Chris Rock: “That was the greatest night in the history of television.”

 

Well, certainly in the Top Ten.

Answering for a friend: Who will win the Oscars?

OK, stop me if you’ve heard this one: You decided weeks ago to forego any serious Academy Award prognostications — indeed, you’re not entirely sure you’re going to actually watch the Oscarcast — when you get an anxious email on the day before Oscar night from a dear friend who’s entering an Oscar betting pool, and really needs your help with handicapping. So you sit down, look over the list of nominees, pick your favorites — except, of course, in those categories where you don’t really have a favorite — and then forget about what you’d pick because your friend wants to know what Academy voters will pick, dammit. 

And here’s the result.

Best Picture:

SHOULD WIN: BlacKkKlansman
WILL WIN: Green Book

Lead Actor:

SHOULD WIN: Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
WILL WIN: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Lead Actress:

SHOULD WIN: Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born

WILL WIN: Glenn Close, The Wife

Supporting Actor:

SHOULD WIN: Sam Elliott, A Star Is Born
WILL WIN: Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Supporting Actress:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Director:

SHOULD WIN: Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
WILL WIN: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

Animated Feature:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

Animated Short:

WILL WIN: Bao, Domee Shi

Adapted Screenplay:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: BlacKkKlansman, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee

Original Screenplay:

SHOULD WIN: First Reformed, Paul Schrader
WILL WIN: Green Book, Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly

Cinematography:

SHOULD WIN: Cold War, Lukasz Zal
WILLWIN: The Favourite, Robbie Ryan

Best Documentary Feature:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: RBG, Betsy West, Julie Cohen

Best Documentary Short Subject:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: A Night at the Garden, Marshall Curry

Best Live Action Short Film: 

WILL WIN: Marguerite, Marianne Farley

Best Foreign Language Film:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: Roma (Mexico)

Film Editing:

SHOULD WIN: BlacKkKlansman, Barry Alexander Brown
WILL WIN: The Favourite, Yorgos Mavropsaridis

Sound Editing:

SHOULD WIN: First Man, Ai-Ling Lee, Mildred Iatrou Morgan
WILL WIN: Bohemian Rhapsody, John Warhurst

Sound Mixing:

SHOULD WIN: First Man
WILL WIN: Bohemian Rhapsody

Production Design:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: Black Panther, Hannah Beachler

Original Score:

SHOULD WIN: BlacKkKlansman, Terence Blanchard

WILL WIN: Mary Poppins Returns, Marc Shaiman, Scott Wittman

Original Song:

SHOULD WIN: “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch

WILL WIN: “Shallow” from A Star Is Born by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, Andrew Wyatt and Benjamin Rice

Makeup and Hair:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: Vice

Costume Design:

SHOULD AND WILL WIN: Black Panther, Ruth E. Carter

Visual Effects:

SHOULD WIN: First Man

WILL WIN: Solo: A Star Wars Story

Caine + Colbert = Cool

I have seen and read dozens, if not hundreds, of interviews with Michael Caine. (I have even conducted one or two of them.) And I must say: Stephen Colbert's 11/21 chat with Sir Michael ranks with one of the very best. My only complaint: Too short. Maybe they'll talk again after Sir Michael lands his Oscar nomination for Youth?

But seriously, folks: My last-minute, what-the-hell Oscar predictions

And remember: These are predictions, not preferences.

PICTURE: American Sniper

DIRECTOR: Richard Linklater, Boyhood

ACTOR: Michael Keaton, Birdman

ACTRESS: Julianne Moore, Still Alice

SUPPORTING ACTOR: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Grand Budapest Hotel

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Imitation Game

EDITING: American Sniper

CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Grand Budapest Hotel

PRODUCTION DESIGN: The Grand Budapest Hotel

SONG: "I'm Not Gonna Miss You," Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me

ORIGINAL SCORE: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Matthew McConaughey's victory dance (and other Oscarcast highlights)

Matthew McConaughey dances. Bill Murray snarks. And Ellen DeGeneres serves pizza. Read all about it here.

Oscar nominations are announced, and the race is on

Here is my early take on the Academy Award nominations, which were announced this morning in Hollywood.

Jennifer Lawrence is Best Actress, bitches!

And just think: Last month, some people were accusing Jennifer Lawrence of unseemly hubris. Looks like she got the last laugh Sunday night, eh? (Insert joke about pride going before a fall here.)

Today's burning question: Seth MacFarlane, threat or menace?

But seriously, folks: The ratings for last night's Oscarcast reportedly are up a whopping 19 percent over last year's show. Was it because the top races were so competitive? Or could the reason be -- dare I say it? -- Seth MacFarlane? In any event, here's my instant analysis of the extravaganza.

Oscar and Argo and Jimmy Carter

Could a Best Picture win for Argo be the latest step in the "rehabilitation" of President Jimmy Carter. Douglas Brinkley of The Daily Beast makes a persuasive case that our 39th POTUS could benefit just as much as Ben Affleck at tonight's Oscarcast. Even though Carter himself has noted that the movie takes a few, ahem, liberties with historical facts.

Back when I used to be somebody (Oscars Edition)

That was then. Sigh. Now I sweep the streets I used to own...

Here's the latest from the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion: Me on TV, again

As I promised: Here I am, talking Oscars and doing shtick with Deborah Duncan, on Great Day Houston.

Multi-Media alert: See me on TV Friday, hear me on the radio Saturday

I'm set to talk about Oscar-nominated movies at 9 am CT Friday with the lovely and talented Deborah Duncan on KHOU-TV's Great Day Houston. (If you don't have access to that particular TV station, fear not: I'm told there will a link to downstreaming video at some point shortly after the telecast on the KHOU website.) And at 12 noon CT Saturday, you can hear me chatting about Quartet (with Tom Courtenay and Maggie Smith, above) and Zero Dark Thirty with the not-so-lovely but comparably talented Junior Mints during a segment of Living Large on News 92 FM. You hear that live here.

Oscars: That's a wrap!

You can read my CultureMap Oscar wrap, featuring incisive commentary about War of the Gargantuas and Angelina Jolie's shapely leg, here.

At long last Oscars

Tonight is the night. And my final predictions are here.

On Oscar night, Nick Nolte is a dead solid cert

And he owes it all to me.

On the radio: Me

I'll be on the air tomorrow morning with the good folks at News 92FM here in H-Town to talk about... well, what do you think, tonight's Florida GOP debate? No, we'll be chatting about the Academy Award nominations, which will be announced around 7:30 am. Listen for me somewhere between 8:30 and 8:40 am Tuesday. And then make sure you contact the station and tell them how wonderful you thought I was. Remember: You must listen. Resistance is futile.

I liked it. I really, really liked it.

Props to Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin for his shout-out to Paddy Chayefsky -- the writer of that "other" Oscar winner with Network in the title -- while claiming his Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. And a tip of the hat to co-host Anne Hathaway for her tongue-in-cheeky allusion to a genuine injustice: She didn't get a Best Actress nomination for Love and Other Drugs. ("You know, it used to be you get naked, you get nominated!") My other observations about Sunday evening's Oscarcast -- which, judging from Tweets and blog posting I have sampled, I enjoyed much more than most folks -- can be found here.

A moment of Oscar zen

Future movie historians will note: The Wolfman and Citizen Kane each won the same number of Oscars. One.

And the winner will be...

Shortly after last month's announcement of nominations for the 83rd annual Academy Awards, I offered my predictions for winners in the top tier categories. Five weeks later, and just hours away from the Oscarcast, I can't say I'm ready to back away from any of those choices -- except, maybe, in the Best Actress category. Even though I remain convinced that Annette Bening is (a) the sentimental choice for many over-35 Academy voters, and (b) an altogether worthy choice strictly on the merit of her excellent performance in The Kids Are Alright, Natalie Portman now appears to have the momentum -- an impression only reinforced Saturday by her victory at the Spirit Awards -- for her fearless portrayal of  an emotionally frazzled  ballerina who drives herself to extremes while pursuing perfection in the Black Swan (arguably the least likely megaplex box-office hit of the past year).

As for the Best Picture category: The Social Network may have been the front-runner during the  early stages of the race, but The King's Speech looks like the nominee that will gallop into the winner's circle Sunday night. It's a perfectly respectable choice...

Gee, wait, that sounds awfully condescending, and I don't mean to sound that snarky. Truth to tell, I enjoyed King's Speech quite a bit when I viewed a DVD screener that I received because of my status as a voting member of the Houston Film Critics Society. I admired the first-rate performances -- Colin Firth richly deserves the Best Actor prize he almost certainly will win, and  Geoffrey Rush conceivably could score an upset in the Supporting Actor category --  and appreciated the intelligence of the writing and the potency of the emotional uplift.

On the other hand: I never, ever, felt compelled to rush out and see how the movie worked on the big screen. Because, frankly, I think I watched it in the medium where it likely would work best. Again: The King's Speech is a very good movie. But not quite as good as the movies I chose for my Top 10 of 2010. And if, through some unexpected turn of events, The Social Network were to take home the gold, I would not be disappointed.

And if Inception, through some miraculous twist of fate, were to be named Best Picture, I will be, in the immortal words of Addison DeWitt, available for dancing in the streets and shouting from the housetops.

Truth in advertising

Some jolly jokers over at a Brit website called The Shiznit have designed their alternative versions of posters for this year's Best Picture nominees. And some of them are pretty damn funny.

And even though I'm a big fan of Love and Other Drugs, I have to admit I had a giggle with this faux poster, too.