And the winner is . . .

I faired quite well in the Oscar pool last night, though I forgot to write down all my selections before leaving for the party, which caused me to make mistakes on my final ballot. On last week's blog entry, I guessed 19 out of 24 winners correctly. However, like most people, Crash's win for Best Picture caught me by surprise; I was convinced Brokeback Mountain would win that one. Also, Memoirs of a Geisha performed much better than I anticipated, winning for Best Art Direction (I placed my bets on Good Night, and Good Luck) and Cinematography (my bet: Brokeback). King Kong won for Sound Mixing over Walk the Line, my selection in that category. I selected Paradise Now to win for best Foreign Language Film even though everything about Tsotsi made me want it to win. So, despite the damage it did to my average, I was happy about that upset. The film won't show in Rochester until April but I'm definitely going to catch it, though I'll have to remember to look away when it gets to the "kick-the-dog" scene I heard the director describe on NPR last week.

However, on my official party ballot, I called only 17 out of 24, second-guessing my original choice for Sound Editing (King Kong) and switching to War of the Worlds, and forgetting the name of my original selection for Documentary Short (A Note of Triumph) and choosing The Death of Kevin Carter. In the end, I tied with another party-goer for first place. Ah well.