This post has been moved back to The Smarmy Carny, Novac's general blog.

This post discusses Oscars contests for the Academy Awards that took place on Sunday, March 5, 2006. For the most recent Oscars posts, be sure to check out the Oscars/Academy Awards category page. There, you should find contests, predictions, and results.

Oscar's no grouch

Here is my annual list of Oscars prediction contests. For those of you who enjoy predicting the winners each year (and also for those of you who hate it, but predict it anyway), here's a way to take up an hour or two and possibly win some cool swag if you're lucky. Enter away, and good luck!

I included some hints and suggestions at the end of this post. Also, I have some guidelines that determine which contests are displayed and which are not. Contests must be:

1. Skill-based. You pick the winners. No "enter your name and cross your fingers" lottery-style games here. If you've got knowledge and skill, get them all right. Then, you'll have a better chance.
2. English only. Sorry, no hablo francais.
3. National. No regional contest prizes. Most people reading this won't care about winning a dinner for two in Vancouver. If regional prizes are open to people in any location with non-regional prizes, they will be included. If there is a regional prize included but the grand prize also includes a generic prize, I will probably include the contest.
4. Open to Americans. Americans must be eligible to enter. If you are under 18 (and maybe even if you're under 21), you'll want to double-check the rules to see if you're eligible.
5. Free. Must be free. Registration might be a requirement, but
6. Up to you. I will do my best to skim rules and regulations to confirm what I've mentioned above. No promises that I didn’t miss something. It’s up to you to read the rules yourself. I'm not responsible. I am also not responsible for any spam you might receive as a result of entering these contests. The guidelines above do not check for privacy or anything of the sort. I myself have created a special e-mail just for contests to catch all the spam (and congratulatory winners' e-mails, of course).

Listings will be of the following format:

• Site name (links directly to contest page) — Description or details, if necessary.
  Grand Prize(s) offered. You can read the details for any lesser prizes.

And now, without (even further) ado . . .

The Contests:

Confirmed Contests:

I have entered these and confirmed that they abide by my guidelines above. Unless noted, you can enter these until at least midnight (or 11:59PM) before the Oscars ceremony. Some will let you enter right up until the ceremony begins.

• Oscars.com & Entertainment Weekly — ABC.com membership required
  Prize: All-expense paid weekend in Hollywood to watch your favorite stars arrive at the 79th Academy Awards in 2007
• CNN.com
  Prize: Home Theater System including a 32" LCD HDTV
• Minnesota Post-Bulletin
  Deadline: Thursday, March 2, 2006, 12:00 Midnight CST
  Prize: $100
• Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com
  Deadline: Friday, March 3, 2006, 12:00 Noon. Time zone unknown.
  Prize: $50 in movie tickets; $50 gift certificate to the Lexington restaurant Oscars
• CentreDaily.com
  Deadline: Friday, March 3, 2006, 5:00 PM. Time zone unknown.
  Prize: Movie theater gift certificate
• Louisville Courier-Journal
  Deadline: Friday, March 3, 2006, 5:00 PM. Time zone unknown.
  Prize: $200 plus an official Oscar program and 78th annual Academy Awards poster
• oregonlive.com
  Deadline: Friday, March 3, 2006, 8:59 PM PST
  Prize: 40 Regal Cinema Movie Passes
• WoKJ's Ultimate Oscar Contest
  Deadline: Saturday, March 4, 2006, 12:00 Noon EST
  Prize: DVDS of 72 of the 77 Best Picture Oscar winners.
• Scuba.com
  Deadline: Saturday, March 4, 2006, 12:00 Noon PST
  Prize: $100 gift certificate for scuba.com
• Fort Worth Public Library — Enter once per day!
  Prize: Million Dollar Baby DVD; Two (2) free passes to AMC Theatres; 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola Classic; A box of Orville Redenbacher's Microwave Gourmet Popping Corn
• Movieline's Hollywood Life
  Prize: JVC TH-C5 Digital Theater System; over a dozen Oscar-nominated films
• FilmGuru.Net
  Prize: $25 gift certificate to the FilmGuru.Net store; FilmGuru.Net t-shirt
• the-numbers.com
  Prize: Three Best Picture winners of your choice on DVD or video
• n:zone Movies
  Prize: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on DVD; Corpse Bride on DVD; Mrs. & Mrs. Smith on DVD; Robots on DVD; Harry Potter t-shirt; Harry Potter hat; North Country hat; North Country t-shirt; North Country thermal shirt
• Box Office Mojo (Registration required, but not only do you get to predict who you think will win, you get to also vote for who you think should win!)
  Prize: Last year, it was a one-year Premier Pass on Box Office Mojo. As I cannot find official rules this year (yet), I am not sure that it's the same prize, or even if there is a prize at all.
• The Daily Camera
  Prize: $500 Gift Certificate from McGuckin Hardware
• AroundCinci
  Prize: 17" SpongeBob SquarePants TV/DVD; Premium items from your favorite movies
• TV Oracle
  Prize: $25 gift certificate to Best Buy
• web-goddess
  Prize: one-of-a-kind, never-before-produced gay sock monkey cowboys with hats, boots, and lots of love.
• OscarWatch
  Prize: Unknown (possibly none)
• DE Concierge
  Deadline: Friday, March 3, 2006, 12:00 Noon. Time zone unknown.
  Prize: Three Oscar winning films on DVD; a relaxing massage at the day spa of your choice; dinner for two at the hot restaurant of your choice; six AMC Gold movie tickets
• Raven's Cry Theatre
  Prize: Unknown. Possibly movie passes
• Practicalmadness — This one's a bit different. Read carefully. Registration required but only uses Name/e-mail/password.
  Prize: TBA
• The Augusta Chronicle
  Deadline: Friday, March 3, 2006, 5:00 PM. Time zone unknown.
  Prize: an entertainment prize pack featuring a selection of CDs, DVDs and other surprises
• Drew's "Predict The Oscars…Poorly" Contest — With Drew's contest, be sure to pick losers for every category.
  Prize: Fifty movie goodies (posters, promos, keychains, magnets, hats, postcards, buttons, soundtracks, bumper stickers, bookmarks, yadda yadda)
• Norwich Bulletin — No online form. You must e-mail your picks. (See page for further details.)
  Deadline: Monday, February 27, 2006, 3:00 PM. Time zone unknown.
  Prize: $50
• Lansing State Journal
  Deadline: Monday, February 27, 2006, 5:00 PM. Time zone unknown.
  Prize: $100 (You may have to travel to Lansing to pick the prize up within 60 days.)
• The News Tribune — Enter once per day! Registration required.
  Deadline: Wednesday, March 1, 2006, 5:00 PM. Time zone unknown.
  Prize: Take nine of your closest friends to the movies

Tiebreakers:

Here are the tiebreaker and/or nontraditional questions you will encounter in some of these contests:

• Which film will win the most awards?
• How many awards will the most decorated film win?
• How many awards will Brokeback Mountain win on Oscar night?
• Who will win the Best Live Action Short Film award?
• Who will win the Best Song award?
• Who will design Reese Witherspoon's dress?
• Pick a number between 1 and 100.
• Choose A Number between 1 and 1,000.
• How many films did my mom see in the theater in the calendar year 2005?
• How long will the Oscar ceremony last?
• How many dead people will be featured in the annual Hollywood obituary tribute reel?

Before you start entering, be sure you already know what has been nominated in which categories! Print the official Oscars printable ballot or the Yahoo's printable Oscars ballot and make your picks first. Based on years of contest entry experience, I guarantee that this will make your life easier. You might also want to decide on your tiebreaker answers ahead of time, too. See the end of this post for the current list. Also, it's up to you, but I suggest entering the same picks in every contest you enter. First, this makes it much, much easier to keep track of how well you do in the contests. Second, you might think that "If I enter in multiple contests and try various selections, I'm more likely to win something," but the problem is that, even if you get all the selections correct, you're (usually) still in a drawing among all the other winners. If you nail the picks, then you've got a dozen or so chances to win. If you only get the correct picks in one or two different contests, you might not win anything at all.

Feel free to bookmark the Academy Awards page. There, you will find this information, as well as predictions and results.

I'm embarassed to say that I haven't seen any of the Oscar-nominated films in any of the major categories this year. Such is life with two small children and few babysitters.

The most major category that I have seen a nominated film in is for original screenplay: Match Point. If it hadn't been Woody Allen, I wouldn't have seen that, either.

The other categories in which I have seen films? Art direction, costume design, makeup, sound editing, sound mixing, and visual effects. I have seen every movie in the visual effects category, and two of the three were a couple of my least favorite movies of 2005.

King Kong was simply unbearable. If I find out that one of my friends is going to rent King Kong, I'm going to schedule a dentist appointment instead. Horrendous. And then there's War of the Worlds . . . popcorn movie from start to finish. This is a great movie for radio and also for movie special effects teams, but it just doesn't make for an exciting movie.

The nominated movies I have seen are Match Point, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, King Kong, War of the Worlds, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Star Wars: Episode III. I know, I know . . . not the highest quality selection of 2005, but when half your movies are intended for children under 8, what are you to do? Still, I was quite pleased with Charlie and the Chocoalte Factory and The Chronicles of Narnia. Match Point was good, except that we've already seen this Woody Allen story as just a portion of the superior Crimes and Misdemeanors. Star Wars III was my favorite SW prequel. Harry Potter, King Kong, and Tom Cruise can all just go away.

This post was originally posted at The Smarmy Carny, Novac's general blog.