Take The Oscar Challenge!

 

Once upon a time in 1999, two best friends (Beth Kinderman and Eric Olson) were discussing their shared love of movies and, specifically, the upcoming Academy Award nominations.  In the great tradition of trash-talking that has characterized their relationship, both of them began bragging about their knowledge of Good Movies and how well they were typically able to predict the outcome of the Oscars.  Deciding they needed to settle things once and for all, Beth and Eric agreed on a friendly wager to see just who knew their stuff better when it came to calling the Oscars.  Today, the contest still isn’t settled, but the Oscar Challenge has become an annual tradition anticipated by both participants.

 

The competition works like this.  On the day Oscar nominations are announced, Beth and Eric mail one another their lists of predicted winners in each category (and the predicted length of the Oscar telecast) as soon as they reach their final decisions.  On the night of the telecast, they keep score of who is right and who just plain sucks.  Correctly predicting the Best Picture winner is worth 5 points.  Correctly predicting any of the four acting categories or best director is good for 3 points apiece.  Everything else is worth 1 point.  An incorrect guess gets you a whole lot of nothin’.  In the event of a tie, Beth and Eric consult the tiebreaker question about the length of the telecast.  Whoever is closest wins it all.

 

What’s on the line is a pair of tickets to a movie of the winner’s choice, to be purchased by the loser.  The idea of throwing dinner into the deal has been kicked around for some time now, but to be honest both combatants are far too wussy about making bets to risk that much money.  Still, considering Beth and Eric’s frequent differences of opinion when it comes to film, being forced to buy tickets to something the loser detests can make the need to win much more urgent (and make things far more satisfying for the winner!).  Plus, the loser will be publicly humiliated (and the winner glorified) on this website by having their selections aired out for all to see.

 

So without further ado, here are the results of the main event for 2001:

 

 

The final standings show Beth victorious by an astonishing score of 18 to 9, leaving her with a free movie ticket which she put to good use over Memorial Day weekend of 2001.  After last year’s “Dinosaur” fiasco, Beth didn’t really feel like gambling her hard-won tickets on the unproven “Spy Kids,” so she did something safe and went in for a second viewing of the superlative “Shrek” (thereby assuring Eric would see this incredibly excellent movie, which he would have been unlikely to view on his own).

 

2000 Results: The first ever Oscar Challenge set the tone for bets to come, with Beth narrowly edging out Eric by a single point (won mainly by virtue of her choices of Hilary Swank and Angelina Jolie for acting awards).  Predictions were suprisingly similar this year, with “American Beauty” dominating both sets of choices and the awards ceremony itself.  With her hard-won tickets, Beth waffled between “Dinosaur” and “Gladiator” for a very long time (holding up the theatre line considerably while doing so) before finally settling on “Dinosaur.”  She later regretted it, as the movie was utterly terrible.  Still, a good time was had by all, and a tradition began...

 

 

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