Oscar predictions

With the approaching of the 83rd Academy Awards next week, there are, of course, slews of predictions about who will win and who deserves to win. Though I have my set of likely winners and losers, I also have a few predictions about what will go wrong at the Oscars. I think that several fallacies and actors’ tensions have led to this year’s red carpet night to be something of a disaster, and the following events will ensue:

The first mistake the academy will make will be asking Oprah to present an award.

Though the TV queen will carry herself with the greatness with which we associate her, when making her pre-award speech, she will hint rather harshly that this year’s nominees were devoid of people of color. This may or may not diverge into a tangent about the Oscars, which will involve a complaint that the academy has again ignored the efforts of female Academy Award nominees outside of the actress categories.

The orchestra will start to play in order to try and segue into the next category, but Javier Bardem, offended that he has been forgotten by Oprah as a “person of color” nominee, will start a tantrum of Spanish insults and be escorted out of the facility.

Being MIA won’t be such an issue, as Colin Firth will take this year’s best actor award, though James Franco will not be happy. Overwhelmed with the idea that sleepless hours, countless college degrees and endless projects this year have led up to this nomination, he will malfunction and possibly explode, revealing that he is not an actor, but a cyborg, programmed to overachieve.

“That’s okay,” Cher will say, bitter about her lack of nomination for “Burlesque.” “You were a terrible singer anyway.”

Wanting to impress Cher, Gwyneth Paltrow will abandon her originally planned performance for “Country Strong” and try her luck at Cee Lo Green’s “Forget You,” and all the writers at the show will whisper and then begin rioting, mortified that any presence of “Glee” would ever be found at the Academy Awards.

Julie Taymor, who will have showed up for the “Tempest” nomination, will have been waiting for a disaster like this and will try to save the night with a surprise performance from the cast of the Spider-Man musical, which will only anger the writers even more.

As set pieces are being pulled on stage, they will find that Banksy, who will have snuck in for his “Exit Through the Gift Shop” nomination, spray-painted everything with rude depictions of actors as monkeys.

Natalie Portman, who will be targeted in this graffiti, will say quietly to her pregnant belly, “You can be anything you want in this world, just please don’t become an actor.”


E-mail: ftirado@indiana.edu