Forty-eight hours to Oscar. Gut-check time — or maybe make that “gut-instinct check” time, a moment to break away from the meticulous zeitgeist-combing science of Movieline’s Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics and make a few choices for myself. Not that they’ll be so different, but if you can’t go with a hunch where 5,765 fickle, insular industry minds are concerned, then what can you go with? We can’t all be be Otis the Oscar Cat , you know. Anyway, let’s make this quick: BEST PICTURE A certain voluble sliver of the Oscar punditocracy likes to whine about The Artist ‘s awards-season supremacy — as if it signaled some searing compromise of the Academy’s historic tradition of recognizing only the finest, most artistically challenging and rigidly contemporary work. These people sound like some bitter old man bitching about how the Super Bowl halftime show never features anyone good anymore, or some mouth-breathing fanboy complaining about the vanquished integrity of Star Wars . You guys, they were never good to begin with . In their own way — as meritocratic tastemakers — neither were the Academy Awards. This year’s foregone Artist win has less to do with regressive, reductive cultural tastes than it does with Harvey Weinstein being a good marketer, no different than 15 years ago. If these whinging bozos won’t learn, then can’t they at least shut up? Will win : The Artist Should win : Melancholia . Wait, what? Oh. Fuck it. That’s the best picture of 2011. Period. BEST DIRECTOR Have you seen Midnight in Paris recently? Man, that one does not hold up. The Descendants never did in the first place. Hugo is fine, but I think the groundswell of voters who got Terrence Malick into the competition in the first place could be formidable enough to actually sweep him right past Martin Scorsese into very close competition with Michel Hazanavicius. In fact, you know what? I’ll call it for Malick, why the hell not. Will win : Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life Should win : Lars von Trier, Melancholia . Yes, I heard you the first time. Make your own predictions. BEST ACTOR Here’s where I’m a lot more confident in the upset factor: Demi
