Last year, we here at the Screengrab poked fun of movie blogger/L.A. Times columnist Scott Feinberg, because he had the temerity to predict how the 2009 Oscars were going to go, before the potato salad from the 2008 Oscars had cooled. Why did we make fun of this respectable gentleman of the press? Because we are jerks.
As it happens, though, the joke is on us, because while the Academy Award nominations haven't been officially announced yet, Feinberg's predictions have been in line with the movies that are predicted to get the nods from AMPAS. Making his predictions before any of these movies had even been completed, Feinberg managed to single out Che, Australia, The Changeling, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Defiance, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, The Soloist, and Synechdoche, New York as contenders for Oscar gold -- which they in fact turned out to be. His only dud predictions were Blindness, Body of Lies, Appaloosa, and Seven Pounds (and The Time Traveler's Wife and Young Victoria, but to be fair, neither of those movies have been released yet).
When Feinberg made his predictions, he caught a lot of flak, not only from us, but even from commenters at his blog. Even Feinberg himself said "all of this will probably look very funny when we get to that point many months from now". Well, it's eleven months later, and nobody's laughing. How'd you like to come to the track with us, Scott?