Great Movies
The grand-prize winner of the 2012 Outguess Ebert contest is Debra McCune of Cedar Lake, Ind.
"I enter every year because I love the movies," she says. "I watch the Oscar telecast and check off the categories. I buy the Sun-Times every day at Walgreens but threw away the ballot this year because I was convinced I wouldn't win. Then later I changed my mind and entered online."
She and her husband, a veterinarian, will receive round-trip airfare to Los Angeles, two nights' hotel stay and two tickets to the world premiere of Universal Pictures' "The Bourne Legacy."
The 10 first-prize winners are: Anthony Jeffrey, Dallas; Michael Haines, Terre Haute, Ind.; Eric Leffler, Indianapolis; Brynn Early, Cedar Park, Texas; Kevin McCormick, Kaneohe, Hawaii; Yale Brown, Somers, N.Y.; Geoff Henao, Chicago, and Paul Kim, Covington, La.. We have the names of two more winners, but won't publish them until we can contact them for verification.
Each winner receives an autographed copy of Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2012 and an Academy Award-nominated Home Entertainment DVD Library, featuring a selection of 18 titles.
The contest attracted 4,930 entries; 77 perfect entries got 10 of 10. Another 988 got nine of 10 correct, so 1,065 readers outguessd me and my merely eight correct predictions. I was wrong in the best actress and best documentary categories.
Unlike me, Debra McCune went with Meryl Streep for best actress because "she's been nominated so many times but had not won recently, and she's such a great actress, so I picked her."
The winners were chosen in a random drawing from the 77 perfect entries. This task was performed by Jessica Runnion, a marketing specialist for Sun-Times Media, with everybody in the room keeping an eye on her.
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
