Nate Silver takes another stab at forecasting the major Oscar winners. I have the feeling he could be as wrong about these as he was right in calling which states would vote for Obama. There simply isn't enough available data about how the actual voters are thinking. Noting that Tommy Lee Jones won the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Performance by a Supporting Actor might be an indicator of who's getting that Oscar if Jones won by a wide margin. But if he beat out Philip Seymour Hoffman by one vote — and we don't know that he did or didn't — then it's pretty feeble evidence of a winning trend. My sense from picking up on the "buzz" in Hollywood is that Robert DeNiro, ranked by Silver as the least likely, is going to win this Academy Award tomorrow night.
The "buzz" is also telling me Sally Field in the corresponding female category. Silver says, "If Sally Field or Amy Adams wins instead, it will probably be time for me to retire from the Oscar-forecasting business." Perhaps it is. Then again, critic Richard Roeper — who claims the best track record as a seer of such things — is saying Field is the unlikeliest winner.
The ones I think Mr. Silver will get right — Argo for Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor — are pretty easy calls. Almost every critic is saying that based mostly on "the buzz." If I had to bet on Best Director, I'd bet Ang Lee but would not be shocked by Spielberg. I'm not looking at any other awards when I say this; just hearing and reading what the Hollywood community is saying.
Silver was able to predict the vote for Obama because there were 100+ polls that showed not only how many people planned to vote for him but who they were and why they said what they said. Unlike politics, there is zero information as to what voters are thinking, why they're thinking that way…and even who they are. How many people voted for Alan Arkin last time he won? We don't know and there's no polling of the folks voting this year or any year…no info that Likely Hispanic Voters between the ages of 18 and 49 are trending towards Jennifer Lawrence. If Silver's right in categories like hers, it'll be good guesswork…but probably only guesswork.
You still have time to get in an Oscar Pool and if you do, don't think you're giving yourself an advantage to vote Silver's predictions. Your hunch is as good as his. Or mine. The only safe wager is that the morning after, there'll be a zillion messages on the 'net saying it was The Worst Oscar Show Ever. Because the morning after, there are always a zillion messages on the 'net saying it was The Worst Oscar Show Ever.