BadAtGender

And the least surprsiing oscar of the night goes to... Inside Out!

Darn. World of Tomorrow is so sublime.

That was a huge, huge surprise. Good job, Ex Machina. If it's not going to be MMFR, that's a great choice.

Whoa!

I'd kinda hoped the band would improve since they've had to play the theme so many times, but... nope. Still lifeless.

That was a great presentation for sound editing.

So happy Sixel won.

Eh. Whatever.

Gotta say, these BP supercuts are pretty crap.

Woo! Jenny Beaven! Also, it's impressive how much the band sucks the life out of Junkie XL's score.

God damn this song.

The way they're presenting the writing nominees is really cool.

For categories I literally had no personal point of reference, I ordered them randomly. Best Picture: 1. The Revenant 2. The Big Short 3. Spotlight 4. Room 5. Mad Max: Fury Road 6. Bridge of Spies 7. Brooklyn 8. The Martian Best Director: 1. George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road 2. Alejandro González Iñárritu for The Revenant 3. Adam McKay for The Big Short 4. Lenny Abrahamson for Room 5. Tom McCarthy for Spotlight Best Actor: 1. Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant 2. Bryan Cranston for Trumbo 3. Matt Damon for The Martian 4. Michael Fasbender for Steve Jobs 5. Eddie Redmayne for The Danish Girl Best Actress: 1. Brie Larson for Room 2. Cate Blanchett for Carol 3. Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn 4. Jennifer Lawrence for Joy 5. Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years Best Supporting Actor: 1. Sylvester Stallone for Creed 2. Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies 3. Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight 4. Christian Bale for The Big Short 5. Tom Hardy for The Revenant Best Supporting Actress: 1. Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl 2. Rooney Mara for Carol 3. Kate Winslet for Steve Jobs 4. Jennifer Jason Leigh for The Hateful Eight 5. Rachel McAdams for Spotlight Best Original Screenplay: 1. Spotlight 2. Inside Out 3. Ex Machina 4. Bridge of Spies 5. Straight Outta Compton Best Adapted Screenplay: 1. The Big Short 2. Room 3. Brooklyn 4. Carol 5. The Martian Best Film Editing: 1. Mad Max: Fury Road 2. The Big Short 3. The Revenant 4. Spotlight 5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens Best Cinematography: 1. The Revenant 2. Mad Max: Fury Road 3. Sicario 4. The Hateful Eight 5. Carol Best Production Design: 1. Mad Max: Fury Road 2. Bridge of Spies 3. The Revenant 4. The Martian 5. The Danish Girl Best Costumes: 1. Mad Max: Fury Road 2. Cinderella 3. Carol 4. The Danish Girl 5. The Revenant Best Makeup: 1. Mad Max: Fury Road 2. The Revenant 3. The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared Best Visual Effects: 1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens 2. Mad Max: Fury Road 3. The Martian 4. Ex Machina 5. The Revenant Best Sound: 1. Mad Max: Fury Road 2. The Revenant 3. Star Wars: The Force Awakens 4. Bridge of Spies 5. The Martian Best Sound Editing: 1. Mad Max: Fury Road 2. The Revenant 3. Sicario 4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens 5. The Martian Best Score: 1. The Hateful Eight 2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens 3. Bridge of Spies 4. Sicario 5. Carol Best Song: 1. "'Til it Happens to You" from The Hunting Ground 2. "Writing's on the Wall" from Spectre 3. "Earned It" from Fifty Shades of Grey 4. "Manta Ray" from Racing Extinction 5. "Simple Song #3" from Youth Best Animated Feature: 1. Inside Out 2. Shaun the Sheep Movie 3. When Marine Was There 4. Anomalisa 5. Boy and the World Best Foreign Language film: 1. Mustang 2. A War 3. Son of Saul 4. Theeb 5. Embrace of the Serpent Best Documentary Feature: 1. Cartel Land 2. Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom 3. Amy 4. The Look of Silence 5. What Happened, Miss Simone? Best Documentary Short: 1. Body Team 12 2. Chau, Beyond the Lines 3. A Girl in the River: The Price for Forgiveness 4. Claude Lanzmann: Specters of the Shoa 5. Last Days of Freedom Best Animated Short: 1. World of Tomorrow 2. Sanjay's Super Team 3. Bear Story 4. Prologue 5. We Can't Live without Cosmos Best Live Action Short: 1. Ave Maria 2. Day One 3. Shok 4. Everything Will be Okay 5. Stutterer

-10k per movie is fine, but only if you can't lose more by actually entering a score, even if it's wildly off. Leaving it blank needs to be the worst possible thing you can do, just to avoid strategically leaving it out.

I hope he brings that to Black Panther.

Yeah, that makes sense. The presentation of the SOTMs does make it seem like a suckers game if it were random, since the potential loss is usually much greater than the potential gain. But it isn't really random. I guess I just need to convince myself of that at the time of answering.

Familiarity in the US isn't really required for a nomination. The voting there is done entirely by the animation branch, not the Academy as a whole. Also I believe in order to vote they have to watch all potential nominees, so it's not a selection based on popularity so much as a comparison of all the films. Heck The Boy and the World got a nom and barely anyone even knew it existed before that.

Interesting. I managed a top 10 in the SOTMs, despite the fact I never felt like I had any good instincts for them. My whole strategy there was to try and prevent loss rather than going for any huge gain. Same thing with the pre-season questions, really. What I find interesting is that I managed a pretty good score in the total grosses, but I was horrendously bad in the top 10 WW and top 15 DOM lists. Just eyeballing it, if I'd managed even close to the median in those two, I would have had another 300-600k points, which would have put me anywhere in the top 10 to the top 5. Lesson to everyone: don't fuck you your lists like that, you'll torpedo your chances, even if you're doing great otherwise.

Eh. Sausage Party is computer animated, so it's going to be tough unless they're spending a ton of money. Little Prince is stop motion, which gives it a huge leg up. As LEGO showed, even ecstatic reviews may not be enough.

Going to have a tough time to top Monster Hunt at this point. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=monsterhunt.htm

It's all downhill from Kung Fu Hustle, eh?

Gods of Egypt - 11m Eddie the Eagle - 9m Triple Nine - 6m

Just in time for that well-known start of summer: Easter.

Yeah. Congrats to @grey ghost for taking the victory. Also good job to everyone who did not, like me, figure out a way to make things worse by filling in the pre-season. Thanks to @chasmmi (and @JJ-8) for doing all the hard work putting this together. It's great fun, even if some of the SOTM choices were... questionable. I'm looking forward to what you guys have cooked up for the BSG this year. Also, a thanks to @Telemachos for being a good sport about our "rivalry". After the 1k point separation we had in the BSG, I really felt like it was worth playing up. The fact that we again finished within a spot of each-other makes it all worth it. I look forward to a third matchup in the summer. As for myself, it's clear I've got some work to do. Last year's BSG proved I could do good preseasons. This winter showed I can do good on the weeklies. I just need to put it all together. We'll see if that happens. And March 20th, hmm? Interesting. In. Ter. Es. Ting.

So, yeah, it's early yet in the year. The '15 Oscars haven't even happened yet. But we've already had one major animated feature in KFP3 and a second is rolling out across the world to pretty rave reviews (Zootopia). So I think it's a fine time to get the discussion rolling on what next year's Oscar race is going to turn out like for my favorite medium. In general, this seems like a top-heavy year. Last year was pretty light on the high end, with only one DWA film, nothing from WDAS, and a lackluster second film from Pixar. So we had a nice assortment joining almost assured winner Inside Out on the ballot. For 2016, though, there's a lot coming out from the big guns. Disney's got three features, two from WDAS, which is on a roll as of late, notching two straight wins in '13 and '14. Pixar still isn't quite back in their prime mode, but Inside Out showed the studio can return to form. All three films here, Zootopia, Moana, and Finding Dory, are going to be in the mix unless there's some major flubs. DWA's had a rough time business-wise of late, with canceled projects and studio closures happening to scale back 2014 to one film (Home) that turned out to be a surprise hit. They've already released their highest profile film of the year in KFP3, which does have some pedigree for a nomination, both previous films in the series garnered one. But it's also got a really early released date and reviews aren't ecstatic. As for Trolls, well, it feels like it's more of their low-brow comedy than critic-wooing emotion at the moment. LAIKA has made three films and gathered three nominations for them. While The Boxtrolls was a big surprise at the time, snagging a spot instead of The LEGO Movie, it makes a lot of sense in retrospect. As one of only two major stop motion studios in the world, it seems pretty guaranteed that Kubo is going to get a fourth nomination, unless the response is absolutely dire... and possibly even then. Illumination has a double-film year for the first time, and seems destined to clean up financially with at least one of them. Secret Life of Pets should do well. Sing is... not looking good at the moment, but who knows. However, the studio's strategy doesn't seem geared toward awards recognition. DM2 did receive a nomination, but in retrospect it's a very confusing one and is one of the strangest nominations the animation branch has ever done. If one of these films is going to be in the mix, they need to up their quality game significantly. Sony's got The Angry Birds movie, which feels like an also-ran. Talking animals are BIG this year, and against Zootopia and Finding Dory, things would need to be really special to stand out. A too-late adaptation of a mobile video game doesn't feel like it. Warner Bros. has their first feature since The LEGO Movie in Storks. Again, talking animals and a big question as to whether it's got a chance at a nomination. For CGI features, the rule tends to be go big or go home, with the vast majority of mid-tier efforts not getting a nod even if they're critically well received. Much like most of Sony's efforts, I don't see WB making that jump unless they start spending Disney money. Or at least Dreamworks money. Blue Sky hasn't had a nomination since the first Ice Age. I don't think that's going to change this year. What else? There's always some interesting foreign or indie efforts which can garner a lot of praise. Cartoon Saloon doesn't have anything this year, so won't be gunning for a third nomination. Likewise, Studio Ghibli has shuttered its animation division and we'll likely not see anything from that direction. Still, something could surprise. As it stands, I'd guess that four of the five spots are going to be as such: Zootopia Moana Finding Dory Kubo of the Two Strings I feel like the fifth slot could go to either The Boy and the Beast, Mamoru Hosoda's latest feature, or The Little Prince. I'm assuming that neither qualified for last year's Oscars, though, so someone could correct me if I'm wrong. Hosoda hasn't gotten a nomination yet, but his previous three films have all gotten pretty stellar acclaim and he feels like the best successor to Miyazaki that Japan has at the moment.