Being a movie lover naturally I watch the Oscars. At least I used to. After a certain number of dragged out shows I started to realize for me this Oscar stuff was all pretty pointless. It rarely had any kind of significance for me personally as what was chosen as the Best Picture of the year or who got honored with a golden statue that proclaimed them the best of the year.
I started to view it more as popularity contest and had less and less to do with any historic significance within the world of film. You can just look back at all the head-scratcher winners of Oscars past and see what films and performances they beat out. The strangest ones are the films that seemed to mark a real turning point in cinema and have since become extremely influential and remembered. But they lost the Oscar for a more popular choice at the time.
I’m not going to go into all that, let’s just say I’ve leaned towards the Woody Allen and George C. Scott camps as to how I feel about the big show. It’s a great program to watch if you want to see all the glamorous dresses and hairstyles on the actress (and read about them for the next month in magazines and those “entertainment” shows….other than that I don’t much care.
In any event being a film lover every year I get requests from friends and family to fill out their Oscar pool ballots. I try to explain I don’t really have any inside leads and they would be better off reading the local film critic for his predictions, but they insist and I end up with an Oscar ballot in my hand.
Up front I have no idea who’s going to win or follow any logic to the Academy’s train of thoughts. Every year that’s what Oscar fans do. My favorite one of these is how if the person won an Oscar recently they’re not going to win again (except if your name is Tom Hanks).
This one always seems completely nonsensical to me. If the actor or actress gave the best performance of the year shouldn’t they simply win, whether they won last year or not??? If a previous win hurts their chances and they’re just there to fill a nomination slot, then why bother nominating them in the first place?
If it were me, I wouldn’t care if they win every single year I would still vote for them if I thought they gave the best whatever every year. Apparently the Academy doesn’t do that though, they like to spread the accolades around. Maybe they should just establish a rule that you can’t be eligible for nomination until three years have passed since your last win. Then that would eliminate this problem and open up that slot for someone people might actually vote for and has a chance of winning.
Yeah, I know. It’s an honor just to be nominated.
Anyway, here’s my list of predictions for the winners that I’ve been telling folks to fill out in their office Oscar pools without having seen most of these films!
Best Picture –The Artist
Everyone seems to really like this film and I’ve read a lot about it. I’m sure Billy Crystal will do a funny silent film comedy bit around it. Will we be seeing an influx of silent black and white films now? No. I kind of look at it as gimmick film and a one time only shot, but everyone seems to really like it. I’m still looking forward to seeing it.
The Best Picture nominees is the most goofed up category since they now nominate ten films for Best Picture. This was said to give more films opportunities to win, but really who are they kidding? This was all due to the outcry that the The Dark Knight fallout of not being nominated that year and movie fans being pissed.
Because of this Best Picture expansion Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close– a film I have not seen one good review for – made it onto this list. Apparently everything Tom Hanks touches does turn to gold. Don’t be fooled the majority of the films that fill out the nominated list don’t have a chance and are just there for show.
Best Director – Michel Hazanavicius. He directed the best picture so he’ll win it. These wins usually go hand in hand.
Best Actor – George Clooney
Hollywood really likes him. Since the ‘Facts of Life’ he’s done some pretty good work. So good in fact he’s almost managed to erase the memories of Batman and Robin.
Hopefully Clooney’s squeeze Stacy Keibler will be wearing something really hot so at least there will be something to keep my attention during the show. Yes, I can get wrapped up in all this fashion crap too! Just as long as there’s a lot of leg and cleavage on display, the dress will get a thumbs up from me.
Best Actress – Viola Davis
The Help is a respected movie and from what I’ve heard one of the best things about it was Davis’ performance. Her closest competition is Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, but no one has been too excited about that film. And besides Streep has won twice already (STRIKE TWO!), plus she’s nominated like every year – even when she doesn’t do a film (STRIKE THREE)!
Michelle Williams will be happy to be nominated in a film that wasn’t that good, but she did a decent job at channeling Marilyn Monroe. BTW everytime I see a picture of Glenn Close in Albert Noobs I always think she looks like she’s playing Stan Laurel.
Best Supporting Actor – Christopher Plummer
Plummer has consistently been great throughout his career and this slot is to honor actors who have managed to stick around. His closest competition is Max Von Sydow.
But since that was for the supbar film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close AND people like The Sound of Music so much, Plummer wins! Besides I thought he should have won in 1999 for The Insider.
Best Supporting Actress – Octavia Spencer
Again, The Help won’t need any ‘help’ in these categories! (that’s my feeble attempt at that corny Oscar night humor we’re treated to by reporters)
Original and Adapted Screenplays will be Midnight in Paris (the Academy loves Woody, even if he doesn’t really reciprocate that affection) and The Descendents.
The rest of the categories are sort of a grab bag and let’s be honest the newspapers the next day won’t exactly be filling headlines with the winner of Sound Mixing. But the majority of wins will be split between The Artist and Hugo.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes will probably win for Visual Effects and the Muppets will win for best song. It shouldn’t be too hard considering there are only two nominees in that category. How did that happen? Wasn’t there any other songs in any more movies last year??? Even bad ones, just throw them in there to make this race interesting for everyone!
Remember it’s an honor just to be nominated!
POSTSCRIPT:
February 27th 2012
I ended up getting a few of my predictions wrong, most notably Best Actor and Actress which went to Jean Dujardin for The Artist and Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady. Visual Effects also got snatched up by Hugo with all its other technical awards.
Despite some of my mistakes I still managed to tie for first in my Oscar pool. Not bad. I didn’t even manage to watch any of the show, but have heard I didn’t miss much.
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