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Honolulu man picks winners in Oscarama contest

Rather than wait for a delayed prime-time broadcast, Hawaii audiences were able to keep track of the Oscar award winners along with the rest of the country as the 91st Academy Awards were aired live Sunday from Los Angeles.

Steven Lum of Honolulu submitted a perfect ballot in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Oscarama contest. He will claim first prize of $200 cash from the newspaper and four Consolidated Theatres movie passes. A family member confirmed Lum’s residence by phone; he was not home at the time of notification.

Only two entrants correctly picked winners in the top six categories, with Lum nailing the tie-breaker. The third-place winner was chosen randomly.

University of Hawaii at Manoa senior Kevin Pham will receive the second-place prize of $100 and two movie passes.

Pham and another friend often talk about movies and post on movie-related online discussion forums.

“Of all the movies, I’m so happy that ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse’ won (for best animated feature film) since I’m a huge animation fan,” he said. Pham added he could relate to the storyline of “Bao,” winner of the animated short-film category, because his parents are immigrants from Vietnam who taught him cultural lessons while growing up.

The third-place prize of $50 and two movie passes will go to Jill Lee of Kailua, who said she enjoyed “Green Book” and hopes to eventually see the other best-picture nominees. The 48-year-old, who recorded the awards show on DVR, followed other movie award shows as a guide for her ballot picks and made her best guesses, getting five categories and the tie-breaker correct.

The Oscarama rules require entries to ace the best-picture category in order to be considered for prizes. A total of 506 entries were received by the entry deadline.

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