That's about 7 that seem to be pretty sure locks. Normally there might be 8 or so but everything else here on it. Has a catch or two.
My prediction: Khush goes 5 for 7 in his sure locks.
That seems like a sure lock to me!
I went 6 for 7. What is with these sure locks?
Once again, no one else bothered to submit a ballot so guess I'm playing against myself. Let's see how I did.
Director: Sam Mendes (1917) Wrong. Bong Joon Ho (Parasite)
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) Right
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Renee Zellweger (Judy) Right
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood) Right
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Laura Dern (Marriage Story) Right
Best International Feature: Parasite Right
Cinematography: Roger Deakins (1917) Right
Original Song: Rocketman [(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again] Right
Original Score: Joker (Hildur Guðnadóttir) Right
Makeup and Hairstyling: Bombshell Right
Animated Feature: Toy Story 4 Right
Costume Design: Little Women Right
Best Documentary Feature: American Factory Right
Film Editing - Ford vs Ferrari RightProduction Design: 1917 Wrong. Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood
Original Screenplay: Parasite Right
Adapted Screenplay: Jojo Rabbit Right
Best Picture: Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood Wrong. Parasite
Visual Effects: 1917 Right
Sound Editing: 1917 Wrong. Ford vs Ferrari
Sound Mixing: 1917 Right
Animated Short: Kitbull Wrong. Hair Love
Live Action Short: The Neighbor's Window Right
Documentary Short: Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl) Right
That gives me a final score of 19/24. 5 wrong. So close to 20. Could have done it to. Couple choices I knew I was risking things with and choose incorrectly. Animated Short seemed to be a two way race between Kitbull and Hair Love. I went with Kitbull because the academy often seems to like stuff with animals but I also knew Hair Love was getting a lot of media and attention which these shorts don't normally do. Sort of like Kobe's Basketball animated short which got attention on the way. Production Design also was me talking myself into the wrong choice because I couldn't point to any previous winner of outdoor sets and ruins. Yet, I just didn't think being around Hollywood sets or 60's buildings was any major feet of design either. Still, once One Upon a Time In Hollywood won for Production Design I was kicking myself on that choice. I swapped my sound picks from Ford vs Ferrari to 1917 and then the first sound award went to Ford vs Ferrari and I thought I blew it until 1917 won the Sound Mixing award. I've split sound awards before and lost both or the same film won for both so I thought I'd play it safe and I guess 1 win is better than 2 loses. That gave me 4 out of 6 for the dreaded 6 categories so that makes a difference in winning.
Aside from the three losses in Production Design, Sound Editing and Animated Short, the rest of the night was going by pretty smoothly and predictably until we got to Director with like 3 or 4 awards left to go. Ironically, that was the first award I listed in my highly certain practically sure lock category. There'd been no indication that anyone other than Sam Mendes was taking that award. Maybe the Academy took a look over his directed efforts and decided they weren't good enough to be a two-time Oscar winning director? Whatever the case, it is very rare that the Academy bucks the Director's Guild Award winner for someone else.
Once that happened, my mind began to wonder if Parasite might actually pull off the impossible and win it all. It now had Best Screenplay and Best Director plus, checking the list, it did have a nomination in Film Editing. When it was announced as the Best Picture winner, I laughed about what I said earlier of my futility in actually being able to predict the Best Picture winner no matter what I do and just did not see the Oscars breaking tradition to finally award a foreign film Best Picture especially since they've had them relegated to their own category for decades to win there. But I was happy to be wrong on that call. Parasite is a great film. Still, before those sudden Parasite victories at the end, I thought I'd be 20 or possibly 21 out of 24 tonight but just missed out on cracking the 20s.