While I’m not as passionate about watching professional sports on TV as some of my friends, I always enjoy a good contest. Sometimes I wonder, however, about the investment we make in our state team, when few members of that team or its management are from our state.

That said, I don’t have any problem feeling a personal connection whenever I see the names of Finale users appear in the credits at the movie theater, and I always root for their films to win at the Academy Awards. Next Sunday I’ll have many opportunities to cheer.

While my research methods are not comprehensive, here are some of the films, nominated for multiple awards, in which Finale was used:  The Grand Budapest Hotel (9 nominations), The Imitation Game (8), American Sniper (6), Interstellar (5), Into the Woods (4), and Unbroken (3).  (To tell the truth, I’m a big Wes Anderson fan, and would cheer for The Grand Budapest Hotel even if Alexandre Desplat’s fine score had been prepared on grocery bags with a purple crayon.)

Other nominated films in which Finale played a role include: Big Hero 6, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Nightcrawler, Maleficent, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Gone Girl and The Lego Movie.

Do you enjoy prognosticating the Academy’s picks? I’ll give a free Finale T-shirt to whoever does the best job of predicting the winners of the following eight categories: Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Actress in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Animated Feature Film, Music: Original Score and Music: Original Song.

To play, submit your list of winners as a comment to this post before midnight (Mountain Time) on 2/21/2015 (limit one entry per person, please). Good luck!

Photo Credit: Juan Camilo Bernal / Shutterstock.com