Most years, 20 out of 24 would be a great score for Oscar predicting.
But with a year as predictable as this one where so many of the winners were a foregone conclusion weeks ago it's just so-so.
The four the Cricket got wrong:
• Picking "12 Years a Slave" for film editing, over the winner "Gravity," following the logic that film editing and Best Picture usually go hand-in-hand.
• Predicting "American Hustle" for original screenplay, not Spike Jonze for "Her" a head-over-heart choice, since The Cricket reasoned that the Academy would give "American Hustle" something (it didn't). But Jonze's future-romance is, by far, the most original of the five nominees.
• Missing two of the short-film winners, the charming animated "Mr. Hublot" and the tear-jerking live-action Danish drama "Helium." Like anybody, even people who have seen them all (like The Cricket), really knows how those things will go.