Friday, January 23, 2009

Actress Psychic: Gold, Silver and Bronze Winners

This Actress Psychic game takes soooo long to play. We'll switch up the rules for 2009... so you'll want to be here in early April when we start playing again. But, yes, with yesterday's Oscar nominations, we have to wrap up this year's game. I've added +1 point for anyone who had predicted Nicole Kidman (Australia) on their ballot -- I forgot her box office points -- and I thought I'd have to add a +1 box office point for Meryl Streep for Doubt but she's just shy of the $ requirement prior to the nominations... so, nope.


I must reiterate again that I'm amazed at how well so many people did this year guessing the Actress Oscar race a whole year in advance. Many contestants guessed 3 nominees and a few even guessed 4 correctly. The collective April prediction --all your guesses pooled -- ended up going 2/5 with the eventual Oscar nominees for Best Actress or 2.5/5 if you allow for the Winslet goof (most candidates chose Revolutionary Road as her prime Oscar pony)

New Points
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married + 35 points
+25 Oscar nom + 5 first time nominee + 3 appears on less than 25% of the submitted contest entries + 2 her film's only nomination
Angelina Jolie
, Changeling + 23 points
+ 25 Oscar nom -2 previous winner
Melissa Leo, Frozen River + 37 points
+25 Oscar nom + 5 first time nominee + 2 early opening + 2 nominated for a film that grossed less than $3 million + 3 appears on less than 25% of the submitted contest entries [Editors note: Only one contestant predicted this Frozen River nomination back in April so a huge round of applause for Daequan please.]
Meryl Streep, Doubt + 18 points
+25 Oscar nom -5 appeared on more than 75% of your ballots -2 previous winner
Kate Winslet, The Reader + 26 points
+25 Oscar nom + 3 appears on less than 25% of the submitted contest entries -2 fifth nomination or higher

THE WINNERS ARE...

Which means the winner of the contest and our Gold Medalist Actress Psychic is... (drumroll please) Rich Aunt Pennybags who guessed 4 nominees correctly (and the fifth was a near miss). The Silver Medalist is KiYe (who only guessed 3 Oscar nominees but had not one dud candidate on the psychic ballot, in other words: all five choices were in the race till the very very end, collecting points) and there's a tie for the bronze between Ben F & Patrick T. who each guessed 4 correctly but had a dud spot on their ballots. Click here for more details of the contest (like which Actresses were worth the most points all told), how your point totals stack up and what these four winners win.
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17 comments:

Bernardo said...

Woohoo! Got highlighted with 205 points!

However, I'm very angry that at the last minute I changed Hathaway for Natalie Portman in Brothers at the last minute... if I hadn't I'd have tied for the first place.

Bernardo said...

Rank 21! Next year I'll make the finalists...

Anonymous said...

JarJar K here! Damn Julianne Moore...I was tied with Hayden W for 3rd before the Oscars and then came the horror story of Sally Hawkins M.I.A.

Ben said...

Ben F here! I'm so pleased. My first oscar-related win since my video store oscar contest circa 1993 when I was 12 (which won me 10 free rentals).

Matt Noller said...

Gah! So close! It's too bad Blindness sucked so hard.

Joe Reid said...

Okay, not to pat myself on the back or anything but DAMN! 4/5 and I totally forgot about that Rev Road tiebreaker, and I nearly nailed that too. I guarantee I will NEVER guess this closely again.

Also, how funny that Mr. Movie Geek and I tied, each with Emily Blunt as our dud, but for different movies, neither of which opened in '08. Curse you, Blunt!!

Anonymous said...

You really should give some kind of warm words to the poor guy who only made 9 points.
And I was thinking I did bad!!

Glenn said...

Wow. I ended up doing "quite shite" with only 2.5 (Streep, Hathaway and Winslet for Rev Road). I totally thought I was onto a winner with Sally Hawkins way back in February. Alas...

Glenn said...

Oh, I actually got highlighted. Lovely. Just shows how close it was all season, really if I only correctly predicted two and I still scored 221 points. lol.

E Dot said...

Ugh, everyone's so good. Next year I hope to break 200.

Anonymous said...

WOW!
I got 243 points, that's so cool!
I'm now officially a nerd, YEAH!

Anonymous said...

Congrats to the winners and near-winners. I broke 150 which is fine for a first timer.

I wonder how the contest would've worked out if Winslet got in for her Revolutionary Road role.

adam k. said...

Wow, those last-minute snubs really killed me. If things had panned out just a bit differently, as it looked like they would about week ago (Hawkins and Rev Road instead of Leo and Reader), I'd have guessed 4 correctly and been among the runner-up. Alas, now I'm merely 2 for 5.

And Julianne Moore really killed me.

James Colon said...

Totally would've had a 3/5 if the Academy had gotten it right and nominated Sally Hawkins for HAPPY-GO-Lucky. Up until yesterday, I was so proud to have predicted that so early. And then it didn't happen....

Anonymous said...

Well...I wasn't last.

If it is not too early to talk about next year, let me point out, as I do at this time every year, that those who pick the obvious favorites in the contest do themselves a disservice. Matching the consensus selection five-for-five is the best way to guarantee a loss. Take some chances. Find the next Melinda Leo. Because, just like this year, no more than two of the consensus five will show up on the Best Actress Oscar ballot next time.

(Though I am surprised that four of the top nine made it.)

Anonymous said...

I was doomed the moment I picked Kerry Washington for reasons even I don't quite understand (I must have been distracted by then-recent FilmExperience post praising her ;)). I still stand by the other choices. They made perfect sense back in April, even if two of them soon stopped. Oh well, at least I made a three-digit number of points, if barely.

AND, I got the tie-breaker question exactly right! YAY ME! Nat, how many people were correct about Rev Road nominations? :D

Glenn said...

"Find the next Melinda Leo" - that's what I thought I was doing in selecting Sally Hawkins. And, yeah, it was quite obvious that the five nominees wouldn't be Streep, Winslet, Jolie, Blanchett and Moore so I figure for the next contest people need to take what they would see as the consensus five, subtract two and replace them with smaller contenders.

What will be interesting to see is if people continue to pick Emily Blunt. Generally being withheld a year isn't good... but you never know.