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Stick With Me And Win Your PoolMar 14 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line The Oscars are no more about quality than a high school homecoming court is about academic achievement. Find out how to pick the winners and make lots of money. Most people and magazines that write articles about Oscar Picks tend to drone on about who was 'robbed' of a nomination and who they think should win based on the quality of the work. This is not something I'm interested in. I just want to win money. And I have won my pool for five years running. The key to picking Oscar winners is understanding that the Academy Awards is really more like an election for a high school prom queen. Quality, unfortunately, often has a lot less weight than popularity. This is the reason that although Ellen Burstyn might DESERVE to win for her searing role in Requiem For A Dream, Julia Roberts WILL win for her role in Erin Brockovich. OK, enough sermonizing. There are specific tools and pre-awards shows that are excellent predictors of the Academy Awards winners, and certain statistical trends that hold up year after year. Vote with them, and more often than not, you’ll come out on top. Sources To Ignore The Critics Awards LA, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York Critics Associations all give awards. Forget the critics: they’re morons. Most of the Hollywood establishment hates critics because they’re elitist bastards and tend to put movies like Yi Yi: A One And A Two (courtesy of the National Society of Film Critics) as number one on their “Best Of” lists even though they made no money. If they’re not elitist bastards, they’re true movie lovers that tend to give awards to people and projects that actually deserve them, (like Almost Famous) rather than this year’s homecoming king or queen. Rarely do the twain meet in an Academy Award. Sources To Note: The Guilds There are numerous guilds whose members love to get together on a regular basis, pat themselves on the back, and masturbate over how great they are. Their awards shows are an excellent predictor of who will win the Academy Awards because the Oscars for each category are voted on by the same guild members that select their own awards. Therefore, the Writer’s Guild branch of the Academy has the heaviest weight in voting for the Screenplay awards. The entire academy votes on Best Picture. Here are the 2001 Guild award winners for the major categories: Screen Actor’s Guild Julia Roberts, Best Actress, Erin Brockovich Benicio Del Toro, Best Actor, Traffic Albert Finney, Best Supporting Actor, Erin Brokovich Judi Dench, Best Supporting Actress, Chocolat Director’s Guild Ang Lee, Outstanding directorial achievement Writer’s Guild Kenneth Lonergran, You Can Count On Me (Best Original Screenplay) Steven Soderbergh, Traffic (Best Adapted Screenplay) The Golden Globes Another excellent predictor is the Golden Globes, even though the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has a somewhat deserved reputation as a bunch of star-struck prostitutes whose votes can be bought by some Godiva chocolates or a fancy pen. Nonetheless, their movie drama awards have been good pre-cursors to the Oscars. Here are this year’s winners: Best Picture, Drama: Gladiator Best Actress, Drama: Julia Roberts Best Actor, Drama: Russell Crowe Best Supporting Actress: Kate Hudson Best Supporting Actor: Benicio Del Toro Best Director: Ang Lee Best Screenplay: Traffic Best Score: Gladiator Best Song: Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed” from the Wonder Boys Entertainment Weekly Entertainment Weekly publishes an annual issue that exhaustively runs down the list of minor awards such as sound effects editing, etc. They also use industry pre-awards to help determine their picks, and they are an excellent resources for categories such as Best Animated Short Film that you know or care nothing about. The issue typically comes out the Monday before the awards show. Based on all of these sources, you now have to decide which you are going to ignore, and for my calculated guesses, I usually use statistical trends. As an example, here are my picks for winners for the acting and directing categories, with accompanying rationale. Best Supporting Actress: Kate Hudson I break the SAG rule and have Kate beating Judi Dench for the following reasons: a) Judi Dench has won too much recently; b) everybody loves Kate’s mother Goldie Hawn, c) she won the Golden Globe, and d) since 1982, a full 16 of the winners were first-time nominees like our gal Kate. Best Supporting Actor: Benicio Del Toro I am a little nervous about this one, because although Supporting Actress loves the ingenues, this category is usually one where they reward the old coots that have stuck around for a while, like Michael Caine. This gives Albert Finney a little of the old Mo. (Aka “Momentum.”) But since Benicio and Albert both won SAGs, and Benicio won for Best Actor and was demoted to Best Supporting Actor here, I give him the edge because of his Golden Globe. However, with the average Academy member being a dirty old man born in the Mesozoic era, you never know. Best Actress: Julia Roberts. Do I have to explain this one? People love her. Best Actor: Tom Hanks, Cast Away I go with the controversial Hanks choice here even though it’s a tough to predict. Here are a few reasons a) Hanks won the Globe and was nominated for a SAG; b) Hanks carried the movie, which earned a lot of money; c) Crowe lost the SAG to Benicio Del Toro; d) Crowe is an Australian rogue who broke up one of Hollywood’s favorite marriages and made Meg Ryan box office poison; and e) Crowe lost the BAFTA (the British version of the Academy Awards) to a 14-year old ballet-dancing boy. Methinks that good old jingoism will prevail, and everybody’s favorite homeboy Hanks will win again. Best Director: Ang Lee DGA and Golden Globes plus a split vote for Soderbergh bode well for Lee to take this category as well. Best Picture: Gladiator I break the statistical rule (a very strong one) that states that He Who Win Best Director, Win Best Picture. It’s rare but not unheard of for these two awards not to go hand and hand (a win for Speilberg but a loss for Saving Private Ryan comes to mind). Plus, the Academy loves those sweeping historical epics, and Gladiator won the globe. Plus, I invoke the statistical trend that shows that the Best Picture Winner, 18 of the past 20 years, was the picture with the most nominations. This year, that’s Gladiator with 12. Other random statistical nuggets to remember: -Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction are usually awarded to the same film -Best Song winners are usually Top 10 hits or performed by well-known artists (Congrats, Bob Dylan, baby) So there you have it: the resources to be a know-it-all at your Oscar party. Sally forth and make your picks. And if you won’t give me a cut of your winnings, at least give my opinion a few extra clicks.  |
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