as painful as anything to do with The Blind Side, especially watching it. I must say that it was a treat to watch the sacrifice of a millionaire family taking in a poor kid who amazingly at 6’6″ and about a 1000 pounds could actually play in the offensive line.
I am so totally bummed about this. Now I can only rely on Film Experience for my year-in-advance-predictions kick. I sincerely hope you change your mind- it’s personally my favorite thing that sites such as yours offer. I mean, hell if you’re not gonna do it, then I’ll do it. Here are my year-in-advance predictions for the 83rd Academy Awards…
BEST MOTION PICTURE
The American (Focus Features)
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight)
The Fighter (Paramount Pictures)
Inception (Warner Bros. Pictures)
The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Company)
London Boulevard (no distributor as of yet)
Miral (no distributor as of yet)
Never Let Me Go (Fox Searchlight)
The Tree of Life (Apparition)
The Way Back (no distributor as of yet)
BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
George Clooney, The American
Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Colin Farrell, London Boulevard
Anthony Mackie, Bolden!
BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Maria Bello, Beautiful Boy
Freida Pinto, Miral
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Carey Mulligan, Never Let Me Go
BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Samuel L. Jackson, Mother and Child
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech
Mark Strong, The Way Back
Ray Winstone, London Boulevard
BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Hiam Abbass, Miral
Annette Bening, Mother and Child
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Dakota Fanning, The Runaways
Thekla Reuten, The American
BEST DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Christopher Nolan, Inception
Mark Romanek, Never Let Me Go
David O. Russell, The Fighter
Julian Schnabel, Miral
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Paul Attanasio & Lewis Colick, The Fighter
Rodrigo García, Mother and Child
Kyle Killen, The Beaver
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Christopher Nolan, Inception
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Alex Garland, Never Let Me Go
Rula Jebreal, Miral
William Monahan, London Boulevard
Rowan Joffe, The American
Peter Weir, The Way Back
BEST ANIMATED FILM
Despicable Me, Universal Pictures
The Illusionist, Pathé
Megamind, Paramount Pictures
Rapunzel, Walt Disney Pictures
Toy Story 3, Walt Disney Pictures
BEST FILM EDITING
Hank Corwin & co., The Tree of Life
Dody Dorn, London Boulevard
Pamela Martin, The Fighter
Lee Smith, Inception
Juliette Welfling, Miral
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Hoyte Van Hoytema, The Fighter
Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life
Wally Pfister, Inception
Robert Richardson, Shutter Island
John Mathieson, Robin Hood
BEST ART DIRECTION
Stuart Craig, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows
Dante Ferretti, Shutter Island
Jack Fisk, The Tree of Life
Arthur Max, Robin Hood
Philip Messina, The Last Airbender
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Colleen Atwood, Alice in Wonderland
Odile Dicks-Mireaux, London Boulevard
Unknown, The Way Back
Amy Westcott, Black Swan
Janty Yates, Robin Hood
BEST MAKEUP
Alice in Wonderland
Shutter Island
The Wolfman
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Alexandre Desplat, The Tree of Life
James Newton Howard, The Last Airbender
Alan Menken, Rapunzel
Howard Shore, London Boulevard
Hans Zimmer, Inception
BEST SOUND MIXING
Inception
Iron Man 2
Robin Hood
The Last Airbender
Tron
BEST SOUND EFFECTS EDITING
Inception
Iron Man 2
The Last Airbender
Toy Story 3
Tron
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Inception
Iron Man 2
Tron
Hopefully this will kick start your desire to make your own year-in-advance predictions again. If it’s because your predix for 2009 proved disheartening, don’t sweat it- it’s all fun.
If you no longer want to waste time with year-in-advance predictions, perhaps you could spend some time speculating what would have happened with ten nominees in 2008?
I’ve been thinking about it for a while — it’s been bugging me, basically, and I’d enjoy your opinions.
Rob, way to go man. Thanks.
Noooo, I love the Contenders. You don’t have to furnish predictions if you don’t want to, but I found the long, all-inclusive lists intriguing and sometimes very useful.
Thanks Earl. That was harder than I thought it’d be…
Kris, you also got Streep right (in the wrong category), Mirren right (in the wrong film) and four out of five Best Animated nominees were on your list. Not so bad.
How did I do? Well, I got over 100 of the nominees right but then again I am smartest.
Also, Rob, it was a nice effort, but, no True Grit? At all?
77/106, add another five for alternates. Not bad! I’m very glad to get all the Adapted screenplays: go “In the Loop”! Great flick.
And as much as I love the year-in-advance predictions and following how they change throughout the year, I care more about your sanity. I don’t know how you do it.
38/45 in the top 8 categories.
Hey Kris:
I don’t know if this is a random question or not, but were you the first person to call an Oscar win for Jeff Bridges?
Please continue. I like reading about possible awards contenders early. Please.
Danny: I believe so. I remember Tweeting it immediately after I saw the film.
Yeah, here it is: http://twitter.com/kristapley/status/5430937380
Yeah that’s pretty awesome. I remember the tweet, just couldn’t remember the exact date. I don’t know if you can think of any other ones, but that’s got to be among your all-time best predictions in terms of how early it was (Nov. 4th) and how unknown Crazy Heart was at the time you said it.
This may sound odd, but I use your year-in-advance and full list of possible contenders as my reading list. Don’t stop, Kris; think of literacy!
Aw, I like year in advance stuff. It’s a wonderful barometre of not only your own feelings about upcoming projects, but the mood of it in a grander scheme.
I didn’t do too badly in my year-in-advance predictions. Only three categories where I got 0 right (cinematography, editing and make-up). I correctly guessed five acting nominees (Freeman, Mulligan, Damon, Cruz and Mo’Nique). I also predicted “Precious” would get Director and Screenplay nominations a year out, which I’m impressed with myself for.
My best category, however, was Best Costume Design in which I correctly predicted 4.5/5 a year in advance. I have “Coco”, “Bright Star”, “Imaginarium” and “Nine”, but also predicted Sandy Powell, but for “The Tempest” instead of “The Young Victoria”. Go me.
YES WE CARE
By the way, I think Hiam Abbass is the Leading Actress of Miral.
Maxim- I’m just a little hesitant to bet that much on True Grit just yet. It’s a remake of an already successful movie, and for the Coens whenever there’s an A Single Man there’s a Burn After Reading. Who knows, I could be waaay off, I probably am. But those are the calls you gotta make, otherwise you’re just saying everything gonna be great and make the cut.
Kristopher: Just wanted to send some encouragement your way. As a professional blogger myself, I can guess how burned out you must get, and I sympathize. But oh man! I was bummed when I read that! As a fan of your work, I hope you dig down for one last project of the season. It might not always be accurate but it’s a great starting point.
I care.
Danny: Actually we kinda called it even earlier than that (sight unseen, but still), when Searchlight acquired the film back in July:
http://incontention.com/?p=10440
““Crazy Heart,” however, gives Bridges the opportunity to play a washed-up, alcoholic country singer seeking to get his life and career back on track — now just count the Oscar hooks in that sentence. How can he lose?”
;)