Having been invited to an Oscar viewing party tonight with a bunch of like-minded Twitter users, I was a little perplexed because I haven't seen any of the major films nominated this year. In my old age of thirty, I rarely go to the movies anymore, choosing to watch them on my home theater when they appear on iTunes for HD purchase. Thankfully, Nate Silver came through for me. Nate Silver, at FiveThirtyEight writes:

Twice before, in 2009 and 2011, I sought to predict the Academy Award winners in six major categories based on a mix of statistical factors. My track record? Nine correct picks in 12 tries, for a 75 percent success rate. Not bad, but also not good enough to suggest that there is any magic formula for this. So this year, I have sought to simplify the method, making the link to the FiveThirtyEight election forecasts more explicit. This approach won’t be foolproof either, but it should make the philosophy behind the method more apparent. The Oscars, in which the voting franchise is limited to the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, are not exactly a democratic process. But they provide for plenty of parallels to political campaigns. In Nate Silver we trust. I will be blatantly stealing his predictions when filling out my Oscar Bingo Card tonight. You bet against Nate Silver at your peril.