Oscars

Every year, I attempt to predict the winner of each category of the Oscars. For all of the Manifesto’s bluster, this is its primary function, and frankly, it is a rather unoriginal one. People all around the country participate in haphazard Oscar pools (my sister even won one once, primarily because she went against my advice), and countless bloggers attempt to impress their readership with their powers of prognostication (though if I may say so, the Manifesto possesses a rather unique élan, but never mind). And in spite of the flamboyant touches I employ in an effort to distinguish the Manifesto from other commentaries of its ilk – the sports analogies, the base humor, the “are you fucking serious dude?” length – it remains at its core a simple handicapping system, much like any other.

As such, I need a challenge, something to put the Manifesto on the map, as it were. To wit: It seems to me that a more difficult undertaking than picking the winners of each category of the Oscars is to predict the nominations themselves. Of the hundreds (thousands?) of movies released in the world every year, only five merit a nomination in each category from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; correctly forecasting these selections is no easy task.

Yet such is my mission. Is it foolhardy of me to publish my predictions so brazenly, risking ridicule from my readers for years to come? Possibly. And yet if I am successful, glory shall be mine forevermore – I expect to be rewarded like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, with naked women feeding me grapes while Beethoven plays in the background. Or I can just brag about it to my Dad before we move on to discuss Mike Dunleavy’s latest exploits. Either way, the nominations will be announced Thursday, January 22, so stay tuned for news of my success or failure. (For the record, if I make four out of five correct picks in a category, I’ll be happy. Also, I’m only doing the top eight categories because after that, people get bored. Or so I’ve been told.)

And so, I now present the Manifesto’s predictions for the 81st Annual Academy Awards Nominations: Read More

Atonement

Juno

Michael Clayton

No Country for Old Men

There Will Be Blood

Will win: The consensus among pundits regarding this year’s Oscars is that, with the exceptions of the Best Actor and Supporting Actor categories, there are few prevailing favorites. Historically, this isn’t really anything new. There hasn’t been a true Secretariat at the Oscars since Return of the King pulled a ’72 Dolphins and went 11-for-11 in 2003. (Of course, it didn’t win Best Cinematography because it wasn’t even fucking nominated. And yes, I’m fairly sure I’m harboring more resentment about that than anyone involved in photographing the movie. Anyway.) Read More

Redemption, it turns out, is one elusive motherfucker.

See, last year was supposed to be my big comeback. The year before, at the 2005 Oscars (also known as The Oscars of Ignominy), the infantile Crash won Best Picture, against not only my staunchest (if utterly irrelevant) objections but also my most confident predictions. The Oscars of Ignominy left me in a state of disrepute, physically hobbled, with a tarnished spiritual core. For months I had that look on my face like Mel Gibson in Braveheart after he realized Robert the Bruce betrayed him at Falkirk – I was glassy-eyed, incapable of comprehending the world around me. I was like one of the Pod People from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, merely going through the motions of existence, never feeling, never thinking, never living.

But eventually, I snapped out of it. I’m not sure what it was precisely. It could have been receiving confirmation that Emma Watson was returning for the last two Harry Potter films, or watching old DVDs of “The Office” and learning the true meaning of love from Jim and Pam, or maybe just going to see Borat in the theatre and finding myself sitting next to an Asian supermodel who looked like a cross between Kristy Yamaguchi and Kobe Tai. Whatever it was, whatever restorative I drank, I began to follow the same path as that of Gandalf the Grey in The Two Towers: “It was not the end. I felt life in me again. I’ve been sent back until my task is done.”

Damn right I was back, and when the 2006 Oscar nominations were announced, my task was simple: to prove, for once in my shameful excuse for a life, that I knew what the fuck I was talking about.

It was a shaky proposition. Not only had Crash unhinged me in 2005, but in the Best Picture race the year before I’d backed The Aviator over Million Dollar Baby, even though at the time the Eastwood movie was hotter than Craig Hodges in the ’91 three-point shootout. Even worse, the field was incredibly difficult to handicap; not only was there no clear frontrunner, but there were not two but three legitimate contenders – Babel, The Departed, and Little Miss Sunshine. In the words of Han Solo, I had a bad feeling about this.

But I couldn’t turn back, because honestly, absent the Manifesto, what meaning does my life really possess? So I buckled down. I geared up. I weighed options, concocted scenarios, performed statistical analyses, prayed to various deities, and employed very expensive and possibly even illegal techniques to peer into the mind of the average voter of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. And then I scrapped everything and went with my gut, even though, to quote John Cusack in High Fidelity, my guts have shit for brains. I picked The Departed, not because I was convinced it would win but because I knew it should win; it was the best of the nominees, and they call the category Best Fucking Picture, do they not? So, calculating though I may often be, in an impulse of self-righteous fury I had pinned the hopes for my salvation on an emotional whim, a calling of the heart, a desperate plea for cinematic justice.

And then I waited. For my vindication or my disgrace, I did not know, but I waited. Like those poor saps in Casablanca looking for exit visas, I waited.

And oh, how the Academy taunted me, yes it did. You see, during the Oscars of Ignominy, it was Jack Nicholson who announced Crash as the Best Picture winner, Jack who cruelly ripped my life to shreds, Jack who spoke the fateful words and then just stood there smiling that demented smile and thinking to himself, “I am going to crush some of the young talent in here tonight,” unaware of the pain and humiliation he had just dispensed. So last year, to close the ceremony that would either revalidate my existence or forever incinerate my soul, the Academy had Jack make the announcement again, even though he was a lead in one of the movies in contention. Read More

Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton

Jason Reitman, Juno

Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Will win: If the Best Picture race is relatively crowded, the competition for Best Director is far less cluttered. Schnabel’s nomination is further evidence of the Academy’s bizarre, almost obnoxious recent tendency to nominate foreign filmmakers for Best Director while refusing to acknowledge their movie for Best Picture. It’s almost as if the voters are saying, “Well, we all know English-language movies are the only kind deserving of top honors, but those guys who speak funny languages sure try hard enough, so let’s throw them a bone and nominate them for Best Director, since we know they’ll never win”. It’s now happened three times in the past six years, with Fernando Meirelles (for City of God) and Almodóvar (for Talk to Her) the other victims. The weirdest part: None of three films was even nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, much less Best Picture. And you wonder why I accuse the Academy of making no sense. Read More

George Clooney, Michael Clayton

Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah

Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Will win: This one’s a gimme. Both of the male acting awards this year are relative locks, even if they shouldn’t be. Of course, Brokeback Mountain was supposed to be a lock too, but I’ll take my chances on this one. Daniel Day-Lewis has pulled a Dominik Hasek so far this awards season; he’s taken home sixteen trophies and hasn’t lost once. Initially I was thinking Clooney would stand a chance because Michael Clayton has been so well-received overall, but Day-Lewis has debunked that theory with extreme prejudice. Clooney himself has already conceded that Day-Lewis will win, quipping, “He sort of irritates us all because he’s so good”. This proves two things we already knew: A) Daniel Day-Lewis is going to win his second Oscar, and B) George Clooney is freaking awesome. Read More