Oscars are coming up, don’t forget. Shall we take another stab at looking at the trends in this year’s nominations and discussing what folks can expect at the ceremony? Arnab started us with a few ideas. He’s under the assumption that because Scorsese has never won he’s bound to win this year. Is he using projection data? That is, is there something built into this whole process that makes it more or less predictable? Or is this a guessing game? Take, for instance, the documentary short nominee “Autism is a World.” Although I have not seen the film, I am quite confident it will win because autism has been in the news a lot lately. A cause celbre. Another example: I think Thomas Haden Church will win for best supporting actor. Although I saw “Sideways” and liked his performance very much, I am instead basing my prediction on the fact that Paul Giamatti didn’t get the nomination for best actor. The Academy likes to try and clean up after itself as much as possible by offering “concession” awards, so the nod will go to Church. Does the Academy try to distinguish itself from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? If that’s what you think, you probably expect that Hilary Swank will not win Best Actress, and that Jamie Foxx will not win Best Actor. Any thoughts? Any timeless trends worth pointing out? Joan Rivers scares me.
current online odds for the major categories: odds are based on multiples of 100. -500 means you must bet $500 to win $100, +500 means you win $500 for a $100 bet. look at the ridiculous odds for Jamie Foxx; now’s the time for a longshot like Johnny Depp (25 to 1 !!)?? but who the hell saw that? but when you consider the academy’s proclivities, how can you really bet against a blind recently dead black man, who just got the pious kiss of death from the Grammy’s? Ray, you sharpie! calculatedly participating in an uplifting bio film right before death and making a duet album with a bunch of current hot names! how can the oscars resist such a combination of uplift and cunning? the only thing better is a holocaust movie by steven spielberg….which I guess is covered.
Best Actor In A Leading Role
Jamie Foxx (Ray) -1429
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator) +800
Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) +2000
Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) +2500
Johnny Depp (Finding Neverland) +2500
Actress In A Supporting Role
Cate Blanchett (The Aviator) -303
Virginia Madsen (Sideways) +350
Natalie Portman (Closer) +600
Laura Linney (Kinsey) +2000
Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda) +2500
Best Directing
The Aviator -143
Million Dollar Baby +115
Vera Drake +2000
Sideways +3300
Ray +4000
Best Animated Feature Film
The Incredibles -1429
Shrek 2 +750
Shark Tale +1600
Foreign Language Film
The Sea Inside -400
The Chorus +500
Downfall +750
Yesterday +1100
As It Is In Heaven +1400
i like to base my oscar picks, as john suggests, on narratives that divulge my yearning for coherence. these are the fragments i shore against the age’s ruins (ooh! that screening exam reading list finally came in handy!). and so i like to believe that martin scorcese will be rewarded one day for once making good movies (and also for selling out his integrity and helping rehabilitate elia kazan). and as many have pointed out, he does hire a lot of people in these blockbuster movies he makes these days, which translates into more votes. and i don’t think eastwood will win a second directing oscar–my theory is that actor-directors can only win one directing oscar (though i admit i came up with this to explain costner being cheated out of his statuette for “il postino”). the question is whether scorcese has suffered enough through getting nominated and not winning–and i think he may have. thus i believe the academy will do one of their rare splitting of the difference acts this year. scorcese gets “best director”, eastwood gets “best movie”–let’s face it, movies about pervs don’t beat movies about suffering cripples. “ray” does have an outside shot at a huge upset but i doubt it.
the best actress category is strange this year because there is nobody the academy is dying to reward: benning is a possibility but she’s not the academy’s sweetheart and was in a movie no one’s seen or heard of; swank’s won before; blanchett is australian and kind of hot; staunton is old and ugly but british; i thought winslet was from new zealand, which means she’s australian (even though she’s really english). i predict that the australians cancel each other out. this leaves swank, staunton and benning. swank has the suffering cripple thing going for her; staunton has the british trump card (makes the voters look “cultural”); all benning has going for her is that she’s all-american and married to warren beatty (though this may work against her). i think it will come down to swank vs. staunton and that swank will pull it out–staunton will pull the fernanda montenegro face from when she lost “best actress” to gwyneth paltrow’s wandering accent in “shakespeare in love”. (michael, what are the odds in this category?)
best actor: foxx has this in the bag, though cheadle makes a strong case by doing an accent in a feel-good movie about a genocide americans didn’t really care about and still can’t find on a map–there is some potential for guilt-assuagement here (on the other hand, this can be taken care of via best supporting actress). however, as michael points out ray charles got with the program and took one for the team last year and there’s no way foxx can lose. also, i think cheadle’s insufferable nfl ads will play against him.
john, your case for “autism is a world” in documentary short subject is persuasive. however, let me read you the description of “mighty times: the children’s march” from oscar.com: ” In 1963, a group of children in Birmingham, Alabama faced police dogs, fire hoses, and the threat of arrest to challenge segregation in their city”. would you like to re-consider? their toughest competition will be “the children of leningradsky”, who we’re told “survive by begging and lead a desperate, marginal existence” in “in the Moscow subway”. what is this? glasnost? russian kids can’t beat civil rights kids.
oddly enough, arnab, the online betting site I consulted does not provide odds or betting opportunities on the “best actress” category, perhaps because there is no clear favorite and more chances for the “bookies” to pay out larger winnings on some dark horse like winslet or benning. by the way, would it be absurd to suggest that Uma Thurman deserved something for her remarkable physical performance in the Kill Bill movies, the first of which is a masterpiece and the second of which has its strong points? I mean could we leave some of the british/ commonwealth actors alone once in a while. ACTING! as jon lovitz says. i suspect, too, that Swank will win–the academy is looking for another multi-award winner like hepburn and she has the same cheekbones. and..er, Blanchett hot? i’ll take benning–she reminds me of Gloria Graham in The Big Heat–hubba hubba! also overlooked: Parkey Posey in Blade:Trinity playing a vampire Ziggy Stardust; David Hasselhoff in Spongebob Squarepants.
Hey, Bening does look like Gloria Grahame.
I think Nicholson has this locked, yet again. The Academy loves his bad-boy lifestyle and his raw humanity on film; and, can I admit this here, so do I, my friends, so do I. It’s Nicholson. I think he’ll take both best actor and best actress, because he’s never won the latter–hell, never even been nominated–and I buy Arnab’s argument that not winning is a surefire way to eventually win.
Best supporting actor is a toss-up between Peter Sarsgaard and some other guy. I think the other guy will win.
I don’t think there were any supporting actresses this year. By my count, there were only like 7 or 8 women in any films at all. Total. Just not a good year for the women.
Screenplay: statistical analysis has shown that–repeatedly, year after year–the Academy votes for the screenplay with the fewest adverbs. You do the math.
I can’t wait to see the gowns!
I’m sure everyone has laughed out loud at this at least twice but I had to post it:
The Unofficial 2005 Oscars Drinking Game.
It’s one drink per infraction, except as noted:
• Every Michael Moore and/or Mel Gibson reference.
• Every Brad/Jennifer/Angelina reference.
• Every poor schlub who, just as he is about to get his chance to say thank you after the first guy droned on for a minute, doesn’t even get a second at the microphone before the band drowns him out.
• Every time someone mentions how wonderful The Movies are as an institution.
• Every male winner who thanks his wife for being “beautiful”, rather than intelligent, loyal or supportive.
• Every person named during the Necrology who you forgot was dead.
• If booing is audible when Reagan’s death is mentioned, chug, because we’ll have two weeks of conservative complaints to endure.
• Every losing nominee who pretends to look happy as someone else goes up to the stage.
• Every actor you spot with odd facial hair he has obviously grown for a current movie role.
• Every time ABC promotes ‘Desperate Housewives’ in some way.
• Every time Chris Rock mentions a black person, and then they cut to a shot of the first black person they find in the audience.
• Chug if during or immediately after the Counting Crows performance, they cut to one of Adam Duritz’s many ex-girlfriends.
• Chug when Chris Rock makes fun of any ABC programming.
• Every shot of or reference to the guys from Ernst & Young.
• The Mary Steenburgen Memorial Shot: Every presenter who’s announced as an Oscar nominee or winner and you can’t remember for what.
• Every time there’s an inexplicable cut to Jack Nicholson.
• Every shot of one of Rock’s former SNL castmates, but drink everything in the entire neighborhood if they show Rob Schneider.
• Drink if you can’t figure out a damn thing Prince says when presenting an award.
• Chug if Rock brings up Pootie Tang.