We supplied two tiebreaker questions in our Oscar-pool ballot. Before your Oscar party comes to blows, here are the answers:
Number of Avatar jokes: six. (One in Neil Patrick Harris’s opening number; two by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin in the opening monologue — one at James Cameron’s expense, one bug-spraying the wood sprites; Ben Stiller’s costume; Tyler Perry’s line while presenting Best Film Editing; Best Foreign Film director Juan José Campanella thanking the Academy for “not considering Na’vi a foreign languageâ€; Martin saying the ceremony went on so long that Avatar now takes place in the past.)
Number of audience cutaways to Sandra Bullock (including during the reading of her category): eleven … though check your party’s rules for anal-retentiveness. We counted the four cutaways of her during the Best Actress announcement as separate shots; three during the Forest Whitaker encomium, and one as part of the five-actress grid while Sean Penn read their names.
Congratulations to the winners!