The Oscars are next Sunday! WOO HOO! Lock up your daughters and shoot your sons, shit's about to get fuckin' real, America. The Oscars are gonna be fuckin METAL this year, dude. Get ready to—oh, hell, let's face it, they're gonna be a snore. We already know what's going to win almost everything (even the slight “Meryl Streep or Viola Davis” suspense is tilting heavily Viola-wards) and Billy Crystal is old and hasn't been funny in 15 years, and the prohibitive favorite to sweep everything is a black-and-white 95% silent movie starring two French people no one's ever heard of (though that's your fault, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo are fuckin' movie stars; that movie may get a couple details of its pastiche wrong but the reason no one who's seen it cares is because they're awesome). Also, one really bad sign is that even the people who give a fuck don't give a fuck this year, so really this year the only thing to watch the Oscars for is the dresses, who looks high when presenting, and if whoever's hosting your Oscar party is making interesting cocktails that you can have twelve of so when they announce “The Artist” as Best Picture you can be like “THAT MOVIE'S IN COLOR IF YA KNOW HOW TO LOOK” before passing out.

Or, if you don't mind being disappointed, you can see if any big upsets happen. I should be perfectly clear about the fact that none of these things are going to happen. Well, except one. If there is any upset at the Oscars on Sunday, it'll be this:

A Separation will not win Best Foreign Language Film

Everyone's picking it, which is understandable, because it's awesome, and you all need to see it at your earliest possible convenience. “A Separation” is a really great movie. It's about important stuff but it doesn't beat you over the head with any of it, it just goes about its business being awesome and having one of the most beautifully constructed screenplays in living memory and is just wonderful. But this is losing sight of one of the great truisms of the Best Foreign Language Film category: The picture everyone's heard of and loves NEVER wins this category.

Here's where it gets tricky. The natural impulse is to be like, “Well, it's ‘Bullhead’ then” because people like it. BUT NO. Four or five people have seen “Bullhead” which means it's fucked too. The Polish Holocaust drama is a dead lock, primarily because I don't remember what it's called. I could Google it, but that's not the point. Something you've never heard of ALWAYS wins Best Foreign Language Film, even if you're a nutjob like me who's heard of everything. I've nailed three Oscars in a row with this theory, which is why I say with confidence in the face of a massive amount of evidence that “A Separation” will win that it'll be the Polish Holocaust drama instead.

So, on to the ones that are way less likely, if at all, to happen:

The Help will win Best Picture

I made a joke, in a column last fall, that this was going to win Best Picture because “The Artist” hadn't yet emerged as the awards juggernaut it turned out to be. I'll still maintain that even though I got the movie wrong I got the sentiment right, which is the Academy reaching for a movie that operates on the emotions, not the intellect, that has that happy/sad Oscar balance all sorted (basically, a movie that'll make you cry but not sob, if you're so inclined) and romanticizes the past. Also, another similarity, both movies are going to win acting Oscars: Dujardin for “The Artist” and Octavia Spencer and probably Viola Davis for “The Help.” Oh, and another thing: “The Help” made more money than any of the other Best Picture nominees, so factor that in, too.


Michelle Williams will win Best Actress

“Wait, what? Didn't you just say it's Viola Streep or Meryl Davis this year?” Yeah, but seriously, bear with me, everything's set in stone this year but I have to fill out a whole column. So yeah, let's say Hollywood remembers that they haven't voted for Meryl Streep in thirty years because after “Sophie's Choice” Academy voters collectively went, “Dude, if we vote for her every time she deserves it no one else will ever win,” like that one stupid year Karl Malone won the NBA MVP over Michael Jordan. And let's say Hollywood remembers that only one black actress has ever won and they decide that since they're giving “The Help” Best Picture and Octavia Spencer Best Supporting they should spread around the vote. Who wins then? Michelle Williams. It seems like she's been around forever already because everything she's in is wildly acclaimed, gets nominated for tons of stuff and gets a healthy chunk of the more prestigious critics' awards. She's going to win an Oscar and maybe more than one, and she's got that sad story about being a widow all tailor-made for the Barbara Walters special. Michelle Williams is more like an Oscar nominee in a movie than she is one in real life. She's got that Mia Farrow hair, too, and everyone's really pulling for her. So, since she's going to win one anyway, it could happen this year. Theoretically.

A Separation wins Best Original Screenplay

This one has the advantage of being deserved, and for there being historical precedent: that year Pedro Almodóvar got fucked for Best Foreign but won for Best Screenplay for “Talk To Her.” See? Almost seems plausible, don't it? Especially when you think the LA-based Oscar people might be like “Fuckin' Woody Allen thinks he's too good to come to California, huh? We'll show him!” They'll be so confused by the fact that “Bridesmaids” was written by women that they'll have aphasia and not realize it exists. They'll go “But how can ‘The Artist’ win Best Screenplay when there's no dialogue?” (Note: this isn't going to happen; ‘The Artist’ is the one that's actually going to win this category.) And no one except critics has seen “Margin Call,” so it's out. Opens the road wide open for “A Separation” to slide right in.

Gary Oldman wins Best Actor

It'd be so nice. It's such bullshit that he doesn't have an Oscar yet. This was his first nomination, for shit's sake! Sadly, this only happens if the Academy rises as one and protests against both “The Artist” and “The Descendants.” And decides not to give it to Brad Pitt for “Moneyball.” And doesn't go for the obvious upset pick with Demián Bichir. Damn. Gary Oldman really IS in fifth place. This is insane. If anyone under 40 voted on these damn things, Gary Oldman would have about five Oscars, fuck being in fifth place. See? This is why taking this shit seriously is a mistake. In that spirit, one final spoiler that hasn't a chance in hell of actually happening:

The Tree Of Life wins anything at all

If the Oscars actually meant anything, “The Tree Of Life” would win just about everything, but they don't, so it won't. Its best shot is Best Cinematography, though I hear tell from the kind of people who know things that Emmanuel Lubezki is destined for one of those Roger Deakins careers of being the best there is but never winning anything for some stupid reason (Roger Deakins losing for “True Grit” last year was a goddamn CRIME). But let's for the sake of argument, in the faint hope that anything will happen Sunday that isn't foretold, say that some cabal of old people get together and are like, “Remember the ‘70s? When crazy-ass motherfuckin’ directors made radically ambitious movies that maybe didn't entirely make sense to everyone (or at all) but we gave those movies Oscars because they were good? LET'S BRING IT BACK, MAN!!!” And, as a protest, they vote in “Tree of Life” for Picture, Director (at which point everyone discovers to their embarrassment that Terry Malick isn't even in Los Angeles, let alone at the ceremony), and Cinematography. Alas, this is not meant to be.

Enjoy the Oscars, y'all. Just remember to not take them too seriously.

Danny Bowes' is a prolific writer and critic who lives in New York City. You can look for his column every Wednesday, and read him online at moviesbybowes.blogspot.com.

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