Nate Silver moves on to the Oscars

Yes, the sage who predicts baseball players stats and elections, has moved on to the Oscars, again using statistical analysis to predict the winners:

Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger...........................85.8%
Josh Brolin.................................5.0%
Philip Seymour Hoffman........4.4%
Michael Shannon......................3.6%
Robert Downey Jr. .....................1.2%

Last year, Javier Bardem’s sadistic killer in No Country for Old Men swept all the awards. This year, it’s The Dark Knight’s Heath Ledger. Usually we’d need to account for a small chance of an upset; the Academy does lean toward the lighthearted in this category (think Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine). But given Ledger’s untimely death, he’s a lock.

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(Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

Supporting Actress
Taraji P. Henson.......................51.0%
Penélope Cruz..........................24.6%
Viola Davis................................11.6%
Amy Adams...............................11.6%
Marisa Tomei.............................1.2%

Most of the major awards in the Supporting Actress category have been won by Kate Winslet for The Reader—a role the Academy misguidedly considers a lead. That’s nice for Winslet, not so nice for our computer. Penélope Cruz, who won the BAFTA for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, would seem the logical default. But computer sez: Benjamin Button’s Taraji P. Henson! Button, which looks like a shutout everywhere else, is the only Best Picture nominee with a Supporting Actress nod, and Best Pic nominees tend to have an edge in the other categories.

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(Photo: Niko Tavernise/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight)

Lead Actor
Mickey Rourke.........................71.1%
Sean Penn.................................19.0%
Brad Pitt.....................................5.9%
Frank Langella..........................3.4%
Richard Jenkins........................0.5%

Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke have split the two awards that traditionally predict success in this category, with Penn winning Screen Actors Guild and Rourke the Golden Globe. But Rourke has an additional advantage: If an actor, like Penn, has been nominated several times without nabbing a statue, his odds of winning increase. Once he does win, odds go way down. Penn won Best Actor five years ago for Mystic River.

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(Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon/Courtesy of the Weinstein Company)

Lead Actress
Kate Winslet.............................67.6%
Meryl Streep.............................32.4%
Anne Hathaway........................0.0%
Melissa Leo................................0.0%
Angelina Jolie ...........................0.0%

While Streep has won both the sag Award and the Critics’ Choice for Doubt, Winslet has amassed even more hardware for The Reader (albeit as Supporting Actress—Silver resolved this dilemma by giving Winslet half-credit for awards she won as a Supporting Actress). Equally important: Winslet is due. She’s sitting on her sixth nod without a win, while Streep has won both Best Actress (Sophie’s Choice) and Best Supporting Actress (Kramer vs. Kramer). One thing’s for sure: Anne Hathaway’s going home empty-handed.

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(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

Best Director
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire.................................99.7%
Gus Van Sant, Milk...................0.1%
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button..................0.1%
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon......0.0%
Stephen Daldry, The Reader..0.0%

When the Academy wants to rebel, it does so with Best Director—this is where “edgy” films are rewarded when it can’t muster the courage to do so for Best Picture (Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain, Steven Soderbergh for Traffic). That means Danny Boyle—who has won all the top awards for Slumdog Millionaire—is a shoo-in.

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(Photo: Ishika Mohan/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight)

Best Picture
Slumdog Millionaire..............99.0%
Milk................................................1.0%

Frost/Nixon...................................0.0%
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.......................0.0%
The Reader..................................0.0%

Slumdog Millionaire won all three awards associated with Oscar success: the Directors Guild Award, the Golden Globe, and the BAFTA. It’s also a serious film, which the Academy favors. If there’s an upset (which would be a shocker), it will be Milk; guilt over Prop 8 and the Brokeback snub of ’06 could split the vote, with Boyle getting Director and Milk getting Picture.

Breakout Stars of 2008

I'm probably not posting a lot today on account of it being New Years Eve and all, but here's one think that's worth a look: it's the Breakout Stars of 2008 on Daily Beast. Two of my favorites-- David Plouffe and Nate Silver-- made the list.

Nate Silver grills John Zieglar for some hilarious results

Even though the election is over, fivethirtyeight.com is still going strong, giving constant updates on the senate races and opinions about Obama's cabinet positions. The other day they had an interview with John Zieglar, a right-winger who Nate Silver claims push-polled many voters about Obama. The results are hilarious. Zieglar completely loses it and starts insulting Silver.

Anyway, here are some snippets of the interview:

NS: Were the interviews conducted by telephone or online?
JZ: How can you ask a question like that and pretend that you have any clue what you're writing about! That's unbelievable that someone could write what you did! That is unbelievable that you wouldn't know that it's a telephone or an online poll and that you went on my summaries of the questions before the questions were even released!

NS: We’ve heard reports from our readers that very similar questions had been asked in an online format. There was no online component at all?
JZ: That is correct, which you would have known if you had looked at the information. Before you called this a push poll -- you don't seem to know the definition of a push poll. How do you have this website?


NS: What do you mean by "launched his career"?
JZ: The first campaign as told by the person whose position he took in the State Senate, as told by her admission, his first campaign event was in the home of Bill Ayers and his wife. [Laughs] Unless you live in the Obama kool-aid world! That is astonishing to me that you would not accept that! And by the way, when you're given four responses to that question, what else was the response going to be? Sarah Palin?

NS: Well, her husband was a member of a secessionist party.
JZ: You are such a hack! That's a very good analogy.

NS: Would you consider yourself well-informed
JZ: I’d consider myself extremely well-informed.

NS: Who are the two senators from South Dakota
JZ: Thune and, uh, Johnson.

NS: Very good. South Carolina?
JZ: Go fuck yourself. I'm done with this interview if you're going to ask me stupid questions like that. Obviously I know who Lindsay Graham is.

NS: Well, since you’re running a website calling people misinformed, I’d like to see if -- there are certain things you’ve said that I would consider misinformed.
JZ: Misinformed? You're a piece of work! You are never going to have the guts to post a representative transcript on your website! I thought you actually ran a legitimate website!

NS: Thank you, have a good day.
JZ: Go fuck yourself.

Five Thirty Eight kicks ass

The big winner of this election cycle: Nate Silver. His website, fivethirtyeight.com, kicked the crap out of the mainstream media and every polling firm, consistently predicting the primaries and presidential election with uncanny accuracy.

Just take a look at the final election results compared to what he predicted:

"Right now, Barack Obama has 63.7 million popular votes to John McCain's 56.3 million, whereas third party candidates have roughly a collective 1.6 million. That works out to 52.4 percent of the vote for Obama and 46.3 percent for McCain ... conspicuously close to our pre-election estimates of 52.3 percent for Obama and 46.2 percent for McCain."

So Nate Silver missed the popular vote prediction by 1/10 of a percentage point. Truly amazing work, Mr. Silver.