Readers peg
Academy Award winners
Get it right on 'Hurt Locker' as best picture
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Mar 8, 2010
Media planners and buyers usually do pretty well handicapping the Academy Awards, and this year they handily pegged the top winners again.
In a Media Life poll last week on the awards show, which aired last night on ABC, more readers than not picked “The Hurt Locker” the win, and indeed the movie won over “Avatar,” the top-grossing movie of all time and the movie many thought was a sure bet for the award.
Most readers also picked Jeff Bridges to win best actor "Crazy Heart" and Sandra Bullock to take best actress for "The Blind Side." Both won.
They also thought Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin would do a good but not spectacular job hosting the event, and they appear to have been right there too, by all accounts.
As for best picture, 49 percent of poll respondents chose "Locker" versus 33 percent for "Avatar." A distant third choice was "Up in the Air" at 6 percent.
In the best actor competition, Bridges was the clear favorite with 76 percent of respondents behind him, well ahead of George Clooney for "Up in the Air."
In the best actress category, many in Hollywood thought Meryl Streep should have gotten it for her role in “Julie and Julia” after years of being passed over, but 61 percent of readers picked Bullock to win and just 23 percent gave it to Streep.
As for the hosts, readers were asked whether Martin and Baldwin would blow it and turn the night into a disaster, click like castanets and wow the crowd, or do a respectable but not particularly stunning job.
That third choice was the clear winner among readers at 70 percent. They agreed with this statement: “They're two funny, quirky guys who will provide some laughs, commit some gaffes, and keep the evening rolling along.”
Just 10 percent of respondents though the two would turn the night into an embarrassment and only slightly more, 20 percent, thought they would do brilliantly.
Last year’s Oscar night drew an audience of 36.3 million, and most readers thought this year would do better, which it did, with 41.3 million viewers. Just 15 percent of respondents thought the show would do poorly or just so-so.
The largest share, 34 percent, put the audience at between 35.1 million to 39 million, while 21 percent accurately predicted it would come in at between 39.1 million to 42 million. And nearly as many, 20 percent, thought it would come in between 42.1 million to 45 million. Nearly 8 percent thought viewership would be between 45.1 million to 50 million, and 3 percent figured it would top 50 million.
One reason readers thought viewership would be up is because the annual gala in which Hollywood celebrates itself is escapist fun at a time when America needs to escape the woes of recession, unemployment and war.
Asked why awards shows in general have done so much better this year, 42 percent of readers agreed with this statement: "The escapist element. In a year of bad economic news, it's fun to forget about your problems and watch Hollywood glam it up."
But another factor, one that didn't exist just a few years ago, is the impact of social media. That got 19 percent of the vote. Those readers agreed with this statement: “These days people aren't just watching the event, they're experiencing it online with friends via Facebook, Twitter, chats and more.”
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