2014 Awards Season: Oscar Ceremony Live Blog - And the Oscar goes to... 12 Years a Slave

March 2, 2014

The Oscars are being handed out this evening and as usual, we will be live-blogging the event. Here's the last look at the nominations with those chosen by our contest entrants as the likely winners in Bold. If I disagree with the consensus, they are in italics, and sharp-eyed readers will note there are no categories where that's true. Finally, if I am rooting for an underdog, they are underlined. There are only two categories where that is true. I want Chiwetel Ejiofor to win Best Lead Actor for his performance in 12 Years a Slave. I also want Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa to win for Best Hair and Make-up, because Dallas Buyers Club had a hair and make-up budget of $250. Yes it was effective, but the special effects make-up used in Bad Grandpa was just more difficult to pull off, even if the movie wasn't Oscar-bait. Regardless, I don't expect there to be many surprises at this year's awards.

Notes and Reactions...

And the last note for the night... look at all of that bold down below. Our readers correctly predicted 21 of the 24 categories and two of the ones we got wrong no film earned a majority of the votes. We have a lot of really smart readers.
So Gravity ends the night with seven win, but nearly all of them came from the technical categories. 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyers Club both earned three wins, but I would give the edge to 12 Years a Slave as far as which film won the more prestigious awards.
12 Years a Slave closes the night by winning the Best Picture Oscar. It didn't win the most awards, but it won the biggest prize of the night.
Matthew McConaughey won Best Lead Actor for Dallas Buyers Club. Again this is not a surprise, as 88% of our readers correctly predicted this result, but I was cheering for someone else.
Cate Blanchett wins a Best Lead Actress Oscar for her performance in Blue Jasmine, continuing the trend of predictability. 88% of our readings saw this result coming.
Gravity grabbed its seventh win of the night, while Alfonso Cuaron earned his second Oscar of the night. This time he won for Best Director. Even if it loses out on Best Picture, the filmmakers will have a lot to celebrate.
Spike Jonze earned an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for his work on Her. This was actually a pretty close race as only 56% of our readers thought this would happen, while many experts were predicting American Hustle.
12 Years a Slave finally won its second Oscar of the night as John Ridley won for Best Adapted Screenplay. If it wins the final three categories it has a shot in, it won't have the most Oscar wins of the night, but it will be seen as the big winner nonetheless. That is a long shot, on the other hand.
Frozen won its second Oscar of the night, this time for Best Original Song. This is another result that an overwhelming number of our readers predicted.
Gravity wins yet again, this time for Best Score. This is the film's sixth win, which means it is safe to call it the big winner of the night.
The Great Gatsby earned its second Oscar win, this time for Production Design. This was predicted by the majority of our readers, but at 69% positive, it was one of the closer categories.
Gravity takes home the Oscar for Best Editing, which is actually the closest thing to a surprise as we've seen in a while, as only 69% of our readers predicted this outcome.
Gravity wins again, this time for Best Cinematography. Our readers picked it to win 97% of the time, which is the most lop-sided result in our Oscar contest. Gravity now has four Oscars, which is more than any other film is expected to win in total. On the other hand, it has yet to win any of the more prestigious categories.
Lupita Nyong'o won Best Supporting Actress for her performance in 12 Years a Slave. This is the film's first Oscar of the night, but it likely won't be the last. Let's hope it is also not the last time Lupita Nyong'o is nominated for an Oscar.
Gravity won the Oscar for Best Sound Editing, which I still don't know what exactly that means. The film has now taken the lead for total Oscars, after briefly being in a tie.
Gravity won the Oscar for Best Sound Mixing, which might be for creating sound effect or it might be for placing sound effects within the surround sound track. I can never remember. What I do know is that Gravity is tied for the lead in terms of total Oscars and is on track to be the big winner of the night. (Although if it doesn't win Best Picture, it will be a disputed victory.)
The Great Beauty won for Best Foreign Language Film, something 74% of our readers predicted. This is Italy's eleventh win in this category, which leads the way.
20 Feet from Stardom beat The Act of Killing for Best Feature-Length Documentary. This is somewhat of an upset, as The Act of Killing had the most votes. However, it didn't have a majority, so it is not a big upset.
Our readers and I got one of the three short film categories right, as The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life won Best Documentary Short.
We have the second upset of the night as Helium beat The Voorman Problem for Best Live Action Short. Again, the three short film categories are the hardest to predict, so this is not a surprise that neither my readers nor I got it right. This is also only one of two categories were no nominee earned at least a majority of the votes.
In another unsurprising result, Gravity won for Best Visual Effects. This is a result 93% of our readers predicted.
We went from the first upset of the night to one of the least competitive categories. Frozen won for Best Animated Feature.
We have our first upset, as Mr. Hublot tops Get a Horse! for Best Animated Short. The three short film categories are notoriously hard to predict, so this is not a surprise that our readers and I got it wrong.
Oscar-bait beat low-brow humor as Dallas Buyers Club topped Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa for Best Hair and Makeup.
The Great Gatsby won for Best Costume Design, which was actually one of the more competitive categories as only 68% of a readers predicted it would win. I do understand the many thought American Hustle deserved the win more, because getting a time period accurate is harder than going all crazy with style.
The first award goes to Dallas Buyers Club and Jared Leto for Best Supporting Actor. I really doubt many people are surprised by that. Since it isn't a surprise, there's not much that needs to be said.

Here are some other stats going into the evening...

Contestants in our Predict the Academy Awards Contest are predicting a Best Picture win for 12 Years a Slave at tonight's ceremony, but a field-leading seven Oscar winners (mostly in technical categories) for Gravity. The biggest favorite in practically any category, though, is Frozen, which scores a remarkable 96% as favorite for Best Animated Feature.

The hottest favorite in any category is Emmanuel Lubezki, who received a massive 97% of the votes for Best Cinematography. Perhaps surprisingly, that's more than Gravity gets for Visual Effects, although it still scores a huge 93% in that category. Overall, Gravity leads the field with seven predicted wins.

Dallas Buyers Club and 12 Years a Slave are equal second with three predicted wins each. Other films with multiple predicted wins are The Great Gatsby and Frozen, with two each. The categories and nominees are...

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