The Collective Mind is, well, OK

Yesterday I posted about the collective mind of the "Birdbath" predicting the results for the Oscars... so, here's the results.

There are 24 categories... and we got 15 of them right! (For the record, Chris Newcomb won my annual Oscar Pool/"Birdbath" with 18 correct.) The ones we missed were:

• Actress: we picked Ellen Page (rather than Marion Cotillard - in fact, only the winner, Chris, managed to get this one right)
• Supporting Actress: we picked Cate Blanchett (rather than Tilda Swinton - who I can't get the picture of her as the White Witch of Narnia out of my head, no matter how many Oscars she wins)
• Cinematography: we picked No Country for Old Men (rather than There Will Be Blood - and don't you think that a multi-million dollar actress would work on pronouncing the word correctly before she got out there?)
• Makeup: we picked Pirates of the Carribean 3 (rather than La Vie en Rose)
• Sound Editing & Sound Mixing: we picked Transformers (rather than The Bourne Ultimatum)
• Visual Effects: we picked Transformers (rather than The Golden Compass)
• Documentary Feature: we picked Sicko (rather than Taxi to the Dark Side - ah, exposing torture is more important to the folks in Hollywood than fixing our health care system OR giving Michael Moore more camera time to pontificate with)
• Documentary Short: we picked Sari's Mother (rather than Freeheld)

Not as good as last year... but still decent

And speaking of not-bad performances, I was pleasantly surprised by how watchable the Oscar broadcast was this year. Some highlights:

• Jon Stewart, who managed to take shots at both sides politically (both McCain's age & the liability that is Bill Clinton got mentioned) as well as a very funny joke about Yom Kippur...
• a delightful performance of "Falling Slowly" (and all of the other nominated songs)
• having the good sense to allow the young lady who co-wrote "Falling Slowly" to come back on stage after she got cut off
• the opportunity to figure out that I've only seen 33 of 80 Best Picture winners - I've got some watchin' to do!

As for the actual awards, I (like my buddy, Stven Carlberg), find myself wanting to see the nominated films - for once, the show got me more rather than less interested.