I only got 63% of the Oscar winners right last Sunday. (In part because I was unable to absorb what I’d sensed about Meryl Streep winning Best Actress.) In any event I relate to others who are so swayed by their own determinations that their ability to gauge what the Academy is thinking is, shall we say, compromised. I feel kinship, in other words, with prognosticators like Anne Thompson, David Poland, Greg Ellwood, Mark Harris and Stu VanAirsdale, all of whom wound up with not-so-hot rankings among the Gurus of Gold Oscar-pickers.

Poland always refuses to post the final results of Gurus of Gold Oscar predictions, so once again here are the results with the number of correct calls (the total categories being 24) in parantheses:

1. Pete Hammond (19); 2. Kris Tapley (19); 3. Mark Olsen (18); 4. Sasha Stone (18); 5. Steve Pond (18); 6. Anthony Breznican (17); 7. Peter Howell (17); 8. Susan Wloszczyna (17); 9. “Safe Dave” Karger (17); 10. Anne Thompson (16); 11. David Poland (15); 12. Greg Ellwood (14); 13. Mark Harris (14); and 14. Stu VanAirsdale (14).