'The No-Collusion Oscar Picks 2019'
The phone rang, as it usually does whenever I'm sitting in the third-floor witch's hat of my haunted Victorian home in some gothic-like, small New England town with a dark past, anguishing over my Oscar picks. The voice at the other end sounded like Alec Baldwin at first.
"Want to get all your picks right this year, Iceberger?" the caller asked.
"The name's Goldberger."
"Iceberger, Goldberger, what's the difference? You want to get them all right? Want to get them so right that you'll be tired of winning?"
"Well, sure, but who are you and what's in it for you, and how do I know you know who will win?"
"Listen," came the voice, a braggadocio lilt now telling me who indeed was on the other end of the line. "I was the biggest thing in show business. I could still be if it weren't for the Democrats and all their snooping around. Democracy, Shamocracy! They can't take a joke. Anyway, I know the best people, with the best answers. Only I can make the Oscar picks. Of course, I'll call on you to do me a favor someday. And if you don't, I'll primary you, ruin your political career."
"Ruin my political career? I'm not a politician," I squealed in disbelief.
"Doesn't matter. I'll ruin you somehow or another. I always do. Do we have a deal? Oh, and I'll need your pledge of loyalty, which in addition to getting you the Oscar picks will entitle you to 10 stays at one of my swanky clubs. Do we have a deal?"
"I don't quite understand the deal. Seems sort of crooked."
"Don't worry about what the deal is. I make the best deals. I have the best brain. I'm like a genius. I'm like a really smart person. You like cake? We have the best cake at my resorts. And anyway, crooked, crooked, what's with all this distrust these days? You'll make a fortune after you get all the Academy Award categories right. No one else who works with me is yelling crooked."
"But, if you're who I think you are, aren't they all indicted?"
"Ah, they're all rats. You don't know who I am. I'm anonymous. I'm the most incognito person there ever was. OK, so some of those lunkheads are in a little trouble. They didn't work for me very long, anyway. I don't even know who they are. At least they're not a bunch of goody twoshoes losers wasting their time helping the poor or crying about climate control. What do you need poor people for anyway? They don't have any money to spend. And besides, we could use some warmer weather. More places to build hotels and country clubs. What do you say, Iceberger? Oh, hey, you speak a little Polish, don't you? I could use an interpreter who knows how to keep his mouth shut."
"You mean Russian, don't you? And if you somehow were able to give me the winners' names, wouldn't that be collusion?"
"Et tu, Iceberger? What's with this Russia? I have nothing to do with Russia. No collusion, no collusion. And don't worry: I'll get them all right, not like Obama. He didn't get the Oscars right in eight years. That Benjamin Harrison was terrible at it, too. I'm the best Oscar picker since Honest Abe. And there were probably less categories back then. No offense, Abe."
B
etwixt and between, though not terribly worried about being primaried as I bid my final farewell to politics after serving my term as president of the eighth-grade class at Maple Avenue School (the upset of the century, by the way), I sought assurances before making this deal with the, well, you know, he might as well be.
"But what if you don't get them all right?" I asked.
"Hey, where have you been for the last couple years, Iceberger? You don't have to really get 'em right. Just say you did ... over and over and over."
Following are, uh, my Oscar picks:
- Best Film: "Green Book."
- Best Actor: Rami Malek
- Best Actress: Olivia Colman
- Best Supporting Actor: Richard E. Grant
- Best Supporting Actress: Amy Adams
- Best Director: Spike Lee
- Best Original Screenplay: "First Reformed," Paul Schrader
- Best Adapted Screenplay: "BlacKkKlansman."
- Best Cinematography: "Roma."
- Best Editing: "Vice."
- Best Production Design: "Black Panther."
- Best Costume Design: "The Favourite."
- Best Makeup & Hairstyling: "Vice."
- Best Original Score: "BlacKkKlansman."
- Best Song: "Shallow," Lady Gaga
- Best Sound Mixing: "Bohemian Rhapsody."
- Best Sound Editing: "First Man."
- Best Visual Effects: "First Man."
- Best Documentary Feature: "RBG."
- Best Documentary Short Subject: "Black Sheep."
- Best Animated Feature Film: "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse."
- Best Animated Short Film: "One Small Step."
- Best Live Action Short Film: "Skin."
- Best Foreign Language Film: "Roma."
The 91st Academy Awards ceremony will run Sunday, Feb. 24, at 8 p.m.
Tags: movie review, Oscars,
