Totally Unreasonable, Completely Legitimate Oscar Predictions

The following are the exact predictions I submitted to the LAMB Oscar Contest, which is to say that if I get these all right no one is beating me which is to say this predictions list is a most dangerous molotov cocktail of makes-absolutely-no-sense-unless-you’re-on-my-brainwave. Here goes.

Best Picture: The Help. (Reader: ”Wait, I thought you hated ‘The Help?’” Me: ”I did.” Reader: ”Then why are you picking it to win?” Me: ”For the same reason I picked Crash to win in 2006 – namely, The Hollywood Idiot Factor. Never underestimate The Hollywood Idiot Factor.”)

Best Director: Terrence Malick, The Tree Of Life. Just so when the presenter says “Unfortunately, Mr. Malick couldn’t be here tonight” Sean Penn can invade the stage and then rant and rave about how that “delicate genius” cut all his best stuff.

Best Actor: Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Isn’t it fun just to imagine the thunderous applause that would likely greet a miracle Oldman victory? (Though I must admit that having finally seen A Better Life a little bit of me is also rooting for Demián Bichir.)

Best Actress: Rooney Mara, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. If Meryl wins I hope Rooney sideswipes her onstage with a motorcyle and then……I’ll just stop right there.

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners. This film deserves something, dammit, and Plummer deserves this award alone for the shot of him sitting alone at the gay bar with the martini. More devastating than the end of Melancholia.

Best Supporting Actress: Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs. I wanted to leave this category blank in protest of Shailene Woodley not being nominated for The Descendants but was unable to do so. Therefore I selected McTeer based on the fact she seems least likely to win and stipulated in the “talk trash” portion of the entry form that if by some miracle McTeer does win I do not – repeat, do not - want my point for McTeer counted. And I will hold the LAMB to that, guaranteed, even if by some even larger miracle it’s the difference between victory and defeat. They’re called principles, people. Try having some.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash for The Descendants, in the hope that Jim Rash will accept his award in full-on Dean Pelton of Community garb. “Hidy-ho, my Academy homeys! Can I get a what-what?!”

Best Original Screenplay: Since Jannicke Systad Jacobson wasn’t nominated for Turn Me On, Dammit! (quintuple as if) and since Mike Mills wasn’t nominated for Beginners and since Diablo Cody wasn’t nominated for Young Adult then I suppose I most want Asghar Farhadi to win for A Separation.

Best Animated Film: Rango. Any animated film that borrows part of its plot from Chinatown can’t be all bad.

Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation. I mean, they can’t screw this one up. Can they? They can? Gulp.

Best Documentary (Feature): Undefeated. It’s currently unavailable in my Netflix queue. The more Netflix doesn’t want me to see it, the more I suspect it must be stellar.

Best Documentary (Short Subject): The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom. I think this is the one I’d most like to see.

Best Short Film (Animation): A Morning Stroll. Because it sorta looks awesome.

Best Short Film (Live Action): Pentecost. Because I saw it and I really, really dug it.

Best Cinematography: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Because for all the manufactured gloss, Jeff Cronenweth’s camera still manages to find many wonderful, intimate, character-driven moments.

Best Art Direction: Midnight in Paris. Anne Seibel and Helene Dubreuil re-created the freaking Jazz Age with a romantic’s eye.

Best Film Editing: Christopher Tellefsen for Moneyball. A film that is essentially driven by information recitation never feels slack or confusing, and Mr. Tellefsen is huge reason why.

Best Costume Design: Sandy Powell for Hugo. Because, as I noted last year, when she won this award two years ago, she dedicated her Oscar “to the costume designers that don’t do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals. The designers that do the contemporary films and the low-budget ones actually don’t get as recognized as they should, and they work as hard.” Precisely. Which is why the Nick Prigge Costume Design Of The Year goes to Aileen Alvarez-Diana for Another Earth because no one bit of costuming from all of 2011 will stay in my mind as long as Brit Marling’s hoodie.

Best Music (Original Song): Don’t even get me started on this horse’s ass of a category. I’ll take….yawn…..uh…..let’s see…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……

—At this point Nick fell asleep and simply let his fingers do the predicting for him.

Best Music (Original Song): Man or Muppet.

Best Music (Original Score): Ludovic Bource for The Artist.

Best Makeup: Albert Nobbs.

Best Sound Editing: Drive.

Best Sound Mixing: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

AGREE? DISAGREE? VEXED BY MY INSANITY? SOUND OFF BELOW!