Another exciting race this year. At the end of the first hour, Emily and Brent were in the lead with five correct picks each. Fifteen minutes later, Anna had pulled into the lead all by herself. But fifteen minutes after that, it was a five-way tie, with Donna, Gary, Marsha and Erika catching up with Anna. One category later it was a three-way tie between Donna, Gary, and Marsha. And a few minutes later it was Marsha all alone.

Then Donna went into the lead, and she stayed in the lead for the next two hours, followed by Gary and John. With only three categories to go, Gary tied with Donna and suddenly the race hinged on Best Director as we had both chosen "Gladiator" for Best Picture so winning or losing there would not affect the count.

But we both missed the Director pick. Gary went with Ang Lee, Donna with Steven Soderbergh and "Erin Brockovich" -- and the winner was Soderbergh for directing "Traffic." And so it came down -- again this year! -- to the tiebreakers. Tiebreaker #1 we both missed by an equal amount, but Tiebreaker #2 Gary hit on the nose.

After all those weeks of thinking about the choices and calculating the odds, it came down to a lucky guess. So in light of the fact that Donna actually made more correct picks than me (if you count that she got the right director, just the wrong picture), I hereby declare I will share the trophy with her this coming year, six months on and six months off.

The Irving G. Thalberg Award (picking the most winners from the top six categories) was a four-way tie: Grandma, Gary, Donna and Marsha. Nobody (I mean, nobody) picked Best Supporting Actress -- big upset! But other than that, there were no upset or landslide winners. The three big films split the awards between themselves: "Gladiator" with five, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Traffic" with four each. And the top six awards (Picture, Actor/Actress, Supporting Actor/Actress, and Director) were split between five different films, which is unusual.

In our Under 17 category, congratulations to: Samantha! with 9 correct picks.

Thanks to everybody who played along this year. See you next year!

(Number of correct picks out of 23 categories)
13   Gary
13   Donna
12   John
11   Marsha
10   Amanda
 9   Lori
 9   Samantha
 9   Grandma
 9   Zachary
 8   Anna
 8   Erika
 8   Ryan
 7   Karen
 6   Emily
 6   Paul
 5   Brent
 5   Lindsey
 5   Olivia
 5   Tristen

59%     Gary
56%     John
54%     Donna
49%     Grandma
48%     Marsha
47%     Amanda
45%     Zachary
42%     Lori
41%     Paul
36%     Ryan
33%     Karen
32%     Samantha
30%     Lindsey
28%     Erika
26%     Anna
25%     Emily
22%     Brent
22%     Olivia
20%     Tristen