The 85th Academy Awards is finally over in what felt like one of the longest and most tedious affairs in recent memory. First time host Seth MacFarlane [SMACF] was game, but his jokes were hit-and-miss and the musical numbers just went on and on and on. The presenters’ banters were poorly written, while the musical numbers just went on and on and on, oh was that already mentioned. No matter how boring the Oscars were, we nevertheless stuck to the tube and watched as the winners were announced.
The end of the show was a foregone conclusion as the Best Picture went to Argo [A3PARG] as predicted by everyone, including HSX traders. Not getting nominated for Best Director may have been the best thing to happen to Argo and Ben Affleck, who picked up the Oscar as the film's Producer along with George Clooney and Grant Heslov (remember him from True Lies as the computer geek).
With Affleck not in the race, Best Director went to Ang Lee [A3DALE] for Life of Pi in a minor surprise. Steven Spielberg had been the presumed frontrunner for Lincoln, and was the choice of HSX traders. A late surge in trading momentum for Lee was not enough to overtake Spielberg.
Best Actor went to Daniel-Day Lewis [A3ADDL] for Lincoln in a category that was long pegged by HSX traders. Jennifer Lawrence [A3CLA] winning Best Actress for The Silver Linings Playbook was also correctly forecasted by HSX traders.
In the Best Supporting Actor category contested between five previous Oscar winners, Christoph Waltz [A3RCWA] in Django Unchained walked home with the statuette for the second time. HSX traders collectively selected Robert De Niro for The Silver Linings Playbook in a tight race. For Best Supporting Actress, the winner was Anne Hathaway [A3SAHA] for Les Miserables, which was rightly picked by HSX.
The Best Adapted Screenplay was won by Argo [A3EARG] and screenwriter Chris Terrio, as predicted by HSX. The Best Original Screenplay went to Django Unchained [A3ODJU] written by Quentin Tarantino, though HSX traders favored Zero Dark Thirty by a slim margin.
Tag(s): SMACF, A3PARG, A3DALE, A3ADDL, A3RCWA, A3SAHA, A3EARG, A3ODJU