Legally Mandated Oscar Predictions

Time, an old saying goes, is a flat smack to the face, evoking how everything we have done or will ever do is bound to circle back around and thwack us flush across the cheek; take that, you cockeyed optimist. Indeed, if it only seems as if Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars just happened, nope, sorry, that was nearly a whole year ago and now we have returned to the scene of the smack. Will Smith has not returned, of course, banned from the Oscars when the eternally spineless International Olympic Committee still cannot even bring itself to ban Russia. And while I’d like to think the Academy might enlist Mr. Rock to present the Best Actor award on Will Smith’s “behalf,” that’s too much rocking the boat, and I don’t want these Oscars to rock the boat, not one bit. Enough with trying to reinvent the Oscar wheel, do you hear me? I want these Oscars to be the wheel; specifically, the wheel from a 1955 Chevy Bel Air. I want Jimmy Kimmel’s crack about the smack to be strictly milquetoast. I want these Oscars to be stately, stuffy, and absolutely interminable. 

On with the predictions I am legally mandated by movie blogging code to make.

What I wouldn’t give for a Billy Crystal opening monologue that begins with him taking some Babylon-style elephant poop to the face.

Legally Mandated Oscar Predictions

Best Picture: “The Fabelmans” would be a win for The Movies™; “Top Gun: Maverick” would be a win for Movie Theaters; “All Quiet on the Western Front” would be a win for movie promotion; “Elvis” would be a win for Auteur Theory; “Tár” would be a win for Message Board Theorists; “Triangle of Sadness” would be a win for the Marxist crazies; “Avatar: Way of Water” would be a win for the whales being killed by wind farms; “Women Talking” would be a win for so many Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus comedians still trying to carve out careers (“So, did you see ‘Women Talking’ won Best Picture? You know, I get enough of women talking-” [throws up in mouth]); “The Banshees of Inisherin” would be a win for Kirsten Dunst of “Melancholia”; “Everything Everywhere All at Once” would be a win for Charlotte Gainsbourg of “Melancholia.” 

Best Director: Thought for sure this would be an unofficial career achievement Oscar for Steven Spielberg, like Meryl Streep winning for “The Iron Lady” or Ingrid Bergman winning for “Muder on the Orient Express.” As those go to show, however, it’s customary to win your unofficial career achievement Oscar for something a little more trifling and “The Fabelmans” is too good. So, no, if the tea leaves are to be believed, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert will win this year for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Spielberg can win once more a few years down the line for making a movie about Andy Williams building the Moon River Theatre in Branson. 

Bless this mess.

Best Actress: I know Hollywood is in a rush to induct Cate Blanchett into the Three-Timers Club, but she’s 53. She’s got plenty of time. Can’t we give Michelle Yeoh one right now? Anyway, if/when Cate wins, I hope she sees through the Andrea Riseborough meme/grassroots campaign by calling Riseborough up to the stage and giving her the Academy Award instead so we can get a bunch of Tweet threads and op eds about live action cronyism and see through the dream I’ve had for this category since the Riseborough brou-ha-ha began and have it conclude with two Best Actress Oscars a la the two-Gold Medal 2002 Winter Olympics Pairs Figure Skating event, nay, hullabaloo.

Best Actor: Colin Farrell’s biggest hurdle to overcome in this race is his own native Irish brogue, having used it, naturally, in “The Banshees of Inisherin” whereas native Californian Austin Butler not only adopted a southern accent to play “Elvis,” but has carried that accent right through awards season, demonstrating as much commitment to campaigning as the part, which I can only assume will put him over the top. I, for one, hope Butler gets so stuck in the accent that it accidentally becomes his permanent voice, so he winds up making a middling thriller about a Queens detective speaking like Elvis.

Best Supporting Actress: Though my Tinseltown sources are telling me the Archbishop of Canterbury will be on hand to present this award for Queen Angela Bassett’s long overdue Hollywood coronation, it is hard not to notice that Jamie Lee Curtis is trying to sort of Melissa Leo her way into the conversation. I’d be more ok with it if Jamie Lee Curtis deserved a makeup Oscar for “A Fish Called Wanda,” except that “A Fish Called Wanda,” which I cherish, was released in 1988, the same year as “Married to the Mob,” for which Michelle Pfeiffer deserves a makeup Oscar even more. Can we get them both one next year? 

Best Supporting Actor: I’ll be happy for Ke Huy Quan when he wins for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” but if Hollywood turned its back on him for 30 years, I’ll be most interested to see if Hollywood considers giving him this Oscar as settling the bill and forgets about him all over again. Hope not!

Ehren Kruger showing up to accept his possible Oscar.

Best Adapted Screenplay: I don’t know, I just know we can’t give the man who wrote “Reindeer Games” an Oscar for writing.

Best Original Screenplay: The brewing “Everything Everywhere All at Once” bonanza is setting the evening up as a feel-good story, and fair enough, but we need a little gloom to balance it out. So, let’s at least give Martin McDonagh a Screenplay Oscar for “Banshees of Inisherin.” 

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Wait. I’m being informed that I did not, in fact, make Oscar predictions in my Oscar predictions post, failing to meet the legal requirement. I apologize. After consulting with the psychic on the corner who, in turn, consulted an Oscar spirit, my predictions for the major categories are as follows.

Me, consulting Oscar spirit.

Best Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Director: Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans

Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Actor: Austin Butler, Elvis

Best Supporting Actress: Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Supporting Actor: Don’t be stupid, spirit advised, which I took to mean just pick Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Adapted Screenplay: Rian Johnson, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Best Original Screenplay: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once