31 Things To Look For at the Oscars
It’s like Oscars Bingo, but less interactive and without the option to win.
Oscar-betting is a serious business—places like the Wynn Las Vegas Casino and the market calling itself the Hollywood Stock Exchange offer 75% odds on most of the front runners and thousands are at stake. Honestly, this is definitely not the list you should rely on if you have any money in the race. No—this is more like a drinking game without the drinking. With some real predictions, some top celebrity-related tips, and one fantasy about Julianne Moore, this guide to the Oscars is as half-baked as a student film, but with those films’ same reckless sense of fun. To the Academy!
1. Birdman winning best picture.
2. Boyhood winning best director.
3. Jennifer Lawrence falling down but doing it in this really quirky, authentic way that people can relate to.
4. A relentless parade of white people taking the stage.
5. The beautiful shine on beautiful J.K. Simmon’s beautiful bald noggin.
6. Ethan Hawke to not age.
7. Meryl Streep to be so elegant that no one realizes she’s had eleven gin and tonics.
8. Keira Knightly, except when she’s in side profile.
9. Kanye West to take the stage.
10. A “Salute to the Movies!”
11. Rosumund Pike. Have you seen Rosamund Pike? Always be watching for Rosamund Pike.
12. Benedict Cumberbatch reading Sherlock Holmes slasher fan fic on a Kindle.
13. Team Jennifer and Team Angelia. (The seating chart is no accident.)
14. J-Lo sucking all the air out of the room with her luster.
15. British actors to be generally articulate and American actors to be generally buffoons.
16. Wes Anderson taking the stage in an old Saab with a fanfare horn that plays Hank Williams.
17. Mark Ruffalo being affable.
18. The immense shadows cast by Laura Dern’s cantilevered cheekbones.
19. The beautific smile on Reese Witherspoon’s face because regardless of whether or not she wins an award, she produced the damn movie and it made $45 million on a $20 million budget.
20. Julianne Moore winning Best Actress and then losing the gorgeous composure she’s held for thirty years and setting the train of her presumably tasteful gown on fire and high-kicking off the stage yelling, “Eat my wind, Streep!”
21. The slightly-scary-but-also-endearingly-amateur message North Korea will put up on the teleprompter after they hack it.
22. Miles Teller to have a soft but beautiful face like freshly baked brioche.
23. That one cast that insists on trooping onto the stage en masse rather than selecting a couple of delegates.
24. Wes Anderson to win Best Screenplay. The Grand Budapest Hotel was candy-colored, and everyone loves candy!
25. The kids from Boyhood to definitely be the best-behaved people in the room.
26. Neil Patrick Harris will jump and dance and sing and we’re sorry, but there’s not way he can do that without chemical enhancement. (Stay tuned for our hard-hitting report on awards show doping.)
27. The carpet will be red.
28. Patricia Arquette will win for Best Supporting Actress and be really, really laid back about it, going so far as to shoot out a single devastating wink in lieu of an acceptance speech.
29. Bradley Cooper to make the most politically neutral speech ever, should he win for American Sniper.
30. John Travolta to introduce the director of Birdman as Ina Rittujandro.
31. At least one instance of Baldwin-on-paparazzi violence.
Read This Next
