Countdown to the Oscars: Bizarro Oscar Predictions

While everyone and their next door neighbor is predicting who will win this Sunday's Oscar hardware Cinema Romantico has decided to attack it from a different angle - that is, who's least likely to win in each major Oscar category. Who's nomination was merely the syrup on top of the pancakes? (Huh?) Who's sitting down on Oscar night with no speech planned, just waiting for the bubbly to pop once the Best Picture has been crowned? After all, we know who's winning anyway. If you're looking to go zero-for-everything at your Oscar party just stick to the script below. Let's get to it.

Best Picture: "District Nine." I'm reasonably certain most Oscar voters thought the name of this particular movie being on the ballot was a wacky hoax.

Best Director: Jason Reitman for "Up in the Air". No one in Hollywood will admit it, of course, but one of my "inside sources" has advised me that Reitman was eliminated from contention on Day One because - and this is a direct quote - "we cannot knowingly reward the son of the man who directed 'Six Days, Seven Nights' for Best Direction."

Best Actor: Jeremy Renner for "The Hurt Locker". Renner is considered the most enormous longshot Best Actor candidate since Richard Farnsworth in "The Straight Story" who on the eve of the 2000 Academy Awards went off at odds of 720,737,245 to 1.

Best Actress: Helen Mirren for "The Last Station". Wait, what is she nominated for again? "The Last Station"? You're making that up, right? I don't think this movie actually exists. I think they just made a preview and poster to campaign for Oscars.

Best Supporting Actor: Matt Damon for "Invictus". I mean, really, how in the hell did he get nominated? I like Matt Damon - a lot - but this? What's really tragic is if anyone somehow upsets Christoph Waltz it would probably be Damon. But Damon winning his acting Oscar for this would be like if Al Pacino had won his for "Scent of a Woman" the same year Denzel Washington was nominated for "Malcolm X." (Wait. That happened.) Thus, I refuse to believe the movie gods would allow such a catastrophe.

In a related story, Anthony Mackie of "The Hurt Locker" is drunk somewhere in a bar.

Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick for "Up in the Air". When you consider Monique is running away with the thing and when you consider Vera Farmiga, also nominated for "Up in the Air", will split votes with Kendrick and when you consider Cinema Romantico is firmly in the Kendrick Camp and therefore totally jinxing her, well, sorry, Anna, but no one stands less of a chance than you do. Just make sure you have a good time. Soak up the experience. Drink the most expensive scotch at the after party. You deserve it.

Best Original Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen for "A Serious Man". True story: I actually sat next to an Academy voter when I watched this and the look on his face during the scene when the Chief Rabbi sings "Somebody To Love" was the exact same look I had on my face during the pod race in "The Phantom Menace".

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche for "In The Loop. It's really quite simple: a screenplay this good can't possibly win.