The Oscars are over for another year and here’s my wrap…
Oscars Competition
A big thanks to the 64 people who entered by 16th Annual Pick The Oscars Competition. No one managed a perfect score and that was largely due to Mark Rylance winning best supporting actor. Only 3 out of 64 saw that coming. Three people were tied on 5 out of 6 – Sarah Ward, Prue Knox and Robb Musgrave. It came down to the tie-breaker question and Sarah Ward took the honours by being the closest to predict the age of the best picture presenter. 78-year-old Morgan Freeman did the honours.
Oscar Betting & Tipping
I can only laugh when I think of my Oscar bets this year. I had $300 on Spotlight in October 2015 and $300 on Mark Rylance in early 2016. I’d written both bets off but somehow, they came through with the goods today. I finished with a profit of $1,325 which is my largest win on any Oscars ceremony in 20 years. Suffice to say I was pretty damn excited.
Here’s a look at my cumulative Oscar betting…
1996 – profit of $750 – won on Susan Sarandon
1997 – profit of $300 (cumulative profit $1,050) – won on Frances McDormand
1998 – loss of $250 (cumulative profit $800)
1999 – loss of $250 (cumulative profit $550)
2000 – profit of $620 (cumulative profit $1,170) – won on Kevin Spacey and Michael Caine
2001 – loss of $190 (cumulative profit $980) – won on director Steven Soderbergh
2002 – profit of $480 (cumulative profit $1,460) – won on Halle Berry
2003 – profit of $275 (cumulative profit $1,735) – won on Catherine Zeta-Jones and Adrian Brody
2004 – profit of $150 (cumulative profit $1,875) – won on Sean Penn
2005 – profit of $214 (cumulative profit $2,089) – won on Hilary Swank
2006 – profit of $350 (cumulative profit $2,439) – won on Reese Witherspoon
2007 – profit of $1,463 (cumulative profit $3,912) – won on Eddie Murphy at Globes, Alan Arkin & West Bank Story at Oscars
2008 – profit of $268 (cumulative profit of $4,280) – won on Tilda Swinton and the Coen brothers
2009 – profit of $253 (cumulative profit of $4,533) – won on Mickey Rourke & Kate Winslet at Globes, Kate Winslet at Oscars
2010 – loss of $830 (cumulative profit of $3,703)
2011 – profit of $30 (cumulative profit of $3,733) – won on Social Network at Globes, Tom Hooper & King’s Speech at Oscars
2011 – loss of $640 (cumulative profit of $3,093) – won on Jean Dujardin at Oscars
2012 – loss of $850 (cumulative profit of $2,243) – won on Ang Lee at Oscars
2013 – loss of $72 (cumulative profit of $2,171) – won on Matthew McConaughey at Globes and Oscars
2014 – loss of $50 (cumulative profit of $2,121) – won on Eddie Redmayne at Oscars
2015 – win of $1,325 (cumulative profit of $3,446) – won on Mark Rylance and Spotlight at Oscars
I wasn’t quite as successful with my overall tipping. I managed 16 out of 24 but was one of the few to nab all 4 acting categories.
Oscar Results
The winners in the major categories were as follows:
Best Picture – Spotlight
Best Director – Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant)
Best Actor – Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)
Best Actress – Brie Larson (Room)
Best Supporting Actor – Mark Rylance (Bridge Of Spies)
Best Supporting Actress – Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)
Best Original Screenplay – Spotlight
Best Adapted Screenplay – The Big Short
Best Animated Feature – Inside Out
Best Foreign Language Film – Son Of Saul
Best Documentary Feature – Amy
It’s also terrific to see Mad Max: Fury Road nab 6 awards in the technical categories – more than any other film. It’s amazing consider it’s an Aussie action reboot. Who have bet on that a few months ago? The big surprises of the night belonged to Ex Machina winning visual effects and Spectre winning best song.
Chris Rock was a strong host and had plenty of material in light of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. That’s it from me. I look forward to doing it all again in 12 months!