Over 100 Years of American Film History in 1 Spreadsheet

Click here for the spreadsheet

The American Film Institute's theater outside Washington, DC -Photo by Kate Mereand

Twenty years ago on June 16th 1998, I was on vacation in the Outer Banks, and I couldn't tear myself from a show on CBS. Even as a relatively young person, I already had the priorities of a octogenarian. While the people I was vacationing with were busy doing things like partying in the sand, relaxing by the pool, or playing cards and games in adjacent rooms, I was glued to the television.  Needless to say, I was not the coolest guy on the trip. I even grabbed my artist sketch pad I had brought to do drawings, so I could keep notes on the proceedings. My priorities may not have been yours, but, dammit I was committed to them.

The American Film Institute had put together a TV special based on counting down the one hundred greatest American films of the 20th Century. It was a broadcast so specifically designed to appeal to all of my key interests that to this day I worry I may have been used as a guinea pig in some scientific experiment that designed it. I loved movies. I loved ranking things. I have an inherent subservient tendency that love when authority figures tall me what is valuable in art. That's why I love when the Oscars declare with autocratic confidence what was best in film in a given year.  Well this special, titled AFI's 100 Year... 100 Movies, felt like an Oscar ceremony for a whole century of movies!

A love affair began between me and the American Film Institute that continues to this day. The next day I all I wanted to do was talk about the list with people. I want to debate it, and analyze it, and break it down to the nth degree. Instead of wasting the wall space of my bedroom on photos of supermodels or rock stars I clipped a newspaper article with the AFI's list and taped that up.  Years later I would rejoice at the opportunity to move close to the AFI Silver theater in Maryland. I was so excited to take part in their many events celebrating the past and present of filmmaking. Then, like any good creep, I would then try to form a relationship with the good folks there over the internet.

In the years following my initial introduction to their work AFI created more rankings shared across more specials. Like Waylon Smithers with Mr. Burns, I would dutifully knowledge each one, copy down everything they said, and nod in agreement. Over the years the AFI ranked the 100 greatest comedies, the 100 greatest romances, the 100 most thrilling movies, the 100 most inspiring movies, the 50 greatest heroes and 50 greatest villains, the Top Ten of ten different genres of film, and several more lists denoting cinematic greatness. I recorded all of these carefully in notebooks before moving on to spreadsheets on a computer. While the AFI released their final list ten years ago, I have gone back to those lists over and over again for my own purposes.

Eventually, I began to consider the idea of compiling all of those lists into a single resource. In a move that my therapist called "an obsessive's dream" I took it upon myself to create one comprehensive List of Lists ("Because YOU demanded it!"). Thankfully AFI was generous enough to share tons of very useful information on their website. There I could find the lists from their 13 special events and the background information of all the lists of nominated films they used to build their rankings on their website. From those raw materials I crafted a single spreadsheet to summarize everything that was great from over 100 years of American film history. 

If you think my work with AFI lists is obsessive, you should see my Oscars research

Now here comes the part of the piece where I describe my methodology in excruciating detail that almost no one will care about. However I have spent too much time in the company of academics to skip this step. So if you want to insight into my obsessive mind, read on! Everyone else can skip to the next picture. After that I will talk about fun things you can do with the List of Lists.

The first step in making a List of Lists is determining all the lists you have to list. Over 11 years the AFI produced 13 events announcing a set of rankings. They were, in chronological order:

• June 16, 1998- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, ranking the 100 best American movies to that point all-inclusive (all other lists will also be limited to films produced in the United States or with major involvement from Americans) 
• June 16, 1999- AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, ranking the 25 greatest male and 25 greatest female movie stars who had made their film debut before 1950 or who had died prior to the creation of the list (so more like the 50 most popular stars you'll find on TCM)
• June 13, 2000- AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs, ranking the 100 greatest comedies
• June 12, 2001- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills, ranking the 100 most thrilling, or "pulse-pounding" in the words of the telecast, movie; there was not a strict genre restriction on this list like there were on others
• June 11, 2002- AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions, ranking the 100 greatest love stories in films both dramatic and comedic (but disappointing some, none that were pornographic)
• June 4, 2003- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains, ranking the 50 greatest heroes and 50 greatest villains portrayed in films
• June 22, 2004- AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs, ranking the 100 greatest musical moments, not limited to those in movie musicals or even songs written for films, rather any instance of music being used in the body of a movie
• June 21, 2005- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes, this one should be self-explanatory
• September 23, 2005- AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores, ranking the 25 greats film scores, this was presented in a special one-night only event at the Hollywood Bowl instead of a broadcast
• June 14, 2006- AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers, ranking the 100 most inspiring films; again this list was not confined to any specific genre
• September 3, 2006- AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals, ranking the 25 greatest musicals, this was also presented at a live performance rather than over television
• June 20, 2007- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition, revising the original list of the 100 greatest movies, both to incorporate films since released and changing opinion regarding certain films (so goodbye to 1915's The Birth of a Nation)
• June 17, 2008-AFI's 10 Top 10, ranking the 10 greatest films of 10 genres: animated films, court room dramas, epics, fantasy, gangster movies, mysteries, romantic comedies, science-fiction, sports movies, and westerns.  

My main purpose for this spreadsheet is to create a database of movies judged to be of holistically high quality. That means that some of these lists would not be conducive to my goal. 

The list of 50 stars was the most difficult to deal with as I could not figure how to account for it. The AFI surely did not mean it as an endorsement of every film in the combined body of work of over 50 actors. I determined that The Plastic Age did not merit inclusion in the spreadsheet by virtue of an uncredited appearance by Carole Lombard. Had the AFI based inclusion on that list for specific films starring the actors as they did with the heroes and villains then I could use it. Instead I did not include that list at all.

Also I divided the 10 Top 10 into ten separate lists. Since each top ten was based a specific list of nominees that occasionally overlapped, it seemed appropriate to treat them as distinct entities.


The list of heroes and villains had some unusual features. Heroes and villains were both given the same number of ranked spots, but were not equally represented among the nominees. Further the nominees were not categorized as heroes or villains. Thus I treated it as one list of characters with split rankings.

This left me with a total of 21 lists to consider. The lists represented a combined 1,949 films ranging chronologically from 1912 to 2006. Some where represented in multiple rankings, while a majority of them were only nominated on a single list. Simply listing all the nominated films would leave me with a useless catalog that would not communicate the various ranking the AFI went to so much trouble to create. To try to capture the relative merits of each movie according to the lists, I would need a system to account for the frequency and placement of a film among the combined rankings.

First I decided to divide the rankings into tiers. I did not want to simply rank films by their ordinal number for a few reasons. There was no clear way to deal with the hundreds of nominees which had no ordinal ranking. Since I cannot be privy to the specific mechanations that determined the rankings, I couldn't be sure how much value to assign the difference between the 53rd and 52nd film on a list. However tiering could assign proper weight to the kind of intuitive ranges that the juries creating this lists likely had in the back of their minds. In a list of 100 films distinguishing the top 50 from the top 25  or top 10 makes sense. Tiers also made it easier to compare scores across lists.

From there I would assign each film a score for appearing on a list in any position weighted relative to it that position. I awarded a movie a number of points equal to the number of films nominated for that list divided by how many other films fell in the same tier (or higher) as that movie ( #Nominees/# in Tier=Points). If that quotient didn't result in an even number I rounded to the nearest integer. Thus each film that was nominated and not ranked earned 1 point (#Nominees/#Nominees=1). Then the higher up a list a movie ranked the more points it would earn. Lists of 100 would be have tiers for their top 50 and top 25. All lists had a tier for the top ten. Then the top film on each list was awarded as many points as there were nominees in the list ( by the logic that it was in a tier of 1 and #Nominees/1= #Nominees). Isn't this all sounding more interesting than anything you could do on a subtropical beach?

Ranked films that were drawn from larger pools of nominees (like the 500 nominees considered for the greatest comedies) earned more points than those from smaller pools (the 10 Top 10 lists each came from only 50 nominated films). That gave appropriate weight for films that stood out among crowded fields versus those selected within narrow genre restrictions.

The heroes and villains list again posed some challenges. Since I had decided to treat it as one list of 100 characters, I chose to split the points evenly between the two sub-categories. So I awarded the top 25 heroes and top 25 villains the number of points they would have earned for being in the top 50 of another list. Then I created a top 20 tier instead of a top 25 to include an even number of both goodies and baddies while also observing a number that seems like an intuitive division within such a list. The top ten and number one of both lists were treated as ties and shared the respective points (i.e. #Nominees/2).

Because the 10th Anniversary was openly an attempt to improve upon the original list by altering the rankings of some of the films, I also included an adjustment based on movement from one list to the other. The formula was designed to reflect both upward and downward changes by subtracting or adding a number of points equal to the difference between the movie's position on the 1998 list and its average position on both lists.

In keeping with my goal to create scores that were reflective of a film's totality, I grouped the lists into different two groups. Most lists ranked films as a whole or for a major component (e.g. the hero or villain of the story). I added all of those together for one score. In the List of Lists I kept those on the sheet labeled "List Set 1". For the lists that only ranked relatively minor aspects of a movie (the score, musical moments, and quotes), I included those points in a secondary score, the sheet labeled "List Set 2". You may choose to rely on either score as you see fit.

After that I could begin using the List of Lists to explore any number of research areas. I tried to treat the points like Bill James treats Win Shares. I keep their limits in mind, but I use them as a tool when answering certain questions. If creating the list was an obsessive's dream, then this was the sort of extended fantasy sequence for an obsessive that Hollywood might portray in a lavish musical number.

Unlike a beach vacation the fun never ends with a database like this!

The first and most obvious thing to do with a List of Lists is to combine the scores from all lists. This gives you an impression of which films succeeded in multiple area. While the movies that were number one on a list will dominate, they will be separated by scoring well across multiple genres, or by have attributes like be both thrilling and inspiring.

For example, Casablanca, was ranked on eight lists and was nominated for another. The Wizard of Oz reached the top 10 in six different lists including topping two of them. Perhaps most impressive is Schindler's List which was not the top movie on any list yet had the 11th highest primary score and 14th highest secondary score, topping many movies that had claimed a number one ranking! (I included that exclamation point so you can understand how much more fun I find this than whatever fun and games other people were having in the Outer Banks all those years ago.)

Another use for the list is to group films together in various ways. I included the year each film was released in my data and combined this with their cumulative scores to compare what films stood out most from each year. You can compare this to contemporary attempts to adjudicate the best movie each year, say for example the winners of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Those comparisons help us understand some of what goes into helping a film stand the test of time.

Given the amount of shade that gets tossed at Oscar and all his friends at AMPAS, you might expect hindsight to reveal the Best Picture winners to frequently underperform. Yet the AFI and the Academy actually agree on the best picture quite often (but of course they don't always agree). In the first year the Oscars were awarded based on the calendar year a film was released, 1934, both picked It Happened One Night as the top film. The last year of movies that were released before the majority of AFI lists were determined was 2002. In that year we again have a consensus pick in Chicago. In between those two extremes the Best Picture and highest score film line up may other times, e.g. Titanic, Unforgiven, Out of Africa, The Deer Hunter, The Godfather, The Sound of Music, On the Waterfront, Casablanca, etc.

However I also found plenty of disagreements that were pretty revealing. The Greatest Show on Earth is frequently cited as one of the weakest picks to win Best Picture. The AFI certainly supports that judgement. Across all 21 list it only scored 1 point. The highest scoring film of that year, 1952, was Singin' in the Rain has one of the ten highest point totals for any of the nearly 2000 films listed. And it wasn't even nominated by the Academy! Perhaps the happy and poppy musical seemed light weight compared to the big scale production by Cecil B. DeMille. However hindsight has allowed critics to recognize that beneath the song and dance numbers is an interesting story about the end of the silent movie era with a nuanced message about artistry and authenticity.

Two of the also-rans from 1987 accumulated more than ten times the points of that years Best Picture winner. While The Last Emperor is the sort of historic epic that people tend to associate with the Academy Awards, both Moonstruck and Fatal Attraction are better remembered today. Maybe the Academy overlooked them because they are stories primarily driven by women. Remember that #OscarsSoWhite campaign? This helps demonstrated that #OscarsSoMale too.

Conversely this method can identify some instances where the Oscars must have been very competitive. In some years multiple movies will have very high point totals. The race in 1977 may have come down to the Star Wars movie that started it all and eventual winner Annie Hall. They both racked up lots of points with the AFI with the winner depending entirely on which list set you favor. The Sound of Music had to face Doctor Zhivago in 1965, and according to my primary set of scores they are exactly tied! The year before may have been even harder though. Three of the nominees for Best Picture -Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, and Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Taught My Eyes to Skim Past the Inordinately Long Subtitle- all rank among the 100 highest scoring films of all time.

I even tool breaking things down by year one step further. I assess each year based on how many films from that year appear in the List of Lists, how many total point were earned by the films from that year, and the average number of points earned by the listed films of that year.  You can find that data in the sheet labeled "Year by Year", including a set of charts to help visualize the numbers.

Measuring years as a unit tells an interesting story of cinema history. The number of listed films each year is low through the early years of the 20th century reflective of an art form still establishing itself. Things pick up in the late 1920's as the silent film era peaks, then really take off with the introduction of the talkies. After that noteworthy films appear each year at a fairly steady pace with the exception of a brief drop in the mid-1960's marking the gap between the "Old" and "New" Hollywood eras. The numbers only tail off in the 21st century because a decreasing number of the AFI lists cover those years. This suggests that the film industry has basically been in good health since the introduction of sound.

The point totals and averages provide some more nuance to the story. The total points show some distinct peaks in filmmaking. The end of the 1930's and start of the 1940's stand out far above all other years. 1939 has frequently been described as the greatest year in American movies, and this data certainly bears that out. It has the most total points by far and the best average to a less extreme extent. This marks the peak of the studio system in Hollywood when movie making enjoyed a level of artistic and financial success it will likely never see again. Unfortunately the effects of World War II damaged the film industry taking away talent and resources for a higher purpose. The movies regained their footing, but they wouldn't hit another height like that until the period from 1959 to 1962.

The graph showing the average points has a shape very similar to a wave pattern. This suggests that the art form rises and falls as every few years new styles, approaches, and technologies revitalize it. While it appears as though the wave is ebbing with the peaks decreasing, I believe this is a natural effect of human retrospection. Those movies that have had longer to influence others and being studied and appreciated will of course have higher standing. However as they fade from living memory and more recent films have their time in the sun the shape of the wave will shift. Doubtlessly some folks in the mid-20th century would have argued that the silent films they remembered were far superior to the musicals and special effect laden blockbusters that followed. I conclude from this that the art of movie making is as alive and vibrant as ever with new peaks still to come.

You can do so much more with this data. I have already tried a few different experiments that I may share in later posts. Hopefully you will be inspired by the 20th anniversary of the AFI 100 Years... series and pursue your own ideas. If you do please tell me about them in the comments. Until then thank you for joining me in celebrating the wonder of the movies and strangeness of a guy who would rather watch a TV show about movies than party on the beach.

Could movie buffs beat Vegas?

The house always wins.

Well, not quite always, but often enough that casinos are multimillion dollar businesses and thousands of people have to seek treatment for gambling addiction, because making bets has ruined their lives. The house makes a fortune and gamblers file for bankruptcy, because the house knows more than the bettors. Casinos are built by exploiting the common person's ignorance about statistics. Almost every game puts the gambler at a massive disadvantage. When the house doesn't have a built in advantage like when taking sports wagers, they try to stay ahead of the public by having far more information. Bookmakers hire highly intelligent people who have a level of expertise no ordinary person can match. When a casino sets the odds for a wager, they have put massive amounts of research into predicting both the likely outcome and the probable distribution of bets they will receive. If you want to make a living wagering on sports, you better have a high IQ and work ethic to match. Just scratching out wins on fifty-three percent of your bets would put you in an elite class of gambler. However there may be a few rare situations where the sharps in Las Vegas don't have the most information.

For special events bookmakers will accept bets outside their normal purview of sports. They will occasionally offer up odds on things happening in pop culture, like reality show outcomes or awards ceremonies. Suddenly a business built around some of the sharpest sports experts in the world has to venture out of their comfort zone where others know more than they do. This gives bettor a rare chance to gamble on a somewhat level playing field. If the casinos aren't the experts, then maybe you could be the expert, or at least find someone who is to advise you.

I believe the annual Academy Awards offer such an opportunity. Plenty of people love movies, and some of them enjoy having the chance to gamble on the highest of Hollywood honors. Casinos gladly accept their action knowing it doesn't take much information to beat the hoi polloi. However a very few film buffs may have the advantage over Vegas. For those of us who study and scrutinize the Academy Awards like religious texts, we can spot those special situations that professional gambler's refer to as value. Sometimes the bookmakers misjudge the odds they should offer for a particular outcome. That means bettors can earn a payoff disproportionate to the actual likelihood of the result occurring. The most clever and committed Oscar watchers know that upsets do occur with some regularity. Actors, writers, directors, and even whole pictures have bested expectations and won when someone else was presumed to have the golden statue coming their way.  So it could pay off to lay some money on the Oscars, if you have reason to believe the reward outweighs the risk. For anyone who may be interested I will provide -FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY- my assessment of the major awards and where I think the sharps may have it wrong. Remember these are not my predictions of who will win, though I may mention that, this is about getting the best value for your betting dollar.

We'll start with the "major" categories, for which gambling odds are readily available.

BEST LEADING ACTRESS-

The Nominees:
Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night- 60/1
Felicity Jones for The Theory of Everything- 40/1
Julianne Moore for Still Alice- 1/9
Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl- 25/1
Reese Witherspoon for Wild- 8/1

Best Bet: Bettors can gain an advantage by exploiting an area of ignorance. When the bookmakers or the general public don't have a full picture of the contenders for the award the odds can get skewed. We all know that the kinds of movies that win Oscars usually only get a limited release and few people see them. This is especially true for foreign language films. As such most people know nothing about the film Two Days, One Night. While I haven't seen Marion Cotillard's performance, I have seen the results of film awards that usually forecast the results of the Oscars. So far Mme. Cotillard is the only actress other than the favorite Julianne Moore to win a major award for starring in a movie while being female. In my estimation that should give her the second best odds. Casinos prefer to have money spread among all options, so no matter what happens they never stand to lose too much. Since no one saw the movie, no one is betting on Cotillard, so the bookies have to offer longer odds to attract action and spread out the risk. That gives you a great chance to make a value bet on Marion Cotillard.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS-

The Nominees:
Patricia Arquette for Boyhood- 1/7
Laura Dern for Wild- 28/1
Keira Knightly for The Imitation Game- 25/1
Emma Stone for Birdman-  12/1
Meryl Streep for Into the Woods- 15/1

Best Bet: Patricia Arquette's dominance of the preliminary awards may make you think putting money on her is a safe bet. That may be true, but that does mean putting a lot of cash on the line for a small payoff. If an upset happens does happen, you'll be in the hurt, and you'll have missed out on a great money making opportunity. To select a dark horse most likely to surprise the field I looked to a few key factors. Remember that the Academy is mostly composed of older men. When they decide which actress they want to bestow an award upon, they tend to pick the woman they would most want to sleep with. (Hey, don't blame me, it's the Oscar voters who are sexist.) That narrows the race to Keira Knightly and Emma Stone as the two youngest and prettiest nominees. Between them only Knightly has been previously nominated. That indicates she already has the respect of some AMPAS members. I like the potential of earning a big prize if the obvious favorite doesn't come through, so I'd bet on Keira Knightly.

BEST LEADING ACTOR-

The Nominees:
Steve Carell for Foxcatcher- 30/1
Bradley Cooper for American Sniper- 75/1
Benedict Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game- 20/1
Michael Keaton for Birdman-  5/6
Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything- 11/10

Best Bet: Though Michael Keaton seems to be the heavy favorite, there's a strong chance that he'll have some tight competition. While Keaton took the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy, Eddie Redmayne snared the parallel award for Drama. That would make Redmayne the most likely contender to beat Keaton, but that doesn't mean betting on Eddie gives you the best value. With a bet of $10 only returning $11 in winnings, that's a pretty small payoff for what are likely some long odds of an upset. (Also there's the chance the voters will see Redmayne's re-dic-u-lous performance in Jupiter Ascending, and squash his hopes like a post-Norbit Eddie Murphey.) If you want to bet on an upset bet on one that can reward you proportionate to the odds. For this category, I like Bradley Cooper as a long shot for a few reasons. First, Cooper has now been nominated three times in three years. That indicates a lot of voters like him and some may think he's due for the award. Second he has to portray a character that many people already know. Chris Kyle was on our TV screens just a couple of years ago. Keaton plays a fictional person (who is really just a fictionalized version of himself, so where's the challenge there). The people played by Carell and Cumberbatch are both obscure figures of whom voters won't have preexisting impressions. Redmayne does portray the world famous Stephen Hawking, but mostly during the period of his life before he became the man we recognize. Trying to recreate a living person when we can compare Cooper's performance to our memories of that person is a risky move. Sometimes the Academy likes to reward those kinds of risks. Finally, American Sniper has become the biggest box office hit of all the films up for Best Picture. There are members of AMPAS who like to reward financial success. Some of the glory for the film as a whole could give its star a much needed bump in the voting.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR-

The Nominees:
Robert Duvall for The Judge- 30/1
Ethan Hawke for Boyhood- 12/1
Edward Norton for Birdman- 10/1
Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher-  14/1
J. K. Simmons for The Theory of Everything- 1/5

Best Bet: This is another category with a heavy favorite. So all we need to find the best value bet is determine which of the nominees has the best chance of upsetting J. Jonah Simmons. Robert Duvall may be deeply respected, but very few people are passionate about The Judge as a movie. All the other nominees have past nominations and respectable reputations, so they're all even there. I think Edward Norton may have an edge though. Part of the appeal of Michael Keaton's performance in Birdman comes from the winking nature of an actor famous for playing a superhero in a movie that mocks superhero movies. Well Edward Norton once played the Hulk, and famously had a contentious split with Marvel studios over their designs for the character. Now he plays the "pure" theater actor who serves as the foil to Keaton's former blockbuster star. It's a roll that many Oscar voters imagine themselves playing in their real lives. If AMPAS really wants to flip the bird* to all the comic book inspired films that dominate the box office, they could give the trophy to Norton.

BEST DIRECTOR-

The Nominees:
Alejandro G. Iñárritu for Birdman- 7/1
Richard Linklater for Boyhood- 1/6
Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher- 45/1
Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel- 22/1
Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game- 18/1

Best Bet: This one honestly confounds me. I know Richard Linklater walked away with the Golden Globe award, but in 5 of the last 7 years the Oscar didn't go to the Globe winner. Also, I know that for most of the Academy Award's history the prizes for Best Picture and Best Director went to the same movie, and most people assume that's still the case. In the last couple of decades that has changed dramatically. Of the last 16 years the winner of Best Director didn't direct the Best Picture 6 different times! Boyhood may very well win Best Picture, but that by no means makes Linklater a lock. Based on the buzz, I would make Alejandro Iñárritu the favorite to win. Since Vegas gave him the next best odds after the presumed favorite, they seem to agree. When I can win $7 for every dollar bet on someone I judge to be the favorite, I call that a value bet.

BEST PICTURE-

The Nominees:
American Sniper- 75/1 
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)- 18/1
Boyhood- 2/5
The Grand Budapest Hotel- 9/1
The Imitation Game- 7/1
Selma- 20/1
The Theory of Everything- 30/1
Whiplash- 60/1

Best Bet: You could actually make an argument for a few of the nominees as good value bets. Because American Sniper has a turned into a box office sensation, there will be some AMPAS members who feel that sort of popularity should be rewarded. On the other hand Chris Kyle's story has stirred up some political controversy, and the Academy has distanced itself from similar films in the past (e.g. Zero Dark Thirty). After Selma missed out in almost every category, there came a major backlash against what many perceived as a racially charged oversight. Historically the Academy has underrepresented minorities among their nominees and winners, but that's changed in recent years. More black nominees have won Oscars from 2001 on than won in the previous 73 years of award's existence. There may be enough voters rallying behind Selma to pull of an unexpected win, similar to what happened with Argo a couple of years ago. Though the odds of that happening are probably longer than the 20 to 1 pay out the bookmakers are offering. I believe Birdman represents the best value bet. It has favorable odds to win Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director. A film that wins all of those prizes is actually pretty likely to win Best Picture. Certainly it's more likely that 18 to 1. So you have a great opportunity to win big by betting on Birdman.

Now I will give a brief (relatively for me) rundown my selections for the best bets to win all of the other categories.
  
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes may have more fans among Oscar voters than any of the 3 nominated super-hero movies and the divisive Interstellar. The film made major strides improving motion capture technology, which is probably the future of special FX.

BEST SOUND EDITING- American Sniper successfully recreated the chaotic sounds of battle. That's an impressive feat that usually garners awards

BEST SOUND MIXING- Whiplash had to incorporate the sounds of musical instruments in realistic, but nuanced ways. I expect the voters will respond more to those subtleties than to the louder competition.
 
 BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT- "The Phone Call" is an emotionally powerful little fil- y'know what? No one cares about this category. Let's move on.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT- "Feast" has the advantage of being paired with a widely scene and loved Disney movie. Plus you should never bet against a movie featuring a cute puppy.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT- "Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1" has an incredible one-two punch of being emotionally wrenching and urgently topical. That's like catnip for Oscar voters.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN- The Grand Budapest Hotel was skillfully and intricately produced to such a gorgeous degree, its visual splendor even stand out among Wes Anderson's oeuvre.

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP- The Grand Budapest Hotel; see above

BEST COSTUMES- The Grand Budapest Hotel; see above above

BEST ORIGINAL SONG- "Glory" from Selma will win what I suppose you could call a token award.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE- The Theory of Everything had to lean on its score a lot. How else are going to milk a lot of emotion about a guy who spends most of the movie unable to move?

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM- Ida deals with the aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland through the lens of an individuals profound story. And as Kate Winslet taught us Holocaust movies win Oscars!

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE- CitizenFour has won just about every preliminary award, so I expect the Academy to follow suit.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE- How to Train Your Dragon 2 will likely win, because major releases from US animation studios have a heavy advantage in this category. I know the Academy usually doesn't honor sequels, but I figure How to Train Your Dragon 2 won't be punished for that as much as Big Hero 6.

BEST FILM EDITING- Boyhood is your likely winner. Usually the awards for Best Film Editing goes to the film that wins Best Picture. So with Boyhood favored to win the top prize, you should bet on it winning in this category too.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY-  Birdman pulled off an astounding feat by filming the movie so that it appeared as if most of it was done with one continuous camera shot. Any director of photography who can pull that off deserves an award.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY- The Imitation Game would be my pick. This category can get confusing, because apparently no one can agree on what it means for a screenplay to be "adapted". Whiplash was considered an original screenplay by the Writers' Guild, but is an adapted screenplay according to to AMPAS. So be warned that this is my least confident prediction.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY- The Grand Budapest Hotel has the key preliminary awards under its belt. I expect that to continue. The Academy has a habit of rewarding young-ish auteur filmmakers with a screenplay award. After two past nominations, look for Wes Anderson to finally land an Oscar.

Those are my predictions. I wish you all the best of luck with your Oscar pools. Remember if any of you do wager money on these predictions, you owe me 10% of your winnings.

Number Crunching the Oscars

There are many things a person can do in anticipation of the annual Academy Awards telecast. Plenty of people make plans to hold or attend an event filled with fellow cinephiles and much merriment. Some will immerse themselves into the prediction game, reading magazines and blogs about all the behind the scenes politicking and buzz mongering. Hopefully, quite a few people will use the attention the Oscars shine on the nominees as an inspiration to take in some of the talked-about films. Then there is that tiny and bizarre minority -no, minority is too generous, splinter faction is probably more accurate- that decides the best way to celebrate the year in movies is to do a bunch of math.

In my defense, I blame the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for my recent rush of calculations. They recently adopted a few changes in the Best Picture category that have greatly complicated matters. First they decided to double the number of movies nominated for the top prize from five to ten. Okay easy enough, just print bigger ballots. Then they noticed that a movie could garner as little as 10.01% of the vote and win the most coveted award in Hollywood. Put it in other words, given the Academy has about 6,000 members, 5,400 of them could hate one of the ten nominated movies, but if 601 people vote for it it would be recorded as the best film of the year.

Rather than allow a highly fractured vote lead to an embarrassing result, someone proposed a new kind of ballot called "preferential voting" or "instant runoff". This basically means the Academy members rank the ten nominated film from their number one choice down. (On a personal note, I recently participated in an instant runoff election, and I can say from experience it was fun, easy and seemed like it could work in more elections.) Once the ballots are collected, the fine folks at PriceWaterhouse Coopers -a barrel making firm if I understand the definition of cooper correctly- then check to see if any film got a majority of the first place votes. Unless a film is an instant winner (unlikely to happen unless one film has an overwhelming level of support), the tabulators start weeding out the nominees that received few first place votes and redistributing their votes among the remaining films.

Since this is all a little confusing, I think it might be best to walk through a simulation of how the vote might break down among this year's Best Picture nominees. The inimitable Nate Silver -the only other person on Internet I could find nerdy enough to mix math with the Oscars- performed a similar exercise already. However he crunched his numbers before the nominees were announced, though he did accurately predicted nine of the ten. Also he used critics rankings, because he could find reliable data for them, instead of attempting to gauge the opinion of the AMPAS voters, a much trickier proposition. Fortunately for you, I don't have Silver's commitment to accuracy to worry about or his stellar reputation for predictions to preserve, so I can make a foolhardy attempt to predict how members of the Academy might rank the films. I will combine my knowledge of past Oscar races, my understanding of the AMPAS membership, and a watchful eye to the current dynamics of the awards season to estimate the level of support each nominee can expect.

We can begin breaking down the vote distribution by breaking down the membership of the Academy. Between the 6,000 AMPAS members and the 15 branches within the Academy, I can identify 4 major voting blocs, each based on different definitions you can use to determine the Best Picture of the year.

First you have those voters who believe that the Best Picture award should go the grandest film of the year. They like seeing movies you could describe as "epic" winning the top prize, films like Gladiator and The Lord of the Rings. This group probably contains mostly producers and directors, with some cinematographers, writers and a few actors mixed in. I estimate these voters account for about 35% of the total number of Best Picture votes.

Balancing out the first group you have those who believe that "best picture" means "most moving". They want to reward the movies that have the strongest emotional impact. Recently these voters likely supported Best Picture winners like Million Dollar Baby and Slumdog Millionaire. I would say a lot of the actors in the Academy vote with this block along with some of the writers and directors, probably a fair number of the artistic members who do art direction, makeup, and costuming too. These voters seem to represent around 35% of the vote as well.

The third major group comes from the less famous branches of AMPAS, the ones who are nominated in the so called "artistic and technical categories". Since every member can vote in the Best Picture category this undervalued lot can have a powerful impact on the race. They tend to hold that the Oscar brand should fall to those films they deem the most well made or best crafted. The last two Best Pictures, The Hurt Locker and No Country For Old Men, seem to have had strong support from this bloc. All told they likely comprise 25% or so of the Academy.

Finally, you have a small group that can play a big role if there is ever a close race. These are producers, publicists, and studio executives who simply -some might say cynically- contend that the "best" movies are the one's that make the most money. So their rankings of the years films pretty much mirror the final box office earnings. Their support helped put Titanic over the top to earn a record number of Oscars. Last year they probably supported Avatar, but the other factions trumped them. They probably add up to no more than 5% of the votes available for Best Picture.

So if you divide the Academy into these four groups, you likely can guess which groups would vote for which nominees, and therefore how much support each nominee has. It is important to remember that each group will likely vote for more than one film, and many nominees will receive votes from more than one group. Also, I will assume that each group has a selection of movies that they all rank above the others. So you when a movie that had a share of the "most touching" vote is eliminated it's votes will probably go the other emotionally powerful movies before they go anywhere else. With all of that explained, I think we can begin breaking down the actual votes.

Grandest Picture Bloc- 35% of the total 1st place votes
- The King's Speech: 35% of the bloc vote = 12.25% of the total vote
- The Social Network: 30% bloc = 10.5% total
- Inception: 20% bloc = 7% total
- True Grit: 10% bloc = 3.5% total
- Winter's Bone: 5% bloc = 1.75% total
These are all the options from among the nominees which seem to portray a grand vision, or tell an ambitious story. In some cases this is because of the amount of work involved (for period pieces like True Grit or The King's Speech). Sometimes it its because of the level of technical sophistication that the filmmakers employed (such as in manking The Social Network or Inception). Also a film could just have overachieved and accomplished a lot with relatively meager means (as I believe some will argue Winter's Bone managed to do).


Most Powerful Movie Bloc- 35% of the total 1st place votes
- The King's Speech: 40% of the bloc vote = 14% of the total vote
- The Fighter: 20% bloc = 7% total
- Black Swan: 15% bloc = 5.25% total
- The Kids Are All Right: 10% bloc = 3.5% total
- Winter's Bone: 5% bloc = 1.75% total
- Toy Story 3: 5% bloc = 1.75% total
- 127 Hours: 5% bloc = 1.75% total
Among this group you can find the nominees that have been most praised for the emotional power the convey. Here you will notice some overlap with the first group, most notably The King's Speech. While other films from the first group have been left out. I am yet to hear anyone call either Inception or The Social Network "the most touching movie of the year".

Best Made Film Bloc- 25% of the total 1st place votes
- The Social Network: 30% of the bloc vote = 7.5% of the total vote
- The King's Speech: 20% bloc = 5% total
- The Fighter: 15% bloc = 3.75% total
- True Grit: 15% bloc = 3.75% total
- Inception: 10% bloc = 2.5% total
- Winter's Bone: 5% bloc = 1.25% total
- 127 Hours: 5% bloc = 1.25% total
Now all of the nominees have to have been well crafter movies to even be considered for an Oscar. However, I believe this list contains those pictures who derive the biggest chunk of their merit from their technical values. Each of these nominees has impressive filmmaking elements that made it stand out from the other movies released in 2010.

Biggest Hit Bloc- 5% of the total 1st place votes
- Inception: 60% of the bloc vote = 3% of the total vote
- Toy Story 3: 40% bloc = 2% total
Finally this group has only two movies with big box office earnings to vote for. In most years I would imagine the vote might be pretty monolithic -whichever nominee earned the most gets the most votes. However this year I think the voters will split between the highest grossing movie of the year, Toy Story 3, and the biggest money-maker among the live action films. I say this because some members of the Academy still believe that animated films should not be compared to live action films. They involve different kinds of filmmaking and they generally aim to accomplish different goals. Therefore any method of comparison, even total grosses, can't be easily evaluated between animated and live action films. Do you reward Toy Story 3 for selling so many tickets, especially when you earn less off a children's ticket? Do you support Inception for bringing droves of adults to the cinema, something Hollywood has struggled to do for years? There's no easy answer, so I predict a split vote here.

Let's put all that information into one chart, so you can see how much of the vote each nominee received.

Total Vote- Round 1
- The King's Speech: 31.25%
- The Social Network: 18%
- Inception: 12.5%
- The Fighter: 10.75%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan: 5.25%
- Winter's Bone: 4.75%
- Toy Story 3: 3.75%
- The Kids Are All Right: 3.5%
- 127 Hours: 3%

None of the nominees have a majority, though The King's Speech has a huge lead over all the others. That means there is no instant winner and the voting no goes to multiple rounds. In each round the film with the lowest share of the 1st place vote is eliminated it's votes are then redistributed to those nominess that remain. The votes are spread out by going down the ballot to the highest ranked film still in contention and giving that film an additional 1st place vote.

The first film to go is 127 Hours. I know it feels like losing an arm to lose one of these nominees (rimshot!), but that is how the process works. We start by identifying where the votes for 127 Hours came from then determine which of the survivors profit from the departure of this film.

Some of the Most Powerful Movie vote, 5%, went to 127 Hours, so we can split that among some of the other touching films in contention. This is how I expect those votes to break down:

1st Place- 127 Hours
- Black Swan: 30%
- The Fighter: 30%
- The King's Speech: 20%
- Winter's Bone: 20%

To clarify what these numbers represent, I am dividing up just 1.75% of the total 1st place votes. When I say The King's Speech gets 20% of the votes from people who judged 127 Hours to be the emotionally touching movie of the year, I am say one-fifth of 1.75% of the Academy's 6,000 members, or about 21 people, would now have their 1st place vote go to The King's Speech instead of their original pick.

Of cour 127 Hours got some votes for being the best made film of the year as well. Here I have a different pool of films among which to divide the 1st place votes. I would predict the votes would spread out like:

1st Place- 127 Hours
- The Social Network: 30%
- The Fighter: 30%
- Winter's Bone: 20%
- The King's Speech: 10%
- Inception: 10%

After I calculate the effect these changes have on the total 1st place vote distribution, I can make an updated chart of the standings.

Total Vote- Round 2
- The King's Speech: 31.725%
- The Social Network: 18.375%
- Inception: 12.625%
- The Fighter: 11.65%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan: 5.775%
- Winter's Bone: 5.35%
- Toy Story 3: 3.75%
- The Kids Are All Right: 3.5%
- 127 Hours

Since we still lack any nominee with over 50% of the total vote the process continues. Next on the chopping block we have the critically acclaimed dramedy, The Kids Are All Right. Since this fillm got all of it's support from one bloc of voters, the Most Powerful Movie crowd, it is pretty easy to divvy up the votes appropriately. I imagine that the supports of The Kids Are All Right, a largely comedic film with an indy vibe, will have ranked other films that are humorous or independent highly. Thus:

1st Place- The Kids Are All Right
- The King's Speech: 50%
- Toy Story 3: 30%
- Winter's Bone: 20%

That brings our updated standings to:

Total Vote- Round 3
- The King's Speech: 33.475%
- The Social Network: 18.375%
- Inception: 12.625%
- The Fighter: 11.65%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan: 5.775%
- Winter's Bone: 6.05%
- Toy Story 3: 4.8%
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

Now we move on to Toy Story 3 and it's supporters. The folks who voted for it because it was the highest earning movie of the year are easy to account for. All of their 1st place votes would just go to the next big money maker, Inception. The people who held it as the most touching of the nominees will require a more involved breakdown. This block no longer represents just the 1.75% of the Academy that gave it a 1st place vote originally. Now we also have to spread out the votes it received as a result of other films getting dropped. That means we now have 2.8% of the vote to work with. (I know that's a staggering amount of change to deal with. You might want to take a second and catch your breath before you move on.) Here is how I would imagine the votes are divided among this group:

1st Place- Toy Story 3
- The King's Speech: 70%
- The Fighter: 10%
- Black Swab: 10%
- Winter's Bone: 10%

Factoring in those adjustments, and the earlier bump to Inception's standings, we have these updated standings:

Total Vote- Round 4
- The King's Speech: 35.435%
- The Social Network: 18.375%
- Inception: 14.625%
- The Fighter: 11.93%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan: 6.055%
- Winter's Bone: 6.33%
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

In an interesting twist, Black Swan, which started with more of the 1st place vote share than Winter's Bone, is actually the next movie eliminated. Please note that all of this has been my speculation. I cannot actually know if more members of the Academy ranked Winter's Bone high on their ballot than did for Black Swan. I do however believe that this sort of change in the standings is possible, and even likely, once you start eliminating nominees and redistributing the vote. Having said that and remembering that only films still active can receive new 1st place votes, this is how I break down the vote:

1st Place- Black Swan
- The King's Speech: 60%
- The Fighter: 20%
- Winter's Bone: 20%

Those adjustments mean these are the new standings:

Total Vote- Round 5
- The King's Speech: 39.068%
- The Social Network: 18.375%
- Inception: 14.625%
- The Fighter: 13.141%
- True Grit: 7.25%
- Black Swan
- Winter's Bone: 7.541%
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

The changing share of the votes bring another intriguing change. Winter's Bone has now lept True Grit as well. This is mostly because True Grit has not gained any new votes from the eliminated movies. Part of this is because a lot of the movies we've dumped drew their support from different sources than True Grit. Another factor is that some films may be widely liked, but not widely loved. This year True Grit seems to be a good example of that. Without many people outside of it's ardent supporters ranking it highly on their ballot, it doesn't stand much of a chance of winning Best Picture.

The voters who considered True Grit the biggest and most ambitious movie of the year probably split their other top votes like this:

1st Place- True Grit
- The King's Speech: 40%
- Inception: 30%
- The Social Network: 20%
- Winter's Bone: 10%

While those who rated True Grit as the best crafted film likely have their support spread like this:

1st Place- True Grit
- The King's Speech: 30%
- Inception: 30%
- The Social Network: 20%
- The Fighter: 10%
- Winter's Bone: 10%

I would like to note that in this round I assumed Inception would benefit strongly from the elimination of the only other film with strong action/adventure content. That means the new standings look like this:

Total Vote- Round 6
- The King's Speech: 41.593%
- The Social Network: 19.825%
- Inception: 16.8%
- The Fighter: 13.516%
- True Grit
- Black Swan
- Winter's Bone: 8.266%
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

Now we have to finally cast aside Winter's Bone. Since it is being removed that means we have a few points to consider when spreading out the ballots it had gained. First we can see that the Grandest Picture bloc has begun to shift. Because the people who rated Winter's Bone high likely are comfortable voting with a smaller skill picture that has a big vision, I predict The King's Speech will benefit more than Inception or The Social Network. Also I expect that the voters in the other corner will favor The King's Speech over The Fighter. I say this because I can look to the trends in the earlier vote distributions. Anytime group of voters that gave a boost to Winter's Bone tended to favor The King's Speech pretty strongly. That translates to a big boost The King's Speech compared to modest gains for the others.

The Grandest Picture vote would divide like this:
1st Place- Winter's Bone
- The King's Speech: 60%
- The Social Network: 30%
- Inception: 10%

The Most Powerful Movie vote would divide thusly:

1st Place- Winter's Bone
- The King's Speech: 70%
- The Fighter: 30%

This is what would happen with the Best Made Film vote:

1st Place- Winter's Bone
- The King's Speech: 40%
- The Social Network: 20%
- The Fighter: 20%
- Inception: 20%

Which means our updated standings would now be this:

Total Vote- Round 7
- The King's Speech: 46.6067%
- The Social Network: 20.83%
- Inception: 17.385%
- The Fighter: 15.1783%
- True Grit
- Black Swan
- Winter's Bone
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

Finally we have reached a point where a movie is within easy striking distance of the 50% mark. That means this next round should be enough to give The King's Speech the golden man-shaped trophy. This is especially true when you acknowledge that The King's Speech is the only film left that had the support of the Most Powerful Movie Bloc, so it now has 35% of the 1st place votes all to itself.

Breaking down the votes from the people who named The Fighter the best crafter movie of the year, I estimate this is how things would stand:

1st Place- The Fighter
- The King's Speech: 40%
- The Social Network: 40%
- Inception: 20%

Add it all up and you finally have a clear winner.

Total Vote- Round 8
- The King's Speech: 58.86%
- The Social Network: 27.78%
- Inception: 18.36%
- The Fighter
- True Grit
- Black Swan
- Winter's Bone
- Toy Story 3
- The Kids Are All Right
- 127 Hours

What can we learn from any of this? (Other that I am a very odd duck to devote so much arithmetic to such a trivial matter) The first thing that strikes me is that asking one of ten nominees to get a majority of the vote means it is unlikely any movie will ear the Oscar after only a few rounds of voting. Further I find it interesting that the three films left standing, The King's Speech, The Social Network, and Inception, can each point to an area where they had a strong body of support, the Most Powerful vote, the Best Made vote and the Biggest Hit vote respectively. It would seem those campaigning for any of the nominees would be well served by targeting a demographic that can give you a solid block of votes, then hoping that as films get eliminated you will rise up. Also, I like the fact that in this exercise we saw how Winter's Bone was able to climb the standings by being broadly supported if not having the level of high profile support the others did. This suggest to me that any high quality film could wind up winning Best Picture even if it doesn't have the box office numbers or publicity of other movies.

So does any of this mean anything? Not really, it was mostly an exercise I came up with to amuse myself and hopefully my audience. The only way to know if I am correct in my estimations, and that The King's Speech will walk away as the big winner is to tun in and watch the Oscars on February 27th. I know I'll be watching, and I hope you do to.

Rolling out the Red Carpet- Completing your Oscar Ballot

Let anyone who reads this blog know, The Cap'n is nothing if not helpful. I want those silly few who read this blog to gave the chance to reap some kind of benefit from it. Since, Oscar-watching is one of the few topic I can routinely focus on and have any form of expertise in I thought I should provide you with the best prediction advise about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences I could muster to help you win your Oscar pools. Earlier this month, The Cap'n gave you a complete breakdown of the major categories with detailed explanations about who was favored and who could pull an upset in each one. In this entry I will provide you with information to help you predict the rest of the categories.

Often called the minor categories or the technical awards these prizes go to the people who actually do the bulk of the movie making. The nominees in these categories may not be as visible or tabloid-worthy as the actors. They may not be as identifiable and self-aggrandizing as the writers and directors. If they do their jobs well we never even think about them, but when the screw up the film is irreparably damaged. (Personally I felt Get Smart was ruined by awful lighting. And I seriously mean that.) So I feel that they deserved at least a fraction of the attention of the major categories.

If you want to use these predictions to help fill out your ballot at this Sunday's Oscar party, I suggest you go with the favorites (taken from the consensus of expert opinions available here) unless you have a special reason why you might suspect an upset. Since my previous entry on the Academy Awards took about 8,000 words, and we have about twice as many categories to get through in this round, I will try to address these categories in a more rapid fire manner. So get your pen and paper ready, because here we go . . .

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Current Favorite: Andrew Stanton for WALL-E- This is one of the easier picks, as WALL-E is the only nominee to receive support in other categories as well a sure sign that lots of voting members of the Academy loved this movie.

Tremendous Upset Potential: John Stevenson and Mark Osborne for Kung Fu Panda- There is almost no chance that WALL-E doesn't win this award, but if for some crazy reason the voters choose to pick another nominee they will likely pick the more financially successful Panda over Bolt.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE FILM
Current Favorite: Ari Folman (Israel) for Waltz with Bashir- This animated feature focusing on some of the attrocities of the Lebanese Civil War and Israel's precarious relations with its neighbors stands out as one of the most original pictures of the year. Critics love it and it has garnered many notable awards already.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Laurent Cantet (France) for The Class- If you fear that the animated movie that's also a pseudo-documentary about violence in the Middle East might be a little too esoteric for the voters, then you might want to consider The Class as an alternative pick. The French film is full of things the Academy traditionally loves, such as social commentary, powerful acting, and actual human people in live action. The Academy can be a conservative group at times, so it might be prudent to select the more traditional option in your prediction pool.

BEST ART DIRECTION
Current Favorite: Donald Graham Burt and Victor J. Zolfo for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- Movies like Benjamin Button tend to have a heavy advantage in the "technical awards", because they cover such a wide scope of material. Films like this give the filmmakers a chance to show off how well they can create a variety of time periods and settings on the screen. The story of Button spans several decades, multiple nations, and visits such visually captivating cities as New Orleans and Paris. The voters eat up that sort of stuff with a spork.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Nathan Crowley and Peter Lando for The Dark Knight- Sometimes AMPAS likes to reward films that create their own world like Sleepy Hollow, Moulin Rouge, or Pan's Labyrinth. Even if the members aren't in love with super-hero movies in the major award the do like their visual splendor enough to give them the occasional craft award. Almost everyone has praised Dark Knight for the originality and grandeur of its vision. A lot of that grandeur comes from the successful forging of Gotham City into a believable and realistic metropolis (no not the Metropolis where Superman lives). Also Mr. Crowley has previously been nominated while folks from the Button team are Oscar newbies, sometimes having a pre-existing group of supporters can help tilt the voters away from a frontrunner.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Current Favorite: Anthony Dod Mantle for Slumdog Millionaire- The prize for the best director of photography usually goes to the DoP who draws the most attention to his work. In Slumdog you can't ignore the bright visuals or daring shot selection that gives that film its visual edge. Also this trophy often comes along with the winner of Best Picture or Best Director. Since, Slumdog is the favorite to win each of those major awards, you have to expect that the members respect the film enough to reward the person responsible for its distinctive look.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Wally Pfister for The Dark Knight- When it comes to creating eye-catching shots few this year could come close to the people who made Dark Knight. The film has numerous visual moments and sequences that had people buzzing ever since this summer. The Academy may see fit to acknowledge the person who made to fantastic images a reality. There is certainly a lot of love for The Dark Knight considering its numerous nominations, and this is one of the categories where the members might feel compelled to give it at least one trophy as a token of appreciation. Another advantage Pfister has over most of the other nominees is past nominations. The hive mind of AMPAS may decide that this is his year and leap frog him over first timer Mantle.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Current Favorite: Michael O'Connor for The Duchess- You can't do much more to appease the voters in this category than to put on a lavish period film and let your costumers dress up a star as widely ogled as Keira Knightley. As far as most members are concerned this award exists to reward people for putting beautiful actresses in elaborate outfits.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Jacqueline West for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- Working on a movie like Benjamin Button allows the costumer to create a wide variety of different looks. The actors have to be dressed to reflect changing fashions over the extensive course of the story. You can reflect styles befitting everything from scrappy sailors, to elegant ballerinas, to freaked out beatniks. The voters may feel so overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of costumes that went into making Button that they'll feel forced to hand its fashion crew the trophy.

BEST MAKEUP
Current Favorite: Greg Cannom for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- AMPAS has to reward the makeup department for this film. The whole reason Benjamin Button was made was to try and pull off the audacious makeup feat of aging a person in reverse. On top of that Cannom also had to do makeup on the characters befitting changing fashions. On top of that he managed to transform Cate Blanchett into an old woman so convincingly, the star was practically unrecognizable under all that goop. Most importantly of all though Cannom is one of the most respected makeup men in the business and after multiple previous nominations and past wins in this category he has a lot of long standing support among the voters.

Tremendous Upset Potential: John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O'Sullivan for The Dark Knight- While the makeup done creating the character of Benjamin Button may have been the grandest makeup work this year, the re-imagining of classic characters like the Joker and Two-Face, principally though makeup, may have been the most iconic. Both of the makeup men for Dark Knight have their own history with the Academy, so that could give them a foothold against the tide for Cannom. Also, given the luke warm response Button has received from many, I could easily imagine the voters turning against it, especially in the category where it should have been the most impressive.

BEST FILM EDITING
Current Favorite: Chris Dickens for Slumdog Millionaire- I know it will sound really weird to say this, and only absolute cinema nuts like me will have an opinion on the topic, but I thought this was a really great year in film editing. I don't know how to properly convey my sincerity about that through a blog, other than to say that I would be happy if any of these films won. All of them did a wonderful job of pacing the film, blending diverging elements, and keeping the shots coming at you in a engaging but organized manner. Dickens has to be considered the favorite since he's riding on the Slumdog coattails. Sometimes predicting the craft categories only requires you to find the film that has drawn lots of AMPAS love and bet on a sweep.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- A corollary to betting on a sweep kicks in when you watch for an upset. When one film seems destined to win a ton of awards like Slumdog has been, but another film has gobbled up more nominations like Benjamin Button did you can usually expect the top-nom getter to break the grip of the awards darling in at least a few places. Given the way Button's editing kept an epic story moving along briskly -while containing several weird elements, like the backwards moving sequence, and the alternate time lines in Paris- I say it has the best chance of taking home the trophy of any of the other nominees in this category.

BEST SCORE
Current Favorite: A.R. Rahman for Slumdog Millionaire- If you want an easy way to tell which score will attract the voters, find the score that has the most unique sound. The Academy can't always distinguish between two scores that have well-done but traditional music. If a score has some kind of exotic musical flavors mixed in or uses an unusual set of instruments, then you know that will catch the ears of the members. They'll adore the combination of traditional Indian music and modern dance/hip-hop styles Rahman uses in the score. That's the sort of thing the Academy can label as bold or innovative and the feel proud of themselves for giving it an award.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Thomas Newman for WALL-E- Only one film has had as much success giving members of the Academy the warm and fuzzies as Slumdog, WALL-E. Newman may get the hat tip here for having to carry a lot of the emotional wait of the film that has very little proper dialogue in it. Also, Newman has had numerous nominations in the past, yet still hasn't taken home a trophy. If the voters feel Slumdog will receive enough love from other quarters, watch out for them to reward Newman because he's due.

BEST SONG
Current Favorite: "Jai Ho" by A.R. Rahman and Gulzar from Slumdog Millionaire- With two of the three nominees for Best Original Song this year, the songwriters from Slumdog seem to have the odds heavily in their favor to win. The fimmakers have decided to put all their backing behind just one song likely giving it a the support of fans of both songs. Indeed it seems as though most pundits expect the final musical number from Slumdog to win. (What you didn't know it closed on a big musical number? Don't you know anything about India cinema.)

Tremendous Upset Potential: "Down to Earth"byPeter Gabriel and Thomas Newman from WALL-E- In this category I really feel very strongly that the common wisdom has it wrong. The Academy may be the elites of Hollywood, but that doesn't mean their immune from brown-nosing celebrities from outside of the industry. This sycophantic side of AMPAS usually arises in the voters giving the songwriting award to the biggest music star that snags nomination. For Pete's sake Eminem has an Oscar because of this. Also the Academy has shown a strong tendency to associate the Best Original Song prize with animated films. Disney has a whole bunch of them for just this reason. If you think Slumdog is in for anything less than a total sweep of all the categories in which it has nominees, than you should definitely pick this as the one category where it will lose. The members all probably love Peter Gabriel and own lots of his albums. Because my guiding principle is that the members give trophies to the people they wish they could hang out with, I seriously believe Gabriel has good odds to win this award.

BEST SOUND EDITING
Current Favorite: Richard King for The Dark Knight- In recent years the sound awards have basically become consolation prizes for the summer blockbuster movies that are technically accomplished. Clearly Dark Knight best matches that criteria among these nominees. It was a film with a lot of big visuals and a big time audio experience to match.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood for WALL-E- The sound wizards behind WALL-E also worked on box office success, and they had to make a lot of characterization happen through only the sound effects. This actually might be a close call.

BEST SOUND MIXING
Current Favorite: Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick for The Dark Knight- Y'know what I don't know why these are seperate categories. Just copy everything I said above down here.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt for WALL-E- And dittos again (jeez, I sound like a Limbaugh listener).

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Current Favorite: Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- With a film like Button, where the film primarily exists to accomplish a certain task the voters can have a hard time separating which elements of the film to credit for the central gimmick. In the case of Button, the praise ranged from the director, to the makeup, to Brad Pitt as an actor, and to the visual effects team. For as much as the makeup carried the scenes where Benjamin was played by Pitt, the visual effects carried the earlier scenes where child actors where made to look decrepit and Pitt's face was superimposed onto Benjamin's shriveled body. Just as the Academy would have to give Button an award for makeup if nothing else, they may feel compelled to reward the FX if only because they have almost as large a role in the picture. To whatever degree the film overall worked you have to acknowledge that the visual effects played a crucial role.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin for The Dark Knight- The visual effects category has traditionally served as only Oscar big action movies could hope to win. With two superhero movie vying to upend Button, bet on the voters leaning toward the film with the more sweeping vision and bigger box office. When the Academy deems fit to honor films made primarily for commercial reasons, they want the trophy to go for a film that did really well commercially. Also the wide-spread support Dark Knight has received for its visual wonders may find an outlet in this category where the voters won't feel as obliged to honor the more artistic craftsmen of other films.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Current Favorite: James Marsh and Simon Chinn for Man on Wire- One of the sad secrets of AMPAS always comes to the surface when they hand out the documentary awards. Truthfully, Academy members watch documentaries about as often as the average movie goer, which is to say hardly ever. You can usually pick the leader in the feature length documentary feature by think of the only documentary you've heard of this year. Man on Wire has had all the buzz. Critics gobbled it up. The filmmakers even got their subject, a famous high wire artist, out on the TV chat show circuit. Count on most of the voters just checking the box next to the one title they know

Tremendous Upset Potential: Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser for Encounters at the End of the World- The only other documentary to receive much mainstream attention stand the best chance of pulling the upset. The film has gets neat concept and a lot of stunning visuals out of taking cameras to the Antarctic and recorded the diversity of life human and otherwise that survives in the extreme condition way down south. Also Herzog has long stood as one of the most respected and daring filmmakers around the world for decades, yet this is his first Oscar nomination. The voters may take this chance to recruit him into their elite circle, so they can brag about how they always honor the great filmmakers in some way.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Current Favorite: Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde for The Witness- From the Balcony of Room 306- Now we've delved into the territory where even the Cap'n and the pundits don't have a clear opinion on the categories. Since almost no one who doesn't get the Academy's special screening DVD's ever sees the nominated short films, we have only a vague sense of what might strike a chord with the voters. Members of the Academy like rewarding documentaries that address very serious social issues. With a focus on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., this film may strike what few members actually cast a vote in this category as the kind of meaningful film approriate for the Year of Obama.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Steven Okazaki for The Conscience of Nhem En- While the history of racial politics in the United States certainly carries a lot of wait with the voters, they also tend to find themselves drawn to films about genocide (see also all of the nominations for The Reader). The story of a servant of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia sounds like the kind of tale that could really grab the members attention. Also the filmmaker has a history of earning Oscar nominations and wins, so he may have an advantage in playing to the Academy's preferences.

BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
Current Favorite: Doug Sweetland for Presto- Pixar has traditionally placed an animated short before each of their big time animated features. Since the features usually turn into big hits, that typically means most people only ever see their animated shorts -let alone admire another enough to grant it a prestigious award. So the Pixar short this year, Presto, automatically finds itself the heavy favorite.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand for Oktapodi- The other animated shorts all seem to have some notable merit that would suggest an ability to sneak into a win. However Oktapodi stands alone as short for which I have heard a little positive buzz. While that may not give it enough ammunition to take on the Pixar powerhouse, it may give it the opening it needs to rise as the rebelious choice, if any anti-Pixar backlash forms among the voters.

BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Current Favorite: Jochen Alexander Freydank for Spielzeugland (Toyland)- The short films from foreign countries usually seem to have a high success rate. I think that's mostly because they still treat short films seriously in other countries. Plus Toyland deals with the Holocaust. When in doubt count on the Academy to pick the film with most serious topic.

Tremendous Upset Potential: Steph Green and Tamara Anghie for The New Boy- If the voters want a film with a serious topic but feel a little worn out with the Holocaust as a topic, they may select New Boy. It deals with racial tensions in the microcosm of a classroom. With racial politics playing such a huge role in the U.S. over the last year-plus, the members may find this film especially timely and poignant.

Well that should cover all the categories (Wait, did I talk about art direction? Better go back and check . . .), again if you take all of the favorites in the categories for your prediction you should have a pretty good night. Best of luck to everyone in their Oscar pools. Let's all hope for an entertaining ceremony on Sunday. I always look forward to Oscar night so much that its almost like a holiday for me. Since I've written about 14 typed pages of material about it this year alone, you can tell I have some kind of strong feelings about it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.