The Maywar Method: How to Win Your Oscar Office Pool
The Maywar Method: How to Win Your Oscar Office Pool
Every year since 1988 our family has an Oscar Pool. It is only for the big five awards—Best Picture, Best Actor and Actress and Best Supporting Actor and Actress. I have been watching trends in how the Academy picks its winners from the pool of nominees. If you don’t have time to see most of the movies, and you aren’t tuned into the Academy like Roger Ebert, these two rules will take you pretty far.
Guideline #1. Go with the sweep. 45% accuracy.
If one picture has a majority of nominees in these five categories, pick them all. An overwhelming number of nominations is an indication that the academy loved this picture.
Note: this trend may be shifting—though it scores 45% since 1988, it only was accurate 20% of the time in the last 5 years.
Guideline #2. Go for the challenged. 88% accuracy.
If the movie is about the severely physically or emotionally challenged this overrides rules #1. If the lead actor is playing somebody who is challenged in some way either physically or emotionally (savantism, cerebral palsy, sociopathy, extremely low IQ, alcoholism, institutionalized nervous breakdown, obsessive compulsive disorder, blindness) this will usually over ride rule #1 for Best Actor.
The cynic might say that this is bleeding-heart Hollywood bowing down to liberal concerns, but the more generous observer might easily say that Hollywood recognizes the achievement of actors willing to play such challenging roles.
What if there are two qualifying Best Actor nominees?
If there are multiple challenged characters, go with the one that comes from the movie with the most nominations in the top 5 categories.
- The cerebral palsy of My Left Foot (3 nominations) beat out the paralysis of Born on the Fourth of July (two nominations) in 1989.
- The sociopathy of The Silence of the Lambs (3 nominations) beat the delusions of The Fisher King (2 nominations) in 1991.
- The debilitating nervous breakdown of Shine (3 nominations) beat the low IQ of Sling Blade (1 nomination) in 1996.
Here’s the evidence
10 for 22—Go with the sweep.
The times rule #1 was accurate
- Driving Miss Daisy took 2 of 4 categories in 1989. One of the other losses, to Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot, is covered by Rule #2.
- Goodfellas and Dances with Wolves landed 3 nominations each in 1990 and, between them, took 2 of 4 categories in which they got nominations.
- The Unforgiven, The Crying Game and Howard’s End each got 3 nominations in 1992. The Unforgiven took 2 of those 3, losing the third to Al Pacino in Scent of a Women, explained by Rule #2.
- The English Patient got 4 nominations in 1996, took 2 and lost a third to rule #2.
- Good Will Hunting and As Good as it Gets each landed 4 nominations in 1997 and, between them, took 3 of 4 of the categories.
- Shakespeare in Love landed 4 nominations in 1998 and took 3 of them.
- American Beauty and The Sixth Sense took 3 nominations each in 1999 and American Beauty landed 2 of them.
- Gladiator, Eric Brockovich and Chocolat were nominated 3 times each in 2000. Gladiator took 2 of its 3 and Erin Brockovitch took 1.
- Mystic River was nominated 4 times in 2003 and took 2 of them.
- Million Dollar Baby and Aviator was nominated 4 times each in 2004. Million Dollar Baby took 3 of the 4 and the one it missed is covered by Rule #2.
- Michael Clayton in 2007 was nominated for 4 awards in 2007. It took 1 and was overridden by rule #2 in another.
The times rule #1 failed
- Working Girl failed to do this in 1988, winning 0 for its four nominations in three categories. Only one of these losses was accounted for by Rule #2.
- Bugsy in 1991 was nominated four times in three categories and landed 0
- In the Name of the Father was nominated 4 times and took 0 in 1993.
- Pulp Fiction in 1994 was nominated 4 times and landed 0.
- Apollo 13 and Sense and Sensibility had 3 nominations each in 1995 and got a total of 0 between them.
- In the Bedroom had 4 nominations in 2001 and landed 0 of them.
- Chicago had 5 nominations in 4 categories in 2002 and only landed 1.
- Brokeback Mountain had 4 nominations in 2005 and landed 0 of them.
- Little Miss Sunshine and Babel were nominated 3 times each in 2006, but only took 1 Oscar between them.
- Doubt was nominated for 4 awards in 2008 and took 0.
- Up in the Air was nominated for 4 awards in 2009 and took 0.
8 for 9— Go for the challenged for Best Actor.
Savantism won in Rain Man, cerebral palsy in My Left Foot, sociopathy in The Silence of the Lambs, blindness in Scent of a Woman, low IQ in Forest Gump, alcoholism in Leaving Las Vegas, debilitating nervous breakdown in Shine, obsessive compulsion in As Good as it Gets, blindness in Ray, sociopathy in No Country for Old Men,
Exception
In 2001, I Am Sam was about a mentally retarded Sean Penn, which lost out to Denzel Washington in Training Day.
(This is for entertainment purposes only. Don’t sue me if it doesn’t work!) Copyright March 2010.
For exhaustive Oscar information, visit http://www.oscars.org/.
