In case you haven’t listened to my Showbiz Show podcast, here are my predictions for the Oscars tonight…
- Best Picture: “The Revenant” will win, but “Spotlight” should win.
- Best Director: because the Academy gave it to Alejandro Innaritu for “Birdman” last year, I’ll take George Miller (“Mad Max: Fury Road”) in an upset.
- Best Actress: Brie Larson, whose performance in “Room” was stunningly good.
- Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Revenant,” to make up for his previous losses. I’d have chosen Matt Damon in “The Martian.”
- Best Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander in “The Danish Girl.” I didn’t see it, but she was in one of my Worst Movies Of 2015, “Ex Machina.” The only performance in this category I liked was Rachel McAdams in “Spotlight.”
- Best Supporting Actor: Sylvester Stallone in “Creed.” Lock of the night. He’s as surprised as you are.
- Best Animated Feature Film: Pixar’s “Inside Out,” which I chose as the Best Picture Of 2015. It should have been nominated for the big prize, too.
- Best Adapted Screenplay: Adam McKay and Charles Randolph for “The Big Short.” When I read Michael Lewis’ book, I had no idea how it could be turned into a movie, but they did it brilliantly.
- Best Original Screenplay: Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer for “Spotlight.” They captured the best aspects of journalism and the damage done by the Catholic Church to thousands of victims of pedophile priests in a compelling script that still resonates months after I saw it.
A few other things to watch for:
- The over/under on how long it will take Chris Rock to make a reference to the lack of African-American nominees in the acting categories: 30 seconds.
- Chances that having the obligatory family-and-agents list scrolling on screen will keep winners from thanking them verbally: zero.
- Category with winner most likely to be forced offstage by music crescendo during speech that’s gone on too long: Best Documentary Short.
And finally:
- Number of friends and acquaintances who have jokingly asked me whether I’m nominated for my scene in “Mississippi Grind”: one hundred. I’m putting every one of them on my thank-you scroll.