What’s the key to winning your Oscar pool? Not losing your Oscar pool.
It sounds glib, but it’s serious advice: No matter how well you might do in the major categories — let’s say you hit all four acting winners and best picture, too — your psychic Academy Award powers are meaningless if you miss an equal number of lesser categories. It’s like making a hole-in-one, and then totally whiffing on your next two golf shots.
There are always upsets at the Oscars (best picture winners Crash and Shakespeare in Love, for example), but there are far more heavy favorites who end up winning.
I can’t say with any confidence who’s going to go home with the best actor statuette — Elvis’ Austin Butler, The Whale’s Brendan Fraser and Colin Farrell from The Banshees of Inisherin all have a legit shot — but I’d swear on my daughter’s life that All Quiet on the Western Front will be named best international feature. (Note: I don’t have a daughter.)
Here are some of the less-famous categories that I believe are near locks.
So trust (pray?) that I’m right, mark them down on your ballot, and see if you’ll have enough of a cushion that you don’t have to nail every top category to triumph.
International film: All Quiet on the Western Front
Cinematography: All Quiet on the Western Front
Costume Design: Elvis
Song: Naatu Naatu, RRR
Adapted screenplay: Women Talking
Visual effects: Avatar: The Way of Water
Animated feature: Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
Supporting actor: Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere all at Once
Director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere all at Once
Animated Short: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox And The Horse
Good luck, and if you win, be sure to donate at least half the proceeds at LAist.com/join.
