A few days ago, we took a look at how Lycos users felt about the Grammy nominations. Today, it's time to take a look at Tuesday's Oscar nominations.
Like last year, we're going to go out on a limb and predict the winners of this year's Oscars based solely on their web popularity. We got four out of five correct last year, missing only best supporting actor.
Feel free to use our predictions as guidance when you play Movie Crystal Ball at Lycos Gamesville. You have a chance to predict the Oscar winners and win $2,500.
Here are the rankings of this year's nominees based on your search queries last week. Predicted winners are listed in bold:
BEST ACTRESS
87.7% Julia Roberts
10.1% Juliette Binoche
1.0% Laura Linney
0.7% Ellen Burstyn
0.4% Joan Allen
Lycos users clearly prefer Julia Roberts, and conventional wisdom in Hollywood says that the Academy voters likely feel the same way about her performance in Erin Brockovich. She's assumed to be a shoo-in.
BEST ACTOR
71.2% Russell Crowe
21.2% Tom Hanks
3.9% Geoffrey Rush
2.5% Ed Harris
1.3% Javier Bardem
Last year Lycos users, like the academy, chose Kevin Spacey over Crowe, who was nominated for The Insider. This year, Hanks is his only real competition, but it seems to be Crowe's turn, thanks to his performance in Gladiator. He's the only actor of the twenty nominated for these four awards to spend time on the Lycos 50, back in May and June. Julia Roberts, despite consistently being among the top ten actresses, has never made it to the big list.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
84.4% Kate Hudson
13.5% Judi Dench
1.7% Julie Walters
0.2% Frances McDormand
0.2% Marcia Gay Harden
This is the one award where Lycos users' choice goes entirely against conventional wisdom. There are two reasons for this: first, Kate Hudson is searched far more than these other actresses thanks to her youth and beauty, not necessarily her performance. Second, while her performance was great, Hudson and Frances McDormand will probably cancel each other out because both are nominated for the same film, Almost Famous. Then again, if Hudson wins the award, remember that you heard it from the Lycos users first.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
69.0% Benicio Del Toro
25.0% Joaquin Phoenix
4.4% Willem Defoe
1.3% Jeff Bridges
0.4% Albert Finney
Benicio Del Toro is likely the breakout star of this year's Oscars, much like Angelina Jolie and Hillary Swank last year. Since the first week of December, his searches have multiplied by a factor of ten thanks to his appearances in a number of year-end films, including Snatch, The Pledge, and Traffic. Del Toro is nominated for a performance almost entirely in Spanish, but he is an American actor. You might remember him from The Usual Suspects. His search rise seems to indicate he is on his way to stardom.
BEST PICTURE
44.0% Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
27.9% Gladiator
15.2% Traffic
8.7% Chocolat
4.0% Erin Brockovich
Surprise, surprise. Lycos users choose Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as their top film over the 12-times-nominated Gladiator. As far as we know, this would make it the first foreign-language film ever to win Best Picture. Then again, Gladiator was on the Lycos 50 for six weeks this summer, while Crouching Tiger never quite made it. It's going to be quite a race between these two epics, and a race that will likely leave Steven Soderbergh (director of both Erin Brockovich and Traffic) out of luck.
The awards ceremony (just a formality, now that we know the winners) takes place on March 26. Just for fun, we'll check in again the day before the ceremony to see if your predictions have changed.
TOMORROW: Which celebrities do Lycos users want to see pictures of the most?
