The Silver Oscars

The great Nate Silver, of Five-Thirty-Eight.com and Baseball Prospectus fame, has come out with his Oscar predictions. If you saw his uncannily accurate predictions of the Presidential election -- he was one of the first to champion Obama's candidacy, correctly predicted a blowout early on, and got 49 of 50 states correctly -- or have paid attention to the rave reviews for PECOTA, the baseball statistical projection system he invented, you'll know he's a man worth listen to when it comes to predictions. I don't know if I've ever had a man-crush on a nerd before, but what I feel for Nate Silver is wrong, I don't want to be right.

So far, Nate agrees with me on all four my predictions -- 'Slumdog' (at an astonishing 99%), Danny Boyle (99.7%!!!), Heath Ledger (only 85.8%), and Mickey Rourke (77.1%). Soon, I'll be finishing off my own predictions, and we'll see how close the rest of our picks are. I guarantee there's already one pick we disagree on. (Can you guess it?) Also, Nate didn't do the screenplay awards, which I of course will do. Maybe next.

MY Oscars

Okay, it's been quite awhile since the Oscar nominations, but I was busy at the time, and haven't gotten a chance to discuss them. Until now. With the show only a week away, I thought I'd take a look at each of the categories -- what I think of the nominations, who should win, and who will win. I'm going to try to squeeze in as many of these as possible before the big day, but you never know, so rather than hold off on the major awards, I'm starting with the biggie:

BEST PICTURE

'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'
'Frost/Nixon'
'Milk'
'The Reader'
'Slumdog Millionaire'

THE NOMS: These look pretty good, with one glaring exception. I haven't seen 'The Reader' -- the only nominated film I missed -- mainly because the buzz around it was so bad, but I still feel pretty safe in saying it's a bad choice. Why? Well, for one, some people are calling it the worst Holocaust film ever. Another: Harvey Weinstein. He's known for pimping his films more tenaciously during Oscar season than any other mogul, and calling in all the right favors. Without his push, I doubt this film is nominated. Lastly, both 'The Wrestler' and 'The Dark Knight' were great, and really deserved a nomination, as did 'In Bruges'.

WHO SHOULD WIN: In my opinion, of the noms, 'Button' and 'Milk' were the best films in the traditional Oscar sense, but 'Slumdog' was one of the more unique films I've seen in a while. I understand the buzz it's generating, but my choice is 'Button'.

WHO WILL WIN: 'Slumdog'. It might be manipulative, and a bit un-Oscary, but it's too much of a feel-good hit to lose in a year without a slam dunk Oscar-type lock.