I am absolutely terrible at seeing movies in time for awards season. People are always saying, “Oh god, this movie was so good, you should go see it,” and I say, “Great! I will!” And then I just… don’t. It’s not that I don’t have time, and it’s certainly not that I don’t like movies. Yet every year, February rolls around, and I end up making completely random, uninformed guesses on my Oscar ballot. (I’m sure it will not shock you to learn that I have never won. An Oscar pool, that is. It will shock you even less to learn that I have not won an Oscar.)
This year, I’d only seen three of the nominees for best picture: The Help, Midnight in Paris, and Hugo. Here’s a list of the things I knew about the rest of the films before the Oscars and the supplemental information I learned during last night’s (pretty unhelpful) awards show.