We've had bad hosts before, and we've had predictable awards, but rarely have we had such a potent combination of those two elements in the same broadcast. After an enjoyable opening montage of the nominated films and, for some reason, Back To The Future, James Franco and Anne Hatheway gave us what would qualify as a middling, tolerable SNL opening monologue (complete with audience participation) to set the mood for the evening. For what seems like the 5th time in a row, the theme of the evening was "The History of the Oscars". The first few awards were accompanied by scenes from a classic film projected against an uneven surface that made it difficult to quickly identify what was happening, after which point it seems the concept was abandoned. Bob Hope's disembodied head made an appearance. Halle Berry eulogized Lena Horne to let us all know that, yes, there are black people in Hollywood, too, even though they didn't factor into a single award this year. They just weren't as good at their jobs as white people, but hey, there's always next year, right?

But I persevered through the evening, despite competition from what was, by all accounts, a fantastic basketball game between the Heat and the Knicks, so that I could give you the Oscar pool results in real time. The highlights:

For the first time since I've run a pool, there was a category where nobody got the correct answer (collectively we went 0/9 in Live Action Short).

There was only one category with across the board consensus: 9/9 picked Toy Story 3 for Best Animated Feature.

In the five categories where at least 8/9 agreed on an answer, the majority was right four times. The lone exception was the closest thing to an upset all night, with the majority liking David Fincher for Best Director (Tom Hooper walked away with the trophy). The Academy, in its infinite wisdom, held this award before the top two acting prizes, meaning that any semblance of suspense left the room 40 minutes earlier than it usually would have.

Here are the final standings (all scores are out of a possible 59 points):

The Suze, 18 points - the only entry to correctly predict "The Lost Thing" for Animated Short
Gopher, 24 points - the only entry to miss all four top categories
Daytrader, 26 points - respectable 5/6 in the top categories, but the only entry to miss both screenplay awards

Krista, 30 points
Jim, 36 points
Rose, 36 points

All three went 5/6 on the top categories, but did not do enough at the bottom of the ballot to remain competitive.

Elisa, 40 points

A solid performance by our defending champion, but key misses in Makeup (HOW DID YOU NOT PICK THE WOLFMAN?!?) and the two categories won by Alice In Wonderland (costume, art direction) dragged her ballot down.

The Wisdom of Crowds (ballot based on the most popular answers in each category - in the event of a split, half credit was given), 40.5 points

Runner-up: Jesse, 42 points

Keys to success: Only ballot to correctly name the winner in Best Director, one of only two ballots to correctly name the winners in art direction, doc short.

Failure in retrospect: Got too hung up on the Inception button to correctly identify The Social Network as the winner for Best Score; expected Hailee Steinfeld to pull a Marissa Tomei.

THE WINNER: Kevin, 43 points

Key to success: Correctly pointed out in an email to me that The King's Speech did not win the guild award for best original screenplay because it was not eligible, and was the only ballot to nail that category.

Death montage: NOBODY correctly predicted Lena Horne bringing the hammer, which was an egregious oversight given her status as the first woman of color to take home an award. Dennis Hopper, the most popular answer, was 4th from the end.