Movie theater announces Oscar winners
Paul Guthrie, manager of the Carmike Cinema 6 at the Uniontown Mall, said the 25th annual Academy Awards contest seemed to offer a difficult challenge for Herald-Standard readers this year. Not one of the 432 Herald-Standard readers, who entered the contest, selected all six movies and stars that walked away with the coveted gold Oscar statues during Sunday night’s 75th annual Academy Awards ceremony.
But Guthrie said he was even more surprised to find out that none of the contestants managed to select five out of the six winners.
As a result, Guthrie said movie theater employees were forced to randomly select the first-, second- and third-place winners from the 37 contestants, who chose the winners in four of the six categories.
“We put the 37 contestants, who had the right answers in four categories, into a box and then we drew out three names,” Guthrie said. “The first name that we pulled was the first-place winner, the second name was the second-place winner and the third name was the third-place winner.”
Charles E. Jackson of 2 Braddock Drive, Ohiopyle, captured the first-place award. Jackson will receive a $100 check from the Herald-Standard and 40 “trip tickets,” each good for one single movie admission at either the Cinema 6 at the Uniontown Mall or the Cinemas IV at the Laurel Mall.
Greg Pazer of 521 York Ave., Connellsville, captured the second-place prize, which includes a $50 check from the Herald-Standard and 30 trip tickets.
The third-place prize of a $25 check from the Herald-Standard and 20 trip tickets will be awarded to Sharon Maust of 390 Hopwood-Fairchance Road, Uniontown.
Guthrie said he believes this year’s contest was extremely difficult because no one expected Roman Polanski, director of “The Pianist,” to walk away with the best director award.
“When I saw that Roman Polanski won for best director, I knew that was going to throw everyone off,” Guthrie said.
“When we started tabulating the ballots, I only saw a handful of people, who even picked Polanski for best director,” he added. “Everyone seemed to be picking Rob Marshall who directed ‘Chicago.'”
Although the movie theater offered a first-place prize of 50 “trip tickets” to last year’s winner, Guthrie explained that the prize was reduced to 40 “trip tickets” this year because that was the amount approved by theater’s corporate office.
The second-place prize was dropped from 40 to 30 trip tickets, and the third-place prize was sliced from 30 to 20 trip tickets because of cutbacks at the corporate level, Guthrie explained.
The winners and their guests will be treated to a movie party at the Cinema 6 at the Uniontown Mall at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 19. At that party, winners will have their photograph taken for publication in the Herald-Standard.
The winners will have a chance to watch a movie of their choice free of charge. They will receive a free soft drink and large popcorn provided by the theater.
Guthrie said each winner is invited to bring one guest with him or her to the party.
For more information about the party, winners are asked contact the movie theater at 724-439-2962 or Cindy Ekas-Brown, the Herald-Standard’s Weekend Scene editor, at 724-439-8689.