A combination of intuition and calculation is what Bob Liewald said won him The Malibu Times Oscar Ballot contest for the second year in a row — that, and his fierce competitive nature.
“I worked for Foot Locker and was always involved in the 25 Super Bowls,” Liewald said. “I play fantasy football, I have race horses,” he continued. “I’m not a big better, but I like just the competition.”
Formerly in retail, the semi-retired Liewald still consults, owns racehorses and stays busy with the stock market and some real estate projects. And he’s a film buff.
He and his buddy in Florida have been competing with one another in the Oscars in all 24 categories for the past 20 years. They bet five dollars a pick, but Liewald said in all the years they’ve never paid one another.
This year, for the 89th Academy Awards, it came down to the last selection — Best Picture.
“I thought I won it,” said Liewald, who chose “La La Land.”
The cast of “La La Land” thought they won, too, when Warren Beatty was handed the wrong envelope, which he gave to Faye Dunaway who announced the wrong Best Picture for the first time in Oscar history.
“It was so embarrassing,” Liewald said.
Alas, his friend had picked “Moonlight” and took their contest. It was one Liewald got wrong on the Malibu ballot, too.
Still, he won out against 19 others in the Malibu contest and Best Picture was one of five categories he got wrong. The others were Best Sound Editing, Best Film Editing, Costume Design and Best Makeup/Hairstyling.
After seeing all nine films nominated for the Best Picture category, “Manchester by the Sea” was probably his personal favorite, but he figured the Academy would vote for “La La Land.”
That’s part of his system — psyching out the voters. He doesn’t just go by his opinion; he takes a lot of information into consideration.
Liewald said he reads one of the New York Times critics and watches the other awards shows to make his voting decisions.
“I see who has momentum going in,” he explained. “I was very close to picking Denzel for Best Actor, but I thought, ‘Ya know what, I’m going to stay with Casey Affleck.’”
He said he had a tough time making up his mind with Best Picture, Best Actor and Original Screenplay categories. He got two out of the three.
He admits he went back and forth on Best Actor.
“I really did think Casey Affleck did a great job,” Liewald said. “Viggo Mortensen did a great job. Even though Denzel had the momentum going in, he had already won it twice before. I also picked Casey because I thought a lot of other people would pick Denzel and I wanted to make one pick that was controversial. I really felt that both Casey and Viggo pulled something out of themselves that they hadn’t before.”
He said there’s definitely no magic formula.
“Just the week before is really when I put it together — the previous awards, momentum and gut feeling,” Liewald explained.
He goes to the horse races three or four times a month and said it’s pretty much the same system: “I have my sheets that I look at and do it based on the history of the horse.”
Liewald, in addition to gaining the title of Malibu Movie Guru, will receive a one-year membership for the Malibu Film Society and dinner at Duke’s, which he said he loves.
“I’m shocked I won,” Liewald said. “But I’m happy.”