NO LIMBWALKING ON OSCAR DAY: MY ALL-TOO-PREDICTABLE 2011 OSCAR PREDICTIONS

DISCLAIMER: Use of the following information in your office Oscar pool is at the express risk of the person silly enough to crib it for such purposes. It is intended For Amusement Only, particularly if you care to have a cheap giggle at the expense of the person making it public.

******************************************

So here we sit, mere hours away from the breathless revelation of this year’s slate of Oscar winners which we’ll have trouble recalling by the end of the week. And in the spirit of full disclosure of my own ineptitude at guessing the outcome of contests such as these, I thought I’d reveal my own fearless predictions at to what’s going to happen tonight. It’s simply not enough, if I may crib a line from a dear friend, to sit back and luxuriate in the exquisite embarrassment of listening to professional gushers like ABC 7’s George Pennacchio ask stars like Octavia Spencer what it was like to play a black woman as the nominee nervously runs the red carpet gauntlet. No, each year I have to lay down my three bucks (six if I’m feeling lucky enough to play two ballots) and put my money where my heart is—which is why, by the way, I usually lose these things.

So come on, take this opportunity to make fun of me. The following are my completely unscientific, unbesmirched-by-insider-info, seat-of-my-sweatpants 2011 Oscar Predictions. Just please forgive me if my list of guesses sounds a tad familiar. I’m a very conservative gambler by nature, and my bold limb-walking has gotten me precisely nowhere in Oscar contests past. If you want to see just how well I did on my Independent Spirit Awards predictions, where I boldly envisioned the Spirit voters expressing true independence and voting the Drive ticket, you can click over to INDIEWire’s ”Who Will Win-Who Should Win” poll, where writers like myself were asked to take guesses and cite preferences on the two big awards shows of the weekend. If I do as well tonight as I did yesterday well, hey, I might just be $6 poorer! But I’ll have enjoyed the show in the company of friends and maybe even have had a beer or two. What Oscar win could possibly top that? (Well, maybe one for Melissa McCarthy.)

BEST PICTURE: The Artist

BEST ACTRESS: Viola Davis, The Help

BEST ACTOR: George Clooney, The Descendants

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer, The Help

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

BEST DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Descendants

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Midnight in Paris

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango

BEST ANIMATED SHORT: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

BEST ART DIRECTION/SET DESIGN: Hugo

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Hugo

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

BEST FILM EDITING: The Artist

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM: A Separation

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT: Raju

BEST MAKEUP: The Iron Lady

BEST ORIGINAL MUSICAL SCORE: The Artist

BEST SONG: “Man or Muppet”

BEST SOUND EDITING: Hugo

BEST SOUND MIXING: Hugo

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Final Tally:

THE ARTIST wins four
HUGO wins four
THE HELP wins two
THE DESCENDANTS wins two
BEGINNERS, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, RANGO, THE TREE OF LIFE, THE IRON LADY, HARRY POTTER 7.5, A SEPARATION and THE MUPPETS each win one.

Happy Breathless George Pennacchio Day, everybody!

********************************************