Annekenstein Monster Oscar Pool Results

The accounting firm of Wyse-Porterhouse has finished tabulating The Annekenstein Monster Oscar Pool results.

Before I get to them, though, a few random thoughts on last night's Oscar telecast:

- I wasn't too impressed with Ellen. Her opening monologue was pretty weak, I thought. And when she got that tambourine and the choir came out, and she paraded with them around for a bit, then it was over... well, I didn't think much of that. Pretty lame. A few of her things were okay - I enjoyed giving the script to Scorsese, and getting Spielberg to take her picture with Eastwood. And the vacuum thing was okay. But overall, a somewhat weak hosting job, I thought.

-I enjoyed that opening bit where many of the hopefuls, known and unknown, very casually remarked to to the camera on various topics. I thought it did a wonderful job of humanizing all the names of the nominees, and reminding us that the people we don't "know" (the sound editors, costume designers, etc) are just as human as the ones we do "know" (actors, directors,etc). Very nice.

-I wanted to enjoy the Will Farrell/Jack Black/John C Reilly thing more than I did. It started off pretty good, but fell apart.

-The dance troupe that formed silhouettes behind the bedsheet was interesting at first. Then as the evening wore on, became merely a time-nuisance.

-I laughed a lot at the Gore joke where he was just about to announce his candidacy for POTUS when he got interrupted by the "speech time is up" orchestra. It surprised me how much I laughed at that.

-I'm tired of seeing Jack Nicholson at the Oscars.

-I wasn't too disappointed with any of the winners. I was surprised that The Lives of Others beat Pan's Labyrinth for Foreign Language film. Not that it wasn't deserving, I just thought Pan's Labyrinth was a shoe-in. I was also surprised that Melissa Etheridge won Original Song. I didn't like the song. While I wasn't crazy about Dreamgirls as a movie, or the songs nominated for it, I thought one would have (should have) won. Guess they cancelled each other out?

-While I think he totally deserves an Oscar, I was kind of hoping Scorsese wouldn't win, so that we all would have that outrage to join us all in camaraderie.

- I thought the various film clip presentations were pretty meh. I did like the foreign film montage.

-I enjoyed it that Ennio Morricone spoke in Italian, and Eastwood had to sort of interpret. It seemed rather surreal. I hate whomever is responsible for putting words to that Morricone score, and getting Celine Dion to sing it.

-I thought Forest Whitaker made the best speech of the night. Even though I missed a bit of it because I was busy tabulating Pool scores.

Speaking of which:

There were 28 people who had entries qualified to win this year's pool.

The person who had the most correct guesses (15) was (just like every year, it seems) Matt Rainnie. However, both he and Dave Moses (who had 10 correct) submitted their entries too late. I had a Friday noon deadline, and received them on Saturday. So, both are disqualified. (let the controversy begin!!)

I ended up with 12 correct. I was 2 behind the winner (3 behind the eliminated not-winner) and the only one who had 12 correct. Many people had 10 correct. One person had 4 correct. That was the lowest score.

Four people had 13 correct.

One person had 14 correct. That person is the official winner of this year's The Annekenstein Monster Oscar Pool. That person's name (or nickname) is watsonly.

Watsonly wins!! Congratulations! You win two tickets to a Sketch22 performance of your choice this summer. We'll have to figure out a way to get you the tickets.