Oscar Hangover 2010

This year, for the first time in many, many years--perhaps for the first time ever, in fact--I didn't catch even a single second of the Oscarcast. I didn't feel the urge to flip over to my local ABC affiliate and check on the proceedings. I really, seriously didn't care.

Instead, I cooked a bottom round steak and covered it with grilled onions and garlic while Dave Brubeck wafted from the living room. Then I sat down and watched The Oscar on TCM. It's a truly dreadful 1966 movie starring Stephen Boyd as a selfish, manipulative, vindictive bastard who nonetheless snags a Best Actor nomination who goes to the ceremony alone because he's dumped all his old friends. His inexplicably loyal best friend (Tony Bennett!) then tells the story in flashback, starting with their days together working bottom-of-the-barrel clubs with Boyd's stripper girlfriend (Jill St. John, looking fine in a tiger-print bikini) to hooking up with an older woman (Eleanor Parker) who connects him with an agent (Milton Berle in a completely straight role) and up the ladder to success, throwing off friends and lovers left and right. He's finally pissed off all of Hollywood with his asshatery when the surprise Oscar nom comes in, thus allowing him to become more insufferable than ever before, even to Bennett and Boyd's also-inexplicable faithful wife (Elke Sommer, looking lovely in lingerie).

There are lots of other past and present stars throughout the movie, including Broderick Crawford as an abusive small-town sheriff, Joseph Cotten as the head of Boyd's studio, Peter Lawford as a washed-up actor now waiting tables for a living, Walter Brennan as a network sponsor, Ed Begley Sr. as a strip club owner, Ernest Borgnine as a sleazy private eye, Edie Adams as Borgnine's sleazy ex-wife, and loads of people playing themselves, like Edith Head, Bob Hope, Hedda Hopper, Merle Oberon and Frank Sinatra.

All that star power can't make up for a melodramatic screenplay (adapted by Harlan Ellison, among others, from the novel by Richard Sale) that never fully explains why anyone wants to be around this creep, much less help him on his way to the top. Even more inexplicable is the Academy's cooperation with this project--didn't anyone there read the script?

Despite (or, perhaps because of) the utter lack of quality of The Oscar, I had a good time. Or maybe it was the TheraFlu I was drinking to shake the bug I've had for the past week. Or, most likely of all, it was because no matter how awful The Oscar was, it was still shorter and funnier than the actual Oscars ceremony. And that's just plain sad.

Oscar Noms 2010

In past years, I've written long, analytical essays about the Oscar nominations, either the day after they came out or, more likely, just before the Academy Awards ceremony at the end of February (or, as it happens this year, the first Sunday in March).

This year, though, is different. This year, I can say with absolute honesty that I don't give a damn.

It's not just that I've seen so few of the nominated movies and performances. I caught four of the Best Picture nominees last year, and most years that would mean something. Not so much now that the Best Picture category has been expanded to ten movies (from its usual five). This is not unprecedented--the Academy routinely nominated 10 pictures per year into the 1940s.

It's also not just that so many of the acting races this year appear to have been decided already. Jeff Bridges will win a long-overdue Oscar for Best Actor for Crazy Heart. Sandra Bullock will likely win Best Actress for The Blind Side.Christoph Waltz is a lock for Best Supporting Actor for Inglourious Basterds, and it would be a major surprise if Mo'Nique didn't win Best Supporting Actress for Precious.

I think it comes down to the ceremony itself. It just rambles, no matter how excited I am about individual nominees.

From time to time, the Academy tries different things to slim down the telecast, but nothing ever really changes--it remains the longest, dullest awards ceremony on television, and I just don't have the patience for it anymore. Plus, since I've seen so few of the nominated movies (hence I don't have anyone to root for) and so many of the races are foregone conclusions anyway, it would be a monumental waste of time for me to sit there for nearly four hours awaiting outcomes for which I care not one bit.

So for that Sunday night, I'll fine something else--something better--to do. Cook a nice meal. Play some jazz (my recently acquired copy of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Time Out would do nicely). Channel-flip. Do my taxes.

Or, best of all, whether I go out or stay in, I can do the most appropriate thing of all: Watch a good movie.

Oscar Hangover 2009

Most of my predictions proved to be accurate last night, the main one being that I would miss most of the festivities because I had dinner at Mom's house. I returned to La Casa del Terror in time to see the Best Supporting Actor award go to the late Heath Ledger (which his family accepted). I also got to see Jerry Lewis accept the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award (Jerry sounded very winded) and Will Smith present some of the technical awards (I tuned out and tuned back about 15 minutes later and he was...still...going...).

The only major award prediction I blew was Best Actor--I predicted Frank Langella, but Sean Penn won instead. Oh well. Perfection will have to wait another year.

Now please excuse me--I've got an epic earache and it feels like I'm typing under water--kind of like being hung over without the "pleasure" of having been drunk first.

And the Oscar Goes to...(2009 Edition)

I doubt I'll be watching the Oscars this year--I'm having at Mom's house that night, and she hates watching the long, often tedious telecast.

That won't stop me from making my annual predictions, though.

Best Supporting Actress. One of the hardest categories to call in years. I could seriously see any one of the nominees--Amy Adams (Doubt), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Viola Davis (Doubt), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) or Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)--taking this one home. Academy voters may have a hard time deciding and, to cut down on unnecessary thought, may just choose the biggest name in the bunch. If that's the case, expect Cruz to get the little gold statuette (manufactured right here in Chicago)--she's my official choice. If not...it's anybody's guess.

Best Supporting Actor. As hard as it is to call the Best Supporting Actress category, that's how easy it is to call this category. Josh Brolin? Robert Downey Jr.? Philip Seymour Hoffman? Michael Shannon? Sorry, fellas. The nomination will have to be the award for you. Heath Ledger's turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight likely would have won him this award anyway, but his death last year due to an accidental drug overdose makes it a virtual certainty.

Best Actress. It's great to see veteran character actress Melissa Leo nominated this year, especially since her movie, Frozen River, came out a while ago--too bad she has virtually no chance of winning. It's also nice to see Anne Hathaway get a nod--she started her career in fluffy rom-com roles, but has rapidly advanced to much more serious fare. Unfortunately, she's got no more of a shot than Leo, but she's more likely to be nominated again in the near future. Angelina Jolie and Meryl Streep? They've both won Oscars before. That leaves Kate Winslet. This is her fifth nomination for Best Actress. It'll likely be her first win.

Best Actor. This, for me, is the most interesting category. Brad Pitt has no chance, especially since plenty of people seem to feel that the makeup and special effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button gave the performance for him. As with Melissa Leo, it's nice to see character actor Richard Jenkins get nominated for The Visitor--and as with Leo, Jenkins has no chance of winning. Both Mickey Roarke (The Wrestler) and Sean Penn (Milk) have a lot of support. It could be hard for Academy voters to choose between them. There was a similar situation in the Best Actress category last year, when both Julie Christie and Ellen Page had lots of support for their noms, leading to a split that allowed Marion Cotillard to win. I think there may be a similar result in this category this year, allowing Frank Langella to win for Frost/Nixon. This would be a major upset. Then again, Cotillard's win last year was a major upset, so it's possible--and it's what I'm predicting.

Best Picture. This category is almost as easy to choose as Best Supporting Actor. The winner will, of course, be The Dark Knight, with Christopher Nolan taking the award for Best Dir...wait...what? Neither Dark Knight nor Nolan got nominated? The hell? Sometimes you confuse me, Academy voters. Oh well...of the movies that actually did get nominated, Benjamin Button, The Reader and Frost/Nixon are all out of the running. Milk may take the top prize, but it's much more likely that this year's "little film that could," Slumdog Millionaire, will win instead, with Danny Boyle getting the corresponding Oscar for Best Director.

I've gotten pretty good at this particular guessing game, but since I'll probably only catch the ass end of the broadcast after dinner at Mom's, I'm morelikely to find how good I am this year Monday morning.

The Noms

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning and, as usual, contained surprises, both pleasant and otherwise.

It was nice to see Melissa Leo and Richard Jenkins, both longtime character actors, get nominations at all (for Best Actress and Best Actor, respectively), but most especially because the movies they were nominated for (Frozen River and the Visitor) came out months ago, indicating that maybe, just maybe, the Academy is finally developing a respectable attention span. Either that, or the studios are getting better at pushing their movies for nominations. Or, one hopes, both.

It was also nice to see the late Heath Ledger nominated for his last completed performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight; he took a character previously played for laughs by the likes of Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson and made him a truly malevolent, dangerous creature--chaos personified. The nomination was expected, but still welcome.

What was not welcome, however, was the passing-over of The Dark Knight from all other major categories, including Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director (Christopher Nolan) and Best Picture. Roger Ebert called the exclusion "a startling upset," but was it, really? Action films get little love from the Academy (beyond the technical categories, like Best Sound Editing), super-hero movies even less. But The Dark Knight was not only a box-office megahit (second only to Best Picture winner Titanic on the all-time list), but a major critical success as well (94% fresh on RottenTomatoes.com), so shouldn't it have gotten a little more love?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire were certainly feeling the love, with 13 and 10 nominations respectively. Some critics were surprised that Slumdog snagged noms for Best Picture and Best Director, but none for any of the actors were recognized. I wasn't, though--the actors are unknown to Americans (who make up the bulk of Academy voters), and multiple actors play the three main characters (two brothers and a girl) through different stages of their lives, making it more difficult to choose any one actor for the acting categories.

A number of critics were also disappointed that WALL-E wasn't included in the Best Picture category (though it did score a nomination for Best Original Screenplay). Not me. I liked Wall-E--like all Pixar films it looks terrific, and the decision to play the front half of the movie nearly silent pays off better than the chatty second half--but it wasn't even my favorite animated movie this year; I had a lot more fun at Kung Fu Panda, which, along with WALL-E and bolt, was nominated in the Best Animated Feature Film category. There's another reason WALL-E didn't get a Best Picture nod: The Academy created the Best Animated Feature category specifically so they wouldn't have to deal with whether or not to nominate an animated movie for the top prize. As long as that category exists, the Academy doesn't have to actually think, and they like it like that.

I won't make my predictions yet--that'll come a couple days before the awards are handed--but this far out, Slumdog Millionaire looks like the film to beat. As with WALL-E, I saw it and liked it, but my life wasn't altered by it. Still, given the Academy's penchant for nominating and subsequently rewarding dreary melodramas, it's nice to see something somewhat uplifting get some recognition--and, come next month, some hardware as well.

Lack of Direction

I visit The Internet Movie Database often (at least once a day, but usually more than once) because I love movies and love learning about them--not just new and upcoming releases, but films released long before I was even a concept in either of my parents' heads.

Every day, IMDB has a poll. Sometimes, the polls, usually suggested by IMDB readers, are odd yet intriguing (example: "Which animated film deserves to be in IMDB's Top 250 Films of All Time?") because they make you think at least a little bit about your cinematic likes and dislikes. (In that particular poll, I chose The Nightmare Before Christmas--it didn't come in first, but was somewhere in the top five, which is cool.)

Today's poll question was very much to my liking: "Of MovieMaker.com's Top 25 Most Influential Directors of All Time, who really deserves the top spot?" Hmm. I hadn't seen MovieMaker.com's list, but I scanned it and found it hard to argue with any of their choices. Just about every one--from Alfred Hitchcock to Howard Hawks, Steven Spielberg to Jean Renoir, Orson Welles to Francois Truffaut--each colored the visions of the generations of directors that followed.

Such lists are subject to the quibbles or prejudices of the individual, and I, of course, had to apply mine, wish for other directors to be included. Like Frank Capra, a three-time Oscar winner whose socially conscious, emotionally sentimental style gave the word "Capraesque" to the cinematic and political lexicons. Or Quentin Tarantino, whose Pulp Fiction affected movies for the next decade (and not in a good way). Or Wes Anderson, whose distictive style made movies like Little Miss Sunshine and Juno (both recent Academy Award winners for Best Original Screenplay) possible.

But, hey, they didn't ask me--no reason for them to--so I looked over their choices and made my own for most influential: John Ford, the four-time winner of the Oscar for Best Director (more than any other individual in Academy history, I think) best known for his epic westerns starring John Wayne (Stagecoach, The Searchers and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, among others). I clicked the button, submitted my vote and waited to see how my opinion matched up with my fellow cinephiles.

Not very well, it turns out.

Both the IMDB users and the panel at MovieMaker.com selected Hitchcock as the most influential, and it's hard to argue with their choice--his control over nearly every aspect of his productions made each of his movies a personal statement as well as a popular entertainment. But whereas MovieMaker had Ford in fifth place (behind Hitchcock, D.W. Griffith, Welles and Jean-Luc Godard), IMDB voters ranked him 11th. That's not bad--he's still in the upper half of the survey--but it's ironic not only that directors he influenced, like Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola, are all ranked above him, but that he won more Academy Awards for his work than all of the top 10 combined. (Some, like Hitchcock, Griffith, Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman received honorary Oscars, while others, like Welles, Charlie Chaplin and Stanley Kubrick, won in categories other than Best Director--that none of them won an Oscar outright for direction is head-rattlingly awful.)

Maybe I'm being too much of a film snob here. Maybe it's better to recognize that all such surveys are arbitrary and that no two voters would select the same 25 directors and let it go. But if I did that, I wouldn't ramble on about such things over here, now would I?

Oscar Hangover 2008

Most years, I eat good pizza (usually ordered from Marie's), drink cheap beer (Red Dog, my all-time fave) and watch the Oscarcast until about 10:30, when my energy drops, my resove weakens and I wander off to bed, certain that I can read about the winners in Monday morning's Sun-Times on the train ride to the job.

This year, though, I played it a little differently.

There was still good pizza. There was still cheap beer. And there was still the drop in energy. This year, though, the resolve stayed firm, mostly because I decided to take Monday off of work and stay up as late as I wanted to Sunday night. And it was well worth staying up for.

Not that the show was that exciting. Jon Stewart did a fine job of hosting, there wasn't as much dead air as usual, and the ceremony came in at a comparatively tidy three hours and fifteen minutes, but it seemed like I wasn't the only one suffering from a lack of energy. Maybe everyone was exhausted from the lengthy writers' strike, or maybe the awards season is so long now that everyone feels like they're breaking the tape at the end of a marathon, minus the dubious comfort of a Dixie cup full of Gatorade or Aquafina. Whatever the case, the whole affair was low-key, but still had enough to keep me there for the duration.

I did pretty well on my picks: I called Best Picture (No Country for Old Men), Best Director (ditto), Best Supporting Actor (ditto) and Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood). I blew Best Supporting Actress, but can't feel too bad about it. It was the most wide open of all the acting categories this year, and it would be interesting to see the vote totals--I'll bet there wasn't much of a spread from the winner (Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton) and the second or third runner-up.

I also missed Best Actress, but I wasn't all that surprised that Marion Cotillard won. As I said when I made my predictions, Cotillard had an outside shot at winning if Julie Christie and Ellen Page split enough of the votes--and I'll bet that's exactly what happened.

There were two other moments that I loved last night. The first was when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won for Best Original Song for Once, my favorite movie of 2007 (should have been nominated for a lot more awards, but at least in won the one it was nominated for). After Hansard gave his acceptance speech, Irglova stepped up to the mic...and was promptly cut off by the orchestra. Cut to commercial. When the telecast came back from commercial, Jon Stewart did something unusual and amazing: He called Irglova back to the stage to give her acceptance speech, which was short and sweet and utterly charming. It was a beautiful moment.

Then, there was Diablo Cody. I became more and more anxious as the evening went on, and by the time her category (Best Original Screenplay) came up (presented, appropriately enough, by Harrison Ford, himself a former Chicagoan), I was literally shaking with excitement and anticipation--and then, when Ford read her name, with unrestrained joy.

Congratulations, Diablo. I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating one final time: I could not be happier for you, nor more proud of you.

And the Oscar Goes to...(2008 Edition)

Welcome to the fifth annual "ASF Yanks Some Predictions Out of His A..." er, I mean, of course, the fifth annual "And the Oscar Goes to..." , in which I will try to predict who will win the major statues at this year's Academy Awards (assuming that there will even be a ceremony, given that the strike by the Writers Guild of America is in its third month with no resolution on the immediate horizon). I've done pretty well the past couple of years, nailing five out of the top six awards. How will I do this year? We shall see.

Best Supporting Actress. The Academy loves nominating children in the Supporting categories. Luvsluvsluvs. They don't however, love actually giving the awards to children, with rare exceptions, so Saoirse Ronan doesn't stand much of a chance of winning for Atonement, and that's kinda sad, since she's the only actor from that movie to be nominated (more on that later). The Academy also luvsluvsluvs Cate Blanchett--so much so that she's nominated twice this year (more on that later, too), including here for playing one facet of Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. She has a shot here, as do Amy Ryan for her draining, emotional turn in Gone Baby Gone and Tilda Swinton as a lawyer in Michael Clayton (which the Academy seems to love a lot more than the general moviegoing public). Because the race is so wide-open, something will need to tip it in one nominee's favor--which brings me to veteran character actress Ruby Dee, nominated for the first time at 82 for her role in American Gangster. I think the Academy will break the logjam by honoring Dee for her long, distinguished career by giving her the Oscar this year.

Best Supporting Actor. I wish the logic I just applied to the Best Supporting Actress category could be applied for Best Supporting Actor as well. Really, I do. If I could, Hal Holbrook, nominated for the first time at 81, would be honored as I believe Ruby Dee will be. Unfortunately, that's not gonna happen. This is probably the only major category that's a lock for one\ person--and that person isn't Casey Affleck (for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), or Philip Seymour Hoffman (for Charlie Wilson's War), or Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton, or Holbrook. That person is Javier Bardem, for his role as a cold-blooded killer in No Country for Old Men, a film I didn't like nearly as much as damn near every other person on the planet (not because of the abrupt ending, which I was just fine with, but because of the offhanded way a couple of key characters get dispatched late in the movie--don't take the time and effort to make me care about these people, then treat their fates with such disregard). Bardem does indeed give a scary performance, but his character is only a slight shift from the typical horror movie psycho--trim back his dialog a bit and slap a white William Shatner mask on him, and you've got Michael Myers. Nonetheless, Bardem will win.

Best Actress. Cate Blanchett's nomination in this category for Elizabeth: The Golden Age is a bit of a head-scratcher--the movie wasn't a hit with critics, and it tanked at the box office. So why the nom? Luvluvluv? Must be. Wouldn't Keira Knightley (for her role in Atonement have been a better choice? Or, if the Academy really wantede to think outside the box, how ' bout Amy Adams for Enchanted? But no. Laura Linney is feeling the love as well for her role in The Savages, but neither she not Blanchett will be feeling the cold, smooth surface of an Oscar this year. Marion Cotillard might get that opportunity, though, for her turn as singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, but only if the top two nominees split the vote enough to let her sneak up the middle and snatch it. Julie Christie is one of those top two, nominated for her role as an Alzheimer's patient in Away from Her. Christie won an Oscar decades ago (for Darling in 1965) , but her role in Away from Her has been so highly regarded, even though the film came out much earlier in the year than most of the nominated movies, that she was the frontrunner for months--until Juno hit theaters in December and Ellen Page's star began to rise.

Page's role as a pregnant teenager is a demanding one--she's in damn near every scene in the movie--and would be a shoo-in for the Oscar if not for Christie. Page could still win--most online polls show her neck and neck with Christie--but of the four nominations Juno has received, it's much more likely to win for the sharp-enough-to-slice-bread-on script by Diablo Cody in the Best Original Screenplay category than in any of the other three. It may be close, but I think Christie will win. (She already won the Screen Actor's Guild Award for her role, and that's the same group voting for the Oscar.) It would be smokin' if Page won, though.

Best Actor. Speaking of luvluvluv, the Academy luvsluvsluvs George Clooney and Johnny Depp, too. They've given Clooney an Oscar before (for Syriana and nominated him here for Michael Clayton; Depp has been nominated before and gets a nod here for his effective turn as Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (a movie that, as a longtime fan of the musical, I was dreading, but wound up liking very much). Neither one is likely to win, though. Nor will Viggo Mortensen (for Easter Promises) or Tommy Lee Jones (for In the Valley of Elah). Daniel Day-Lewis's intense, scary oil baron in There Will Be Blood should have this one in the proverbial bag.

Best Director. It's always odd someone is nominated in this category even though the movie they directed is not nominated for Best Picture, as is the case with Julian Schnabel and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (while Joe Wright, whose Atonement got a best Picture nom, got skunked in this category). It also means that director has virtually no chance of winning. Neither does Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton. Jason Reitman could win for Juno if Cody and Page take their categories and start a wave of momentum for the movie. Reitman's accomplishment here, though, may be too subtle--he trusts his material and his actors so much that there are few "directorly" flourishes here (except for a gorgeous final tracking shot). The Academy likes flash in its best Director winners, and P.T. Anderson and Joel and Ethan Coen bring the flash (in There Will be Blood and No Country for Old Men, respectively). It's a tough call, since both movies will likely take major acting awards, but I think the Coen Brothers have the edge. However, they could split the vote and Reitman could get his name engraved on a statuette. Frankly, that would be refreshing. Too few comedies are taken seriously by the Academy, their directors even less so.

Best Picture. Michael Clayton doesn't have much of a chance. Without a nomination for its director or lead actors, Atonement is fairly well doomed, although it does have that epic feel the Academy so adores. But does every Best Picture have to be an epic? Why not, say, a quirky comedy? I think so, but I doubt the Academy will agree, so Juno has an outside chance at best. Which leaves us with the same two contenders we had in the Best Director category: There Will be Blood and No Country for Old Men. Since I'm picking the Coen Brothers there, I'll pick No Country for Old Men here.

I'd like to be wrong about some of these picks--especially anything that involves No Country for Old Men. Really and truly I would. But I don't think I will be. Tune in the day after the Oscars are presented (or, if the strike continues, merely announced) and find out.

Oscar Hangover 2007

I never make it all the way through an Academy Awards telecast without becoming at the very least distracted, if not outright bored to the verge of coma.

So it was last night. The fashions, the production numbers and Ellen Degeneres just weren't enough to hold my interest and, about 45 minutes into the proceedings, I stopped caring and started channel-flipping.

I did, however, catch two of the moments I wanted to catch in the first place. I wanted to see the presentation of the Best Supporting Actor award, because I had picked an upset in that category--Alan Arkin instead of the heavily favored Eddie Murphy. And Arkin won. I found it charming that he set his Oscar on the stage beside him as he read his speech from a crumpled piece of paper. (I know I sure as hell would need a piece of paper, crumpled or otherwise, to keep my thoughts straight up there.)

Maybe the Academy decided that Arkin's long career should be honored. Or that Murphy's performance, while good, wasn't Oscar-worthy. Or maybe the bad karma Murphy had accumulated through bad movies (maybe some of the Oscar voters saw Norbit over the weekend?) and all the homophobic shit he slung back in his standup-comedy days bit him in the ass. Or maybe the fact that Sailor J loves Little Miss Sunshine so very much tipped the scales. (It also won for Best Original Screenplay, so she must be doubly happy.)

Whatever. I'm happy for Alan Arkin.

And I got to see Jennifer Hudson win Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls. I thought she deserved it and said so when I left the theatre with Sister Dee. (I think my exact words were, "Just give her the damn Oscar, already.") I'm glad the Academy agreed.

I had hoped Peter O'Toole would finally win an Oscar, but that didn't happen. Not that I begrudge Forest Whitaker--he's always been a solid actor, and it's great to see him the Academy give him some long-overdue recognition. But O'Toole is elderly and reportedly in ill health, he really should have won one by now, and, by all accounts, his performance in Venus was indeed Oscar-worthy; it wouldn't have been a pity award. Would have been nice, is all I'm saying. Maybe he'll get nominated again. And maybe he'll win. Stranger things happen every day in this world.

At least Martin Scorcese finally won for The Departed, just as I'd predicted, but I was sleepy and today was a workday, so I was long in bed by the time he asked, "Could you double-check the envelope?"

One of these years, I'll guess right in every single category. Until then? Five out of six ain't bad.

And the Oscar Goes to...(2006 Edition)

Welcome, one and all, to the third annual And the Oscar Goes to... on this here bloggity. The results from the previous two years were--shall we put in politely?--uneven: in 2004, I got Best Picture and Best Director right, but blew all the acting awards; and in 2005, I nailed the acting awards, but missed Best Picture and Best Director. So, this year? I anticipate perfection, one way or the other: Either I'll sweep the field or be plowed under.

So, before Isaac Mizrahi starts peeking down dresses and grabbing boobs on the red carpet, let's take a look at the nominees, shall we?

Best Director. The Academy is awfully fond of giving Oscars to actors who direct--Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, and Mel Gibson all have one for directing, but not for acting; Clint Eastwood has two. And the Academy clearly wants to give George Clooney an Oscar this year, given that he's nominated in three different categories for two different movies (Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck.) It's unlikely, though, that they'll give him one in this category; he's more likely to get something in Best Original Screenplay (odd, since much of Good Night's script is taken from transcripts of Edward. R. Murrow broadcasts) or Best Supporting Actor. Paul Haggis probably has better odds in the Best Original Screenplay category for Crash. Bennett Miller's inclusion is a bit odd, since Philip Seymour Hoffman's spot-on performance in the title role is the chief reason to see Capote. And Steven Spielberg? He's already got a Best Director Oscar at home. My choice? Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain. It's a quiet, sad, poetic movie with just enough controversy to hold the Academy's notoriously short attention span.

Best Supporting Actress. Two of our greatest, busiest character actresses--Catherine Keener (playing novelist Harper Lee in Capote) and Frances McDormand (as a coal miner in North Country)--get nods here, along with Rachel Weisz, an actress usually regarded as lightweight, who scores with a serious turn in The Constant Gardener. But the Academy loves recognizing young, upcoming talent in the supporting categories, and this year there are two such nominees: the charming Amy Adams for Junebug and and the seething Michelle Williams for Brokeback Mountain. Williams' performance as the wife of Heath Ledger's closeted sheepherder is all balled fist, contained rage, and, ultimately, detonation. As much hype as her co-stars have received, she gives the best performance in the movie--not what you'd have figures from a Dawson's Creek alum, right? She's my pick here.

Best Supporting Actor. Paul Giamatti got screwed last year when he didn't get nominated for Sideways, so his nod here for Cinderella Man is a do-over for the Academy, but that's about all. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance in Brokeback Mountain is more of a co-lead than a supporting one, but it's not as acclaimed as Ledger's, since he does a more convincing job of aging 20 years than Jake does. William Hurt? Already has an Oscar. That leaves Matt Dillon as a racist L.A. cop in Crash and George Clooney as a CIA operative hung out to dry by his handlers in Syriana. Hollywood loves a comeback story, even though Dillon isn't making a comeback so much as landing his first prominent role in a while, but they love it more when one of their most-popular stars scruffs it up, stops shaving and puts on weight for a role as Clooney did for Syriana. Of his three nominations this year, Clooney is most likely to win in this category.

Best Actress. Three of the five nominees in this category are playing characters based on real life: Charlize Theron (North Country), Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), and Dame Judi Dench (Mrs. Henderson Presents). and three of the nominees are not usually regarded as "serious" actresses, but "funny" or "diverting": Keira Knightley (Pride and Prejudice), Felicity Huffman (Transamerica), and Witherspoon. Dench already has an Oscar, as does Theron. Knightley is the youngest of the bunch and might have had a chance had she been nominated, against all reason, in the Best Supporting Actress category--it wouldn't have been the first time a newbie giving a lead performance had been dumped into the Supporting category--so she's got plenty of time to get nominated again. Huffman's complicated performance--a woman playing a man trying to become a woman--has already won awards, but so has Witherspoon's turn as conflicted singer June Carter, so it's virtually a tossup. Witherspoon, however, is usally cast as a light romantic comedy lead, and busts out of that big-time here while doing her own singing, so the Academy might view her performance as more of a stretch and a revelation than the well-respected Huffman's work. Hard to choose, but I'm going with Witherspoon.

Best Actor. As with the Best Actress Categoy, Best Actor features three stars playing real people: Philip Seymour Hoffman as writer Truman Capote in Capote, Joaquin Phoenix as singer Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, and David Strathairn as journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck. It's also very cool to have three actors generally regarded as supporting players--Hoffman, Strathairn and Terrence Howard (as a rapping pimp in Hustle and Flow)--get nominated for lead roles. Ledger isn't a typical nominee, either, since he's usually dismissed as a pretty-boy "star." (The brooding Phoenix is more the Academy's style.) Strathairn does a dead-on impersonation, which in some years might be enough, but not when placed against other dead-on impersonations in the same category. Phoenix gets Cash's cadence, body language and singing down well, but may suffer in comparison to Witherspoon because his performance isn't nearly as much of a revelation as hers is. Howard's nomination was something of a surprise, given how long ago Hustle and Flow opened (the Academy has a notoriously short memory), so the nomination will likely have to be his award. That leaves Hoffman and Ledger--both playing gay characters--but Hoffman appears in nearly every scene of Capote and thoroughly dominates, so I think he'll get the Best Actor nod. (And wouldn't it be kinda cool if Best Actor and Actress were Hoffman and Huffman, at least from an alliterative perspective? Yes, it would.)

Best Picture. Most years, the winner of Best Director tips off the winner of Best Picture, which would mean Brokeback Mountain would take this category. This year? I'm not so sure. I don't think the reality-based nominees--Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck, or Munich--will resonate as much with the Academy as Brokeback Mountain and Crash, both of which touch on hot-button issues (sexual repression, both societal and personal, and racial tensions, respectively). It really depends on which one the Academy feels hits its hot button harder, and perhaps on whether the Academy wants to reward an intensely personal story or a broader tapestry performed by an ensemble cast, any of whom could have been nominated along with Dillon. I think they'll lean toward the latter, and Crash will take Best Picture.

Well, those are my choices; your mileage may vary. Have fun mocking inappropriate star/starlet styles, painfully long acceptance speeches and Jon Stewart. Me? I'm a creature of the night for now, so I'll be taping. It's really the best way to watch the Academy Awards broadcast--you can catch the highlights you want and fast-forward through all the padding (which accounts for, like, ninety percent of the show). And if I blow my predictions yet again, I can end the pain with the press of a button on my remote. Wish everything in life worked that way.

And the Oscar Goes to...(2005 Edition)

Last year, my office didn't have an Oscar pool, so I listed my picks for the Academy Awards here. And since that went so bloody fucking well (I was right on exactly two of my choices), why not embarrass myself again this year?

Got your scorecards out? Then let us begin.

Best Director. Alexander Payne scored a nice little hit with his wine-swillin' dramedy, Sideways, and the movie might take home an Oscar or two. It won't be in this category, though. Not with a couple of 500-pound gorillas named Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese taking up space here. (Taylor Hackford? Mike Leigh? Sorry, gentlemen. Love you both, butÉno.) Eastwood already has a Best Director statue for Unforgiven, but his Million Dollar Baby was perhaps the best-reviewed movie of 2004, despite controversy over its ending. And no, I'm not going to be a flaming hemorrhoidal asshole like Michael Medved and reveal the ending here. (You may or may not agree with the decisions the characters make, but revealing the ending? That's just wrong.) However--and it amazes me every time I say this--Scorsese has never won for Best Director. Never. The Aviator may not be his best film--it might not even be his fifth best film--but the time has come to right this wrong. Hasn't it? Give Martin the damn statue.

Best Supporting Actress. The Supporting categories are usually the most interesting, since they're usually a mixed bag of reliable veterans (Cate Blanchett, Laura Linney), hot young thangs making a mark (Natalie Portman), comeback kids (Virginia Madsen) and actors you've never heard of before and probably won't again (Sophie Okonedo). For a lot of them, the nomination will have to be the award, because they have no chance, like Okonedo and Linney. It's nice to see Portman do something other than imitate a mannequin, as she's done in each of the Star Wars prequels (and presumably will in the final installment later this year), but she won't be rewarded simply for not sucking. So it's down to Madsen for Sideways and Blanchett for The Aviator. I wouldn't be upset if Madsen won--I have longstanding lust for her, trueÑbut I really believe this round goes to Cate the Great, who got ripped off when she was nominated last (Gwyneth Paltrow? Really?), so she might get a makeup Oscar here.

Best Supporting Actor. We have a bunch of former sitcom stars this year--Alan Alda from "M*A*S*H," Thomas Hayden Church from "Wings" and Jamie Foxx from "The Jamie Foxx Show"--but none of them is likely to win, especially Foxx, since he's also nominated for Best Actor for Ray. (It's a shame the Academy nominated Foxx twice rather than give some other actor--David Carradine for Kill Bill, Vol. 2, maybe--a shot.) Clive Owen? I don't think so. That leaves Morgan Freeman (also a TV veteran from "The Electric Company"--anyone else remember that? No? Damn, I'm old.), who is both narrator and comedic foil to Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby, and performs with the same steady assurance he brings to every role, even in crappy movies.

Best Actress. In 1999, Annette Bening and Hilary Swank duked it out for the Best Actress Oscar, and Swank won for Boys Don't Cry. And that's how it should play out again this year, with Swank walking off with another little golden statue (manufactured right here in Chicago) for her (literally) muscular performance in Million Dollar Baby. Imelda Staunton? Catalina Sandino Moreno? Kate Winslet? Smile at the nice camera when the red light comes on, ladies. That's the closest you'll get to winning.

Best Actor. Johnny Depp was nominated last year, and I predicted that he would win. (Yes, I'm a dumbass.) Eastwood has never won an Oscar for his acting, and he probably won't here, especially since his performance owes tall props to Burgess Meredith's crusty turn in the Rocky movies. Then again, if Million Dollar Baby starts sweeping up awards in other categories, he might. (Then again, the Academy could have given his slot to Paul Giamatti for Sideways, since Giamatti's co-stars, Virginia Madsen and Thomas Hayden Church, were both nominated.) The same theory could apply to Leonardo DiCaprio: If The Aviator starts sweeping categories, he could grab the Best Actor Oscar. It's great that Don Cheadle, usually one of our most reliable supporting actors, got a lead nomination for Hotel Rwanda, but his chances here are outside at best. The winner? Jamie Foxx for Ray, proving again that comic actors can give dramatic performances with the best of 'em, and that the Academy loves stories of tortured geniuses and addiction (in this case, both).

Best Picture. Three biopics--The Aviator, Finding Neverland and Ray--versus heartbreaking drama--Million Dollar Baby--and observant comedy/drama--Sideways. Hollywood loves them some epic storytelling. The only thing close to an epic this year? The Aviator. Any movie that takes crazy-ass Howard Hughes and makes him remotely appealing deserves something.

Then again, given how my picks turned out last year--i.e., smelling like rotting meat--you might want to take the picks above and use them as a guide to what not to vote for. Just sayin'.

Oscar Hangover 2004

Y'know, it's a seriously good thing I didn't have money riding on Sunday night's Academy Awards when I made those predictions yesterday. Because if I'd put my money where my mouth was, there'd be no room in it for my foot.

Damn, but I fucked up those Oscar guesses.

I mean, I wasn't completely shut out--at least I got Best Director (Peter Jackson) and Best Picture (Lord of the Rings: Return of the King) right. And I did correctly guess that Sofia Coppola would take Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation, even if it wasn't one of the categories I was focusing on.

But all the acting categories? My predictions were quite versatile, really--they blew and sucked at the same time. Not one of them came true. Closest I came was Best Supporting Actor, where I flipped a coin and picked Alec Baldwin; had the 1964 silver quarter come up heads, I'd have chosen the winner, Tim Robbins.

It figures. The one year I veer from the norm and pick a whole leased dumptruck full of upsets, all the favored performers take their categories. And if I had to be wrong about Johnny Depp winning Best Actor, couldn't Bill Murray have won? Nope. Widely acclaimed thespian and widely acknowledged dicksmack Sean Penn had to take it. At least he showed up, which gave viewers a chance to see his wife, Robin Wright (Penn). The Princess Bride! Yay! Unfortunately, she was there with Dicksmack. Boo!

Ahem.

Well, even if my picks stank like the third week of a garbage strike, at least I was home for the festivities. No, I didn't eat the Reggio's pizza or drink the Red Dog--after an afternoon with JB and Sister Dee having drinks at Cesar's and dinner up the street at Thai Classic, I was already lit and full, thank you.

And my companions made certain that I'd be home in time to enjoy the telecast--as much as I could stand of it, anyway. It's always fun to see the fashions, both good--Angelina Jolie, usually gorgeous, was a goddess in white satin with hi-beams fully juiced--and bad--Uma Thurman proved that you can indeed make a dress out of mismatched kitchen curtains an hour before the show. But there was way too much Billy for me: too much Billy Bush, who annoyed every celeb he "interviewed" before the show (Angelina looked fit to go Lara Croft on his retarded ass); and too much Billy Crystal, who proved yet again that he's really not that funny. Or clever. Or even mildly amusing. And if I live to be 100 (unlikely, but stranger shit has happened--trust me, it has), I nevernevernevernever want to see Billy Crystal even close to naked again, much less naked three damn times. If America wants to go all Puritan and get pissed off about too much nipple showing, how 'bout a beatdown on Billy? Please?

But no. He went on. And on. And so did the show. Why can't they keep it down to three hours? Hell, if you cut all the jokes about how long the fucking show is, you'd probably lop off 20 minutes right there. Or, if the show really has to run nine hours, why not do it on a Saturday night, when most of us don't have to get up and go to jobs we hate the next morning? And can the presenters just present, instead of being forced into reading TelePrompTered-to-Death jokes that have been written and rewritten for months and still aren't the least bit giggle-inducing? As much as I enjoyed watching Liv Tyler put on her cute l'il horn-rimmed glasses, that time could better have been spent handing Annie Lennox her l'il gold statue that much sooner.

But as much as I bitch about the Oscarcast's epic length and monumental lack of humor, you know I'm going to watch it again next year. And you know you're going to as well.

And yeah, as much as I blew it this year, I'll make predictions again next year. Hey, it's a big mouth--there's enough room for both Size 11 1/2 feet in there.

And the Oscar Goes to...(2004 Edition)

Most years, the company I work for has an Oscar pool. (Actually, we have a pool for damn near everything--Oscars, NCAA, Super Bowl, Survivor...help us, we're sick.) This year, though, for whatever reason, there was no Oscar pool. Just as well--I couldn't afford to jump in and swim anyway.

That doesn't mean, however, that I don't have picks to make.

Best Director. I have to admit that I never understood this award. I mean, wouldn't the guy (and all but three of the nominees in the history of the Academy Awards have been guys, including this year's sole female nominee) who directed the Best Picture winner be Best Director by default? No? Okay. Fine, then. So why can't this category at least mirror the Best Picture nominees? Why nominate Fernando Meirelles for City of God when he clearly has no chance of winning? (Besides...wasn't City of God released in 2002? Are the Oscars becoming as ridiculous and elasic as the Grammys?) What, was Seabiscuit directed by the horse?

Anyway. Peter Weir doesn't stand much of a chance--Master and Commander: This Title Is Too Damn Long is a fine movie, I'm sure, but it didn't do so hot at the box office and didn't win much at the other award ceremonies leading up to the Oscars. Clint Eastwood is hugely respected in Hollywood, and Mystic River has been said to be his best directorial effort yet; he already has a statue, though (for Unforgiven), so he's not likely. Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation was the best movie I saw in 2003, but this is only her second feature (after her stunning debut, The Virgin Suicides) and she'll likely get rewarded with the Best Original Screenplay award.

So, that leaves...Peter Jackson. He won't be getting Best Director for Return of the King, but for all three Lord of the Rings movies, which are really one really long movie chopped in three.

Best Supporting Actress. The Supporting Actor categories are usually hard to predict, and some of the most pleasant surprises happen down here, with longtime actors getting their due (Sean Connery, Jack Palance or Judi Dencsh) or younger actors getting the official establishment seal of approval (Angeline Jolie, Jennifer Connelly). This year? Hard to say. Marcia Gay Harden, Patricia Clarkson and Holly Hunter are all respected veterans. But this is Renee Zellweger's third nomination in recent years, and Hollywood just seems to love Squinchy McPinchface. But Cold Mountain got a pretty cold shoulder from the Academy (no Best Picture, Best Director or Best Actress...sorry, Nicole) and Squinchy's young--she'll get nominated again.

So the winner? Will be Shohreh Aghdashloo for House of Sand and Fog. Why? Because this will probably be the only time she gets nominated, and her performance could wring tears from a stone.

Best Supporting Actor. This is where a veteran is more likely to be rewarded for perseverance. That Ken Watenabe got nominated at all for The Last Samurai, whose previews never failed to make me laugh (itty-bitty Tom Cruise in Samurai armor...snerk!), will have to be his award. Same for Djimon Hounsou for In America, though he could pull off an upset like I think Aghdashloo will for Best Supporting Actress. And Benicio Del Toro already has one of these. So I think it comes down to Tim Robbins and Alec Baldwin. Robbins has been consistently good throughout his career--and vocally liberal. Will that hurt him in an America shifting significantly to the right? Or will his performance push those thoughts out of voters' heads? Alec Baldwin has always been underappreciated as an actor, perhaps because he's made some shitty choices in his career (I mean...The Shadow? The Cat in the Hat? The hell?) along with the good ones. And his now-former wife, Kim Basinger, has an Oscar that most reasonable people think she should give back. Flipping a coin now...

The silver 1964 quarter says...Alec Baldwin.

Best Actress. Naomi Watts? No Chance. Samantha Morton? Sorry. Keisha Castle-Hughes? You're kidding, right? Diane Keaton? Hmmm...intriguing. But unlikely, especially since she won for Annie Hall more than a quarter century ago. Charlize Theron hit all the notes the Academy loves in her performance in Monster--she shook off her glamour and beauty, gained weight, hid herself under repugnant makeup and sank so deeply into the role of serial killer Aileen Wuornos as to be entirely unrecognizable. Just the pictures of her scare the shit out of me. But some Academy members might kick back against the verdicts of some critics, like Chicago-based Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper (who many have told me I resemble--please stop), who've declared the performance one of the best in the history of cinema. Which gives Keaton a chance. And wouldn't it be nice for a female comedic performance to get one of the top awards, since they so rarely do? Yes, it would.

Still, it's Theron's to lose...and she will. To Keaton.

Best Actor. Ben Kingsley won this one 20 years ago. Jude Law is an Academy fave, but Cold Mountain will likely get shut out (unless Zellweger snags Best Supporting Actress). And the big buzz is going to Sean Penn for Mystic River and Bill Murray for Lost in Translation. Penn is acknowledged as the best actor of his generation--and as a world-class dick. Murray has a prickly reputation, too (and no, it's not just Lucy Liu who thinks he's hard to work with), but his subtle, sweet performance here deserves the top award. I hope he gets it. I really do.

But because both he and Penn are both so heavily favored, I think they'll split the vote and allow Johnny Depp to slip past and take the Oscar. No, his performance in Pirates of the Caribbean: This Title's Too Damn Long, Too wasn't the best of the year, or even of his career. But his turn as Jack Sparrow ("That's Captain Jack Sparrow), a cross between Hunter S. Thompson and a particularly soused Keith Richards, elevated Pirates from likeable diversion to excellent entertainment. Sure, Depp should have been nominated before now--for Edward Scissorhands or What's Eating Gilbert Grape or Ed Wood or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas--but he'll win for Pirates of the Caribbean.

Best Picture. My thinking here is along the same lines as my reasoning for Best Director: Peter Jackson will win for the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy, not just Return of the King. I'd love for Lost in Translation to win here, but...the One Ring will rule them all.

So now it's time for me to settle in with a Reggio's pizza on the plate before me, two or three or five Red Dogs in the fridge and Ms. Christopher curled up at my feet--time for me to see just how far out of my ass my predictions are.

Oh...and Happy Leap Day, one and all.