So, did we mention these predictions were for the Oscars on Earth 2?
Here on regular ol' Earth, we went 10 for 24, which is great in baseball, and embarrassing in the prognosticating biz.
Where'd we go wrong?
For starters, we operated under the premise that Academy members would succumb to sweep-voting habits of old, and check just about every box for The King's Speech. But they didn't: They thought Inception looked cool; they voted it Cinematography. In the end, Inception ended up with as many awards as The King's Speech—take that, King George.
(Being typically reactionary media sorts, we hereby declare that sweep voting is dead forever, ever and ever—until the next time it happens, and then we'll tell you it's back.)
Our other problem is that we refused to believe that certain things could happen: namely, that The Wolfman would join the ranks of storied Oscar winners; and that Randy Newman, who almost never wins, would win for a song that, for him, was kinda lame.
Well, good for The Wolfman, and good for voting integrity—it would have been unfair to punish the makeup team's work just because the movie on the whole wasn't a horror classic.
As for Newman? Whatever. The wonderful composer has lost for so many good scores and songs (The Natural, Ragtime, the songs from the first two Toy Story movies, etc.) that karma probably dictates he win for the lesser ones. Backstage, Newman himself seemed to agree with the sentiment, saying, "This isn't the most consequential thing I've done for a movie."
See? We can't all be perfect. Although, yeah, some people come a whole lot closer than us.
P.S.: Almost forgot to note that we were indeed foolish not to select Colin Firth for Best Actor and Geoffrey Rush for Best Supporting Actor. That's what we get for trying to will a better story—and a night of unexpected results—out of the Oscars.