I’ve thought it over and I respect all the “down to the sea in ships” Oscar handicappers (13 on Gold Derby) who are still predicting a Boyhood Best Picture win. I get it. I’ve been there a few times myself. The old Masada impulse. Better to go down with your pony than to suck it in and say “okay, the other movie will win,” as Sasha Stone did yesterday. Sugar: “Water polo…isn’t that terribly dangerous?” Junior: “I’ll say. I had two ponies drowned under me.”

Love this Sasha Stone paragraph: “Every single time anyone has asked me to predict I put Boyhood on the top, and Birdman usually second. I do not think I would be a useful predictor if I scrambled around now at the last minute and shifted Birdman to the top spot. Why would that be meaningful in any way? Even someone like Scott Feinberg, who prides himself on being a good predictor [and] had every other movie imaginable on top, from Interstellar to Boyhood at one point but no Birdman. If he now shifts his prediction to Birdman, as he has done, that doesn’t tell you anything much either. That’s sort of like seeing that it’s raining outside and declaring, it’s raining. So I don’t want to change my prediction now, that’s one reason.”

In other words, Stone has called out Feinberg for bending to reality. “Where’s your backbone, Feinberg?,” she’s basically saying.

Stone again: “Boyhood is the better film and I’m hanging on to that tiny reed of hope that the Academy realizes what the rest of the industry could not. It’s a slim chance and a long shot bet but there are enough people predicting Birdman, and I would never advise anyone playing in a contest or in an office pool to hang their hopes on such a slim possibility but hey, after 16 years of this nonsense I have to get my kicks somehow.”

Pete Hammond speaking yesterday to Tom O’Neil: “I’m looking at all the tea leaves here and the all the guilds are sending signals for Birdman…you can’t get away from that. You can’t deny the significance of the PGA , which has been right for the last seven years in a row, and the DGA. But BAFTA, which has been right for the last six years, is really troubling me…I just can’t wrap my head around that they almost completely shut out [Birdman]. The other thing is the lack of an editing nomination…we haven’t had a Best Picture winner not nominated for editing since Ordinary People.”