The Oscars are this Sunday. It's the highlight of the film fan's calendar, and if you want to take your Academy Awards viewing experience to the next level, we have the tools for you.
Printable Oscars ballots
Maybe you've seen all the movies, or maybe not, but you still want to beat your friends when it comes to guessing the winners. If you want a hand deciding, check out our rundown of all the interviews and coverage that KPCC has done — and be sure to check out predictions from "The Awards Show Show." Then, come back here, print your ballot and fill it out with your picks for Hollywood gold.
- You can go straight to the source, using the film academy's two-age printable ballot or participating in their online Oscars Challenge game.
- Fandango has a nice, simple one-page Oscars ballot for you to print out. It's what we're using for our own competition around the KPCC offices. (The Awards Show Show guys shouldn't be eligible, right?)
- Vanity Fair not only has a printable ballot, they've also added an interactive option for you to fill out online this year. That one also lets you share it on Facebook and via e-mail.
- People Magazine's printable ballot isn't as compact, spanning two pages, but it's nice if you want one with bigger type and a little more room. That way, you can jot in the margins all the jokes you want to tell about the show when you're back in the office Monday morning. They also have an online ballot where you can vote for who you think deserves to win — even though that may not have much to do with who actually takes home the trophies.
- And if you want even more room to work with, here's the full four-page ballot from the Denver Post.
Oscars bingo cards
Now that you have your ballot in hand, you can continue keeping the festivities extra fun with Oscars bingo — where you watch for those iconic moments, some of which happen all the time while others may be more of a long shot. You can play with friends, either working together to spot everything or competing against each other to be the first to scream "Bingo!" You can also play by yourself, giving yourself another reason to blink as little as possible. So print out your bingo card and be careful not to mistake pizza smudges for marking a square.
Here's where you can score a bingo card:
- Try out KPCC's own bingo card, which offers you the ability to reload to randomly generate a new one — making sure there are plenty of different cards for everyone at your party.
- Vanity Fair is another of those offering multiple printable bingo cards. That adds some extra luck into the game rather than whoever can yell fastest, since not everyone will have the same selections in the same spots on their cards.
- Reddit does one of the most fun bingo games, crowdsourced from the residents of the Movies subreddit. It hasn't been posted yet as of press time, but you can take a look at the submissions people are making for what should be on the official Reddit bingo card, then check back Saturday to find the actual game card.
- Punchbowl has long participated in the Oscars bingo world, offering printable cards year after year. They've got one of the simplest printable cards if you want a quick and dirty option.
- * HGTV offers a perennial bingo card, with options less specific to this year's show and more about the moments you can count on year after year.
- For a blast from the past, check out this article written by a KPCC reporter — back when she was working for NPR. You may have heard her covering arts education or guest hosting on "The Frame," but KPCC's Priska Neely was on the Oscars bingo tip way back in 2011.