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It has been said that film critics show up on the battlefield after the battle is over so they can kick the wounded. If that's true, then Oscar bloggers show up just after the critics so that they can scavenge the bodies of the dead for pocket watches and other shiny objects. But it is when the Oscar nominations come out that the bodies come back to life and the bloggers have to run for their lives from the reanimated corpses of movies we had just been looting from and spitting on with glee. We have to cover our asses, pretending we know what just happened and why, as if, even if our predictions were totally wrong, we secretly knew what was going to happen the whole time.

Well, my predictions weren't totally wrong. Looking at my percentage of correct predictions I barely scrape by with a D- (60.17%, to be more exact) but hey, a D- is still a passing grade. Now the fun part is going back through all of the various predictions I made that failed miserably, seeing if I can learn from my mistakes so that maybe, just maybe, I can get that 60.17% up to a 61% next year.

Best Picture: (7/9)

I feel good about how I did in this category, considering that of the two films that I got wrong, one I never would have predicted in my right mind, and the other I wouldn't have predicted even if I had gone insane and started investing all of my money in the stock of a company that only makes zip disks and walkmen. There was clearly a lot of passionate support for The Tree of Life, as it's the kind of movie that if you love, you really, really love. Unlike The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or The Ides of March, this was a movie that was going to get a lot of number one votes. I suspected that Malick's film would be too divisive, but even if 95% of voters hated it, the 5% that put it first on their ballots was enough to get it in.

As for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, well, I wouldn't in a million years have predicted this film to make it in. If Academy President had come to me last night and told me that there would be nine nominees and that Extremely Loud would be one of them, I still would have been wrong because I don't trust that guy. This is another film that is divisive, but that people who get behind really love (count me in that group). This is a heartwarming, inspiring film, the kind that the Academy always loves. Also, clearly every Academy member is obsessed with Stephen Daldry, as the man has never made a film that was not nominated for Best Picture. This nomination serves as a nice reminder that as closely as anyone can follow the Academy, they can still be totally unpredictable.

Best Director: (4/5)

There was no fifth director that we knew would get a lot of support, and I'm guessing that there were a lot of votes split between Spielberg, Fincher, Bennett Miller, and even Tate Taylor. That meant that a smaller film with a lot of vehement support could slide in. It has happened before, to David Lynch, Pedro Almodovar, and Fernando Mereilles, and this year Terrence Malick got that support.

Best Actor: (3/5)

I'm not sure what to say about the two surprises, Demian Bichir and Gary Oldman. On the one hand, Bichir's nomination shows how important the SAG is as a precursor. But if that's true, why did Oldman get in instead of DiCaprio? Most likely a huge push from those wacky Brits got Oldman in, while there wasn't enough support for the poorly reviewed J. Edgar to get DiCaprio a nomination, making this only Eastwood's second film in the last decade to not get a single nomination. And what about Michael Fassbender? Most likely the ick factor was too much for some voters, who were put off by all the sex and nudity.

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