The Oscars are a drag. We know it, whoever has sat through its three hour running time knows it, heck we’re pretty sure the actors/actresses know it too. So let’s look ahead to the ceremony and see what will most likely pan out at this year’s event, saving us all the bother and giving us time to bleed the radiators.
As with every academy award season, a handful of films have been thrusted into the limelight for our viewing chops. This year sees the plights of slavery going against sci-fi blockbusters like Gravity and drug peddled stockbrokers in The Wolf Of Wall Street. That’s without mentioning the surprise turnaround of Matthew McConaughey in the Dallas Buyers Club, or the impressive belly acquired by Christian Bale for American Hustle.
But who is going to come out on top? While many will be hoping to see Leonardo DeCaprio claim his long overdue Oscar, judging by the relatively conservative academy panel, we’re perhaps more likely to see Chiwetel Ejiofor bag the best actor gong for 12 Years A Slave. His performance ticks all the academy boxes of surefire Oscar success; tender, historic, brutal and no sign of cocaine abuse off a lady’s caboose.
Judging by the winners of the Golden Globes back in January, the best actress nods will be plucked from a pool of Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence and Lupita Nyong’o. If Adams wins, expect baskets of tears and a slightly overlong tale of triumph, Blanchett will charm us into a coma, Lawrence will ramble like an excited puppy and Nyong’o will be so surprised she’ll explode into a fountain of confetti.
In fact the whole event looks set to be a bit too lovely this year. Talk show extraordinaire Ellen DeGeneres is presenting, so don’t expect anything quite as outlandish as Seth MacFarlane singing “we saw your boobs” with a gay men’s choir like last year. Pharrell is on board to sing ‘Happy’ from Despicable Me 2, but we’ll be deprived of classic Essex bantz courtesy of Adele. Happy, Ellen and no Essex bantz? What kind of Oscars is this?
If history at the academy awards has taught us anything however, it’s that the truly bizarre moments sometimes have to drip from the bosom of spontaneity. Who could have predicted in 2011 that hosting duo Anne Hathaway and James Franco would drop more clangers than a politician in a council estate? Let’s not forget when George Clooney awkwardly claimed in an acceptance speech that Hollywood contributed to the awareness of AIDS and the civil rights movement. Smug levels that made an entire room of Hollywood A-listers feel a little flustered.
So our enjoyment of the 86th Academy awards essentially relies on an intern screwing up the batch order of Iceland Chicken Goujons for the pre-party buffet. Bale will kick off, Dame Judi will throw her Dench credentials to the wind and the whole evening will dissolve into a ticking time bomb waiting until Jonah Hill cracks out the “lemmons”. In a world where the Oscars aren’t such a sick-inducing parade of the beautiful, this would be a fairly reasonable prediction. As it stands the “biggest entertainment celebration of the year” will most likely amount to a pat on the back for Gravity and 12 Years A Slave, featuring a guest spot from Jennifer Lawrence falling down the stairs again.
That bathroom definitely needs grouting.
DirtyScribbles 