Here's Who Will Win The Oscars (And Why)

Here’s Who Will Win The Oscars (And Why)

As predicted in the previous installment of Mr. Wrong, here are my Oscar® picks. I am showing clips of my picks on the New York Times thing they have for Oscar® Picks, and I am not Plagiarizing the New York Times, OK? If you do the thing on the New York Times you could win an iPad, so go do that, and that explains why I have pictures of my picks from the New York Times here, it’s “Fair Use,” and I’m a Journalist, HAR.

I feel pretty good about my picks and I’m putting five bucks into my regular Oscar® pool, where everybody picks all the Oscar®s, even Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing, and Outstanding Best Thing That Sounds Like The Prize They Just Gave For Doing Stuff With Sound.

First up is Best Picture, which is Fargo, total lock. Hollywood LOVES IT LOVES IT LOVES IT when Hollywood makes a picture about how Hollywood Saved Somebody’s Life or Changed the World. I dunno why Ben Affleck, who directed this, didn’t get a chance at the Director prize, but sometimes when a movie is good, it’s not the Director’s fault, right?

Speaking of Best Directoring, I’m going with Ang Lee, even though he managed to make that shitty The Hulk movie. I think the average Member of the Academy — who I described here while giving proper attribution and not plagiarizing — saw that Life of Pi thing and thought, hey, this guy made an OK movie with just a kid and a fake tiger in a boat, so he’s a better director than all these other directors with sets and actors and stuff. No, I didn’t see Life of Pi, and neither did a lotta Members of The Academy.

Best Actor is Bradley Cooper. No offense, but I don’t like Bradley Cooper. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because of this interview but whatever, I have five bucks riding on this, so I need to stay professional, and he’s the guy who has all the action for this Silver Linings Playbook, which I didn’t see (I usually go to the movies with my Special Lady, but for some reason she went to this one without me), but look who he’s against, Abe Lincoln talking in a high voice, Denzel Washington playing a drunk airplane driver, Joaquin Phoenix, who will never work in this town again, and Hugh Jackman, who sang. Cooper is a trustafarian-dreddy-lock for the win.

Outstanding Actress of Achievement is Jennifer Lawrence, because they already gave an Oscar to a little kid for The Piano and errbody is Highly Aware of child abuse these days, so nobody wants to screw the new kid up, the one in Beasts of the Southern Comfort or whatever (no, I didn’t see it). Naomi Watts might be the Best Actress Ever, but nobody wants this depressing movie, The Impossible, jeez. No, I didn’t see that one, who wants to see movies like that, about depressing shit? There is also Emmanuelle Riva in something called Amour, which I didn’t see because it sounded too foreign, I gotta be in a particular frame of mind to take in a Foreign Film, you know? Me seeing it, that’s The Impossible. Finally, Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, what did she do? She cried, that was the total of her acting in that film, otherwise it coulda been an episode of Law & Order: Zero Dark Thirty. Total teevee-cop procedural, no way. I’ll take side action on this one against her win, get your money up.

Supporting Actor is tough, because they have all won before, but I’m gonna say Seymour Hoffman because he’s in the movie about Science, and nobody likes that lately. I’m not saying shit about Scientology, man, those guys are litigious, you know? Hollywood likes to bite the hand that helps it, and Science-tology has helped a lot of Actors to become Super-Beings, so they are gonna take a poke at Scientists by giving an award for a Lesser Category. This is my theory. Otherwise it’s Tommy Lee Jones for being older-looking than everybody else. I might change my mind at the last minute on this one, or I might do two sheets, with this one being the difference and throw in an extra five bucks. Christoph Waltz already won an Oscar and everybody’s mad at Quentin Tarantino for too much N-Word and murdering too many people in movies so I don’t think he’s got a chance. Robert De Niro and Alan Arkin cancel each other out. That’s how Marisa Tomei won that time, a whole buncha other votes cancelled each other out, for Joan Plowright and Vanessa Redgrave.

Best Supporting Actress: I’m giving to Sally Field because she is old and the whole Hollywood wants to see her say “You like me” again before she croaks. I like this pick so much it’s my Holy Wed-lock of the Year. I didn’t see any of these movies, although I heard with Lincoln, every scene looks like a painting, so I wanna see that one.

Original Screenplay will not go to Zero Dark Thirty because how Original is it to do a copy of how we killed Osama Bin Laden®? It’s almost like plagiarism, seriously, nobody in Hollywood wants to go near that shit, that’s why none of those Hollywood people will read my ideas for movies, because they don’t want to think up the same idea and get sued by me. I think what’s gonna happen is some Members of the Academy are gonna feel like they need to show they “get it” and vote for Wes Anderson and Moonrise Kingdom, even though they either didn’t see it or wondered why somebody filmed a grade-school pageant, and there’s more fear about Quentin Tarantino so he doesn’t get it for Django Unchained, and Flight is just, like, an airplane movie, nothing special, and Amour is Foreign.

Adapted Screenplay is always funny because they almost always think during the Oscar® show they need to explain this shit to you. So that’s why Silver Linings Playbook will win, because it has the word BOOK in it, and that’s from what one adapts. Nothing else matters, game over.

Foreign Language Film is Amour, total and complete Master-lock on this because of all the other nominations. You’re a Member of the Academy and you’re voting and skipping it and skipping it, and then there it is, BEST FOREIGN, and that’s what Amour is, Foreign, so “OK,” says the Member of the Academy, “that makes sense, it’s a Foreign film!”

Animated Feature is gonna go to Brave because it is the closest thing to a real movie, that’s the whole point of Animated Feature, they are Pinocchio, and they all dream someday they will be a real movie.

Sound Editing: I’m gonna say Zero Dark Thirty because they open the film up with just sound, and even though there are Members of the Academy who know why a movie should win for best Sound Editing, most of ’em don’t, so they are just gonna pick the one where they remember some sound.

Visual Effects: This one always messes me up, I mean, it should be The Avengers or Prometheus, but nobody liked Prometheus and The Avengers is a comic book, so I’m going with Life of Pi and the fake tiger.

Film Editing took me a minute. First of all, everybody says Lincoln was like watching a painting, and it’s Historical, so that doesn’t sound like much editing. But it’s Spielberg, so maybe it’ll get a buncha votes as a way to say the only reason the movie is any good is because somebody snipped it, right? Life of Pi has no chance because it’s almost an animated movie, and so where’s the editing? Everything is mapped out, you know? Unless the fake tiger stuff counts? So then there’s Argo, Silver Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty, and I think somebody’s gonna want to give Zero something just so nobody will be mean and make Less Than Zero Oscar®-Prize Hurty jokes. Yeah, I’m not gonna get this one right.

Short Film, Animated is simple. I’m going for “Maggie Simpson in ‘The Longest Daycare’” like everybody else who didn’t see any of these, you just reach out for something recognizable and move on. Maggie Simpson is the cutest baby that never was.

Short Film, Live Action: I went for “Curfew,” because it was in the exact middle of the list. At this point in the voting you look at the list and go “Oh, man, I gotta vote for how many more things?” I think many of the Members of the Academy will employ my strategy. I’m really in their heads now, man, this year, I am totally winning this thing.

Documentary Short Subject: It’s gotta be “Redemption,” the one where people are collecting cans and bottles for the deposit. All the millionaires in Hollywood get to show they care, they love to give people their leftovers.

Original Score: Lincoln might get it because of John Williams, but it might also not get it because everybody’s sick of John Williams, but maybe John Williams is really old or dying or something, so it’s definitely a factor, but I think Anna Karenina gets it because the Academy wants people to keep making movie-movies like Anna Karenina. Argo had too much rock & roll in it for anybody to notice the score, and Skyfall is James Bond music, which at this point is like a kit, so you don’t get to win.

Original Song: I know everybody is saying it’s gonna be the James Bond one, but I’m going the other way with a song that is not so much just another iteration of a series, “ Before My Time” from Chasing Ice. Absolutely beautiful music for watching ice melt or whatever. This song is so good they could play it over the Dead Hollywood People montage, seriously. The Dead People thing, you may remember, is one of my Oscar® pool tiebreakers. You gotta pick the last person in the montage, and another tie breaker is you pick the running time of the montage without going over. I’m going Borgnine and two minutes and thirty seconds. Anyway, if I’m a Member of the Academy, I’m thinking a vote for this Ice song will save Polar Bears or get me a celebrity hot-tub meeting with Scarlett Jo-jo or something, right? The song from Ted sounds like a song from a musical, not a movie, it’s too Broadway. “Pi’s Lullaby” is beautiful, but it is sung in a foreign language, how are you gonna win without subtitles to explain the song? Maybe some voters are gonna go back and give Pi something for Best Score so nobody thinks they’re racist. I gotta re-evaluate Best Score, I think. The song “ Suddenly” from Les Misérables is from the Broadway show? So how Original is that? And if it’s not from the show, what was the matter with the stuff from the show? Why is it Suddenly in the movie? See the logic here?

Production Design: I saw that Hobbit picture, and they used some sorta super-duper camera or something and it was too good, there was too much detail and it made everything look like Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. Of course it’s all fake and fantastical and stuff in Hobbitstinia or wherever, but too much stuff ended up looking like it was made of plastic, so they don’t win, no matter how designery the design was. I don’t understand set decoration for a movie that’s mostly green-screen, so I’m gonna say Life of Pi doesn’t win this one so it’s either Anna Karenina or Les Misérables or Lincoln, which means Russia and France cancel each other out and the Academy goes American. Plus I heard that all the scenes in Lincoln look like paintings, did I say that already?

Cinematography: Lincoln, because all the scenes in it look like a painting. Plus, Janusz Kaminski has the most foreign-sounding name, and in Cinematography that’s usually what you need for the win.

Costume Design: I think Colleen Atwood gets this for all the crazy modern-looking stuff Charlize Theron wears in Snow White and the Huntsman. Mirror Mirror got in there because the Academy got it confused with the Snow White flick, but basically this boils down to Charlize Theron vs. Julia Roberts in fashion, and unless Julia is wearing a gown made out of her own teeth, she’s gonna lose. All the other historic-looking movies cancel each other out, Lincoln, Russia, France.

Makeup: For this one they should have a disclaimer about how it’s not who has the most makeup, otherwise it would always be a Planet of The Apes movie. I’m going with Hitchcock because it’s makeup-makeup, not making Hobbit faces or people who basically just need to wash their goddamn face. Acting!

Documentary Feature: I’m sticking with my standard play here: If I have heard of ANY title for Best Documentary, if I see ANYTHING that looks familiar, that’s the one I vote for, so I got Searching for Sugar Man because I heard that someplace on the Internet.

Sound Mixing: This is the one they usually give away with Sound Editing because nobody knows the difference, even after they explain it, and I’m usually well into the third pitcher of Oscaritas® at that point of my Oscar® party, so I never learn. What almost always happens is the same movie wins both, because, well, nobody knows the difference, so I’m maybe going with whoever I went with for Sound Editing, or Lincoln because I heard every scene sounds just like a painting.

Previously: It’s Never Too Early To Start Screwing Up Your Oscar Picks

Mr. Wrong can converse with you via many medias.