Welcome to

The Friday Night Movie
Annual Oscar Contest

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Hey, Movie Lovers!

The ballots have been tallied and the 2011 Friday Night Movie Oscar Contest is over. I had over 30 participants this year.

And the winner is a three-way tie: Brenda Van Damme, Will Prenetta and Scott Sughrue who got 16 out of 21 correct guesses in the major categories! Congratulations to Brenda, Will and Scott for their win! They'll be receiving movie passes and a cool action figure. Right behind them was another three-way tie for second place with a respectable score of 15: Katie Wallace, Paul Haus, and first timer Philippe Berthiaume. Rounding out the top three were Brendan Moore and my favorite sister-in-law Mary Ellen Mathiesen-Tyrrell with 13 a piece. Finally, my web participants finished strong with first timer Rodney Worsham nailing 17 and two-time web champion Jimmy Orsag right behind him with 16. One other shout out goes to Nelson Wong who won my company's Oscar Pool (which I also run) with an astounding 20 out of 21 correct guesses! That'll be a tough one to beat. Congrats to all.

Check out the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) Oscar Site for more details on this year's event.

Thanks for participating. See you on the red carpet next year.

And the Oscar goes to...

Best Motion Picture of the Year
   127 Hours
   Black Swan
   The Fighter
   Inception
   The Kids Are All Right
   The King's Speech
   The Social Network
   Toy Story 3
   True Grit
   Winter's Bone

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
   Javier Bardem in Biutiful
   Jeff Bridges in True Grit
   Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network
   Colin Firth in The King's Speech
   James Franco in 127 Hours

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
   Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right
   Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole
   Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
   Natalie Portman in Black Swan
   Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
   Christian Bale in The Fighter
   John Hawkes in Winter's Bone
   Jeremy Renner in The Town
   Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right
   Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
   Amy Adams in The Fighter
   Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech
   Melissa Leo in The Fighter
   Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
   Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom

Best Achievement in Directing
   Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
   Ethan Coen, Joel Coen for True Grit
   David Fincher for The Social Network
   Tom Hooper for The King's Speech
   David O. Russell for The Fighter

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
   Another Year: Mike Leigh
   The Fighter: Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington
   Inception: Christopher Nolan
   The Kids Are All Right: Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
   The King's Speech: David Seidler

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
   127 Hours: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
   The Social Network: Aaron Sorkin
   Toy Story 3: Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
   True Grit: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
   Winter's Bone: Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
   How to Train Your Dragon
   The Illusionist
   Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
   Biutiful [Mexico]
   Dogtooth (Kynodontas) [Greece]
   In a Better World (Hævnen) [Denmark]
   Incendies [Canada]
   Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi) [Algeria]

Best Achievement in Cinematography
   Black Swan
   Inception
   The King's Speech
   The Social Network
   True Grit

Best Achievement in Editing
   127 Hours
   Black Swan
   The Fighter
   The King's Speech
   The Social Network

Best Achievement in Art Direction
   Alice in Wonderland
   Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
   Inception
   The King's Speech
   True Grit

Best Achievement in Costume Design
   Alice in Wonderland
   I Am Love
   The King's Speech
   The Tempest
   True Grit

Best Achievement in Makeup
   Barney's Version
   The Way Back
   The Wolfman

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
   A.R. Rahman for 127 Hours
   John Powell for How to Train Your Dragon
   Hans Zimmer for Inception
   Alexandre Desplat for The King's Speech
   Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross for The Social Network

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
   "If I Rise" from 127 Hours
   "Coming Home" from Country Strong
   "I See the Light" from Tangled
   "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3

Best Achievement in Sound
   Inception
   The King's Speech
   Salt
   The Social Network
   True Grit

Best Achievement in Sound Editing
   Inception
   Toy Story 3
   TRON: Legacy
   True Grit
   Unstoppable

Best Achievement in Visual Effects
   Alice in Wonderland
   Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
   Hereafter
   Inception
   Iron Man 2

Best Documentary, Features
   Exit Through the Gift Shop
   GasLand
   Inside Job
   Restrepo
   Waste Land

Short Categories (not counted for purposes of the contest)

Best Documentary, Short Subjects
   Killing in the Name
   Poster Girl
   Strangers No More
   Sun Come Up
   The Warriors of Qiugang

Best Short Film, Animated
   Day & Night
   The Gruffalo
   Let's Pollute
   The Lost Thing
   Madagascar, a Journey Diary

Best Short Film, Live Action
   The Confession
   The Crush
   God of Love
   Na Wewe
   Wish 143

Contest Participants
with # of correct quesses

17 Kevin Tyrrell
17 Rodney Worsham*
16 Brenda Van Damme
16 Scott Sughrue
16 William Prenetta
16 Jimmy Orsag*
16 Entertainment Weekly's predictions 15 Katie Wallace
15 Paul Haus
15 Philippe Berthiaume
13 Brendan Moore
13 Mary Ellen Mathiesen-Tyrrell
11 Jed Shumsky
11 Allison Keeton
11 Rob Bowen
10 Eric Karnowski
9 Ricardo DeFrutos
9 Christopher Polak
9 Deborah Greer
9 Tim Wholey
9 David Van Stone
9 Lyn Ketterer
9 Margaret O'Connell
8 Bill Barnert
8 Lisa Smallwood
8 David Dietz
7 Ezekiel Montgomery
7 Philip Roberts
7 Denice Thornhill
6 Paul E. Hoffman
5 David Ashleydale
4 Tim Clifford

*Non-competitive web entries