Skip to main content

And the Oscar goes to...

As the tradition goes, I must write blog on afternoon of Oscar night. Given my love for movies (a good movie in any language would do - that's why I have been Netflix member for more than a decade) and penchant for predictions, how can I resist making predictions on who would win Oscars. So I have picked six categories for predictions. Here are these:

  1. Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis (Fences)
  2. Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
  3. Best Actress: Emma Stone (La La Land)
  4. Best Actor: Denzel Washington (Fences)
  5. Best Director: Damian Chazelle (La La Land)
  6. Best Movie: La La Land
We saw La La Land in a nostalgic theatre in Santa Barbara during Christmas vacation. We all moved the movie (and songs). It is one of the highest nominated movie with 14 nominations. However it's Oscar haul would not match that of Titanic and others which won 11 Oscars. Most likely La La Land would by high-single digits.
Next week there is another action happening in City of Angels (LA). It's high-profile tech company Snap Inc is going IPO next week. Given my limited survey (with Yash and Isha), this seems to be very popular with high-school and college kids. Over last couple of years, it has added interesting and cool ways of communicating with friends. While it's audience is still small (1/10th of that of Facebook and 1/2 of Twitter), it seems to be highly engaged audience. At $20 Billion valuation at IPO which most likely would become close to $30 Billion by end of week, is it worth investing? Answer lies in predicting if Snap would become mini-Facebook (success!) or Twitter (not-so-much). At $30 Billion valuation, it would be worth 1/12th of Facebook and almost 3 times of Twitter. On this, I most likely would take my kids advice who are users of Snap and may decide to do small investment!
Happy Oscar viewing and Snapping!
/Shyam

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2025 = Is it going to be 1997 or 2000?

Happy Holidays... After 5 months of hibernation with no real reason than writing block, I decided to use quiet morning of Christmas day to start writing again. Lot has happened in last 5 months - in particular release of Animal Spirits with Fed starting interest rate reduction cycle and historic victory of President Trump for 2nd term. As the year turns into 2025 and stock markets at all time high, one would wonder, what's next?  To answer this, one needs to look back at 1920s and 1990s to give us some context on where markets may be headed. 1920s saw invention of televisions, radio, wider adoption of cars, vacuums, penicillin and many other which we consider household items now. These inventions created roaring 20s with markets going up by 500% eventually leading to crash of 1929. However during mid-20s, markets keep going up due to excitement of these inventions and end of World War-1 and Spanish Flu Pandemic. 1990s also saw many inventions - the key being launch of Netscape in 1...
Post a Comment
Read more

And the Oscar goes to...

It's Oscar Sunday and time for predictions for few categories - before I digress into talking about drama in DC or markets.  First of all, I want to recognize the damage LA fires have done to the beloved areas of Los Angeles and impacted families across all spectrums. My heart goes out to them and wish them recovery and rebuilding of their lives... This year's Oscar nominees and post nomination period had been interesting to say the least. Due to this, the field is wide open in almost all categories and that's what makes prediction game so interesting. Just to set expectations, I would consider a win if I get even 50% predictions correct given the dynamics of nominees this year. So here are my predictions - "And the Oscar goes to..." Best Picture - Anora (surprise could be "The Brutalist") Best Director - Sean Baker for "Anora" (Surprise could be Brady Corbet for "The Brutalist") Best Actor - Adrien Brody for "The Brutalist"...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Politics and Gamesmanship of TikTok!

TikTok is less than 3 hours from going dark on USA's east coast if TikTok owner Bytedance (and Chinese Government) follows thru its "bluff" to honor the law " Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act" which goes into effect on Jan 19, 2025. And suddenly there is lots of politics and gamesmanship around TikTok.. Let's look at the players and their positions US Congress: The " TikTok Ban" law was passed by congress with bipartisan support and coincidently it goes into effect one day before new administration takes charge. Everyone knew the exact date and time of oath taking ceremony of new President...but maybe the congress did not think that there would be change of President and did not bother to put effective date post new government taking charge...that created a window of 36 hours of "law being in effect" unless... President Biden: Biden himself did not think that he won't be President for 2nd term. S...
Post a Comment
Read more