Remember, back were you were in school, the kid who never seemed like he studied anything? The one who sat in the back of the room, doodling pictures of spaceships, made up bullshit answers when the teacher called on him, and then would announce, grandiously, on the day before the exam, that he was going to ace it? That is how Fang won the Oscar Pool this year.
As of late afternoon on Sunday the 28th, the most he had done by way of the Oscar ballot was to browse the Times‘ “Carpetbagger” column, demand arrogantly to know what his prize would be if he won, and then go to the A&P for snacks to eat during the telecast. I honestly thought it was just going to be Didge, Rosie, TAFKATA and The Planner this year, and then just before dinner, my husband went online, did some kind of mysterious research, the sources of which are known only to him, and came downstairs with the winning ballot. Even before I tallied up the MJB Exclusive categories, he nailed 18 out of the 24 conventional categories, plus extra points for correctly identifying Michelle Williams as Best Celebrity, Female. She is a tidy little actress and I’m sure she did solid work in Blue Valentine, but aren’t we all just a little tired of the REAL reason she has stayed famous: that Grieving Widow routine she’s been perfecting ever since poor Heath Ledger died, even though they were never married, and she had in fact dumped him shortly before he OD’d. He got one more point for choosing James Franco in Marilyn drag as one of the two correct answers to Most Extraneous Joke, Anecdote or Production Number. (The other correct answer, as identified by TAFKATA, was Anne Hathaway singing “On My Own,” because, as TAFTKA put it “Well done, but WHY??????”)
It was a tight competition, though, and everyone did respectably. TAFKATA was solidly in second place with 12 correct conventional picks and 3 MJB Exclusives (see how they can raise your score? Plus they are the real reason I continue to host the pool: the combination of your delightful submissions, and the power rush I get from declaring the right answers singlehandedly is too much to pass up.) Rosie, The Planner and Digital Dame tied at 14 – Rosie got 13 conventional picks, plus a point for choosing Justin Timberlake as Best Male Celebrity - Rosie understood that although Justin’s acting in The Social Network was suprisingly good, the reason we are talking about him is because, as she put it, “Boy can sing and bring sexy nerds back. Wears clothes well and dodged the Britney Spears bullet… nuff said.” (There are so many things to love about Justin – for example the way he kept making fun of the name of film director Banksy. I mean really, did Banksy’s mother name him that?!) My girl also gets props for her appraisal of The Black Swan – although incorrectly identifying it as Most Overrated Film (that honor went to The Social Network. Your Hostess, TAFKATA, and The Planner all agreed that Justin T was the only truly compelling thing about it,) her reasoning was nearly irresistable: “The Wrestler in a tutu…throw in some girl-on-girl action to get the boyfriends to stay awake in the theater.”
TAFKATA and The Planner, like true partners, tied at 12 conventionals, but TAFTKATA squeaked ahead, raising his score to 15, not just for identifying Cate Blanchett’s weirdly constructed dress as Most Ridiculous Outfit, for getting one of 2 correct answers (Anne Hathaway) to Hottest Celebrity in a Tuxedo (the other was Kirk Douglass. How charming was he, flirting with Melissa Leo? More charming than Melissa, really – more of a pro, disability notwithstanding,) BUT, best of all, for having the stones to admit to a truly strange Guilty Pleasure:
“I didn’t see this … but I wanted to sneak off some afternoon and see ‘MacGruber’. I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s because I was strangely fascinated by Will Forte’s turn as Jane Krakowski’s cross-dressing lover on ’30 Rock’. “ Next year, if you win, dear, your prize is going to be a DVD of MacGruber.
A special prize for Most Improved goes to Digital Dame, who scored a completely respectable 13 this year: 11 correct conventionals, plus an extra two points for her impressively comprehensive review of nearly all the crappy films that got greenlit in the past year:
”Oh dear god, there’s too many to choose from. I’m gonna have to go with the J-Lo travesty, “The Backup Plan” because I hate her so much. Steve Carrell’s “Date Night” and “Despicable Me” “Dinner for Schmucks” deserve honorable mentions here, as well. I hate that guy. A couple of Jennifer Aniston movies are close behind: “Bounty Hunter” or something, and “The Switch”. She really needs to move on from the fluffy cutesy airhead rom-coms.”
Didge also gets kind of an Honorable Mention for her cheerfully ruthless summation of 127 Hours:
“Seriously?? Dipshit goes off on irresponsible trek in desert, gets in trouble and does one more dumbshit move to save himself, and it gets an Oscar nod? PUH-LEEEZE.” G’wan, baby, tell us how you really feel 
OK, it’s March now, so the Academy Awards are wrapped up and over for another year. Counting down, as always, to The Tonys!
March 5, 2011 at 11:59 am |
Hahaha “cheerfully ruthless” I like that
Congrats to Fang! The man clearly has a personal line to the Oracle of Delphi in the closet or something 
And on the topic of dumbass moves celebrated in movies, “127 Hours” follows on the heels of “Into the Wild” a couple years ago with that delusional kid who read a couple books on wilderness survival and then starved to death in Alaska. Why do they keep making movies about these pinheads? They need to be nominated for Darwin Awards (trying stay ruthlessly in character here
)
March 5, 2011 at 7:29 pm |
I read the book on which “Into the Wild” was based, and it was very compelling, b/c John Krakauer didn’t try to romanticize or make a hero out of the kid – he spent a lot of time exploring WHY a guy of above average intelligence would do something pinheaded like that. It’s really easy to fall back into that old cliched Man vs. Nature, chasing-the-Great-White-stinking Whale crap, but his reporting was much more complicated and interesting than that.
March 5, 2011 at 12:33 pm |
I congratulate Fang on his win….and shout-out “good show” to all the players. i envy our blogmistress b/c she gets to see all the best commentary. I think most of my wins came from the tech side of the ballot — and for that i can thank the Entertainment Weekly (in our house “the ew”). but i am a tad disappointed there is nobody in Hollywood taking up Cher’s mantle for most outrageous red carpet dress.
March 5, 2011 at 7:22 pm |
Yah, there’s been no outrageous fashion lately, like the Bob Mackie years. the EW’s great for info re: films you haven’t seen, isn’t it?