The Academy Awards

Reporting virtually live from Los Angeles*, Alas Yorick can feel the electricity in the air, as Hollywood begins its annual orgy of self-congratulatory award-giving known as the Oscars. The red carpet is ... well, actually it's still kind of early, so no red carpet yet. But we can still make some predictions, although I should point out that the predictions will be made a bit more difficult by the fact that I have seen very very few of these movies. I'll note which ones I've seen as I go along.

Let's see, Best Picture. Hmm, won't be "The Queen," nobody's interested in giving awards to movies about flamboyant gays, I mean "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" didn't win, did it? "Babel" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" -- what's with all this foreign stuff? "The Departed" is about dead people or something? No way. So I predict "Little Miss Sunshine" -- coincidentally the only one of these movies I've seen.

Best Actor? Let's see, there's one androgynous wimp (Leonard DiCaprio), he won't win. Forrest Whitaker and Will Smith will split the black vote so they won't win. Besides, what is Whitaker doing in a movie about Scotland? Animals never win Oscars, so Ryan Gosling is out of luck. Guess that leaves Peter O'Toole -- plus, they owe him big time. You can bank on it.

Best Actress? They won't give it to Meryl Streep because she was in a movie about Satan worship, far as I can tell. Penelope Cruz is hot, but she speaks a foreign language in a foreign language movie, so she might as well stay at home. Helen Mirren and Judi Dench will split the Old English Actress vote, so Kate Winslet, the only Young English Actress in this category, will win for being in some movie about kindergarteners.

Best Director? I'm kind of hazy on what directors do. Is is something to do with guiding traffic around the set? Sounds over-rated. Some Spanish dude won't win for "Babel," and what the hell is Clint Eastwood doing directing movies about the Japanese postal service? So he won't win. Paul Greengrass has an optimistic name, but films about aviation are boring. I mean, was there something special about that flight? The number sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Again, something do do with the flamboyant gay thing (or is it a biopic about Freddy Mercury), so that guy won't win. Guess that leaves Scorcese for his movie about dead people, or is "The Departed" actually about airports and planes that have already taken off?

Best Supporting Actor. Hey, I've seen one of these performances! Alan Arkin was great in "Little Miss Sunshine" as the drug-sniffing, porn-perusing, stip-club-frequenting crazed grandfather we all wish we could have had. The rest have no chance, again somebody with Earle as a middle name in a movie about kindergarten can't win. Some foreign dude in a movie called "Blood Diamond," which I guess is a movie about vampiric jewelry -- might be fun, but foreign dudes don't win unless they are English or Australian foreign dudes, who at least speak English and have names that don't look funny to American judges, like Hugh Grant. Wahlberg plays a dead person, no can win. Eddie Murphy was probably really funny in "Dreamgirls," which I believe was about female children who sleep a lot, boring.

Best Supporting acress features TWO MORE foreigners with weird names (Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi, whose mother was an ice cleaner at a hockey rink), the sort of people the Academy nominates to look inclusive but never actually picks. Cate Blanchett is nominated, but for a movie about scandals apparently, besides only one English woman with a name that rhymes with "mate" can win in an evening. I HAVE seen "Little Miss Sunshine" and the girl Abigail Breslin was really good, but Hollywood doesn't give awards to kids. That leaves Jennifer Hudson but will the Academy give an award to a black woman in a movie about sleeping kids? I predict a FIVE-WAY TIE, an unprecedented event.

For some of the other categories... I guess the Academy will give it to Gore for his inconvenient truth. Original Score will go to "A Good German" because of the epic sweep of its oom-pah-pah soundtrack that has toes tapping from Heidelberg to Rostock. "No Time for Nuts" will NOT win best animated short because many of the Academy voters assume the makers are referring to THEM, so one of the other ones will win, and nobody really cares which one. Maybe "The Little Matchgirl" because we all like stories about enforced child labor in sub-freezing conditions resulting in an inspirational death that is fine as long as it isn't MY kid snuffing it.

Original Screenplay is easy. "Babel" won't win because it's misspelled (should be "babble"). "Letters from Iwo Jima" is boring (watch a Japanese mail clerk sort letters, woohoo). "Pan's Labyrinth" won't win because it is based on a ride at Six Flags Over Texas (isn't it?). "The Queen" has a chance because sometimes films about flamboyant gays can be entertaining, but I think "Little Miss Sunshine", which I happened to see, will deservedly win.

So, there you have it. Not too late to place some bets on the Oscar action. Feel free to send me a share of your winnings.

*Surely, some of the electrons used to post this will go thru LA, right? Close enough. I mean, have you priced air tickets from Canberra to Los Angeles lately?