It’s Oscar predictions time! Last year, the winner of best picture was… I can’t remember. Oh yeah, the Slumdog Millionaire movie. That was a fantastic movie but in the preceding 12 months, I have totally forgotten about it. In 2010, however, we’ve got movies that you’ll never forget: A Serious Hurt, Up In The Avatar, There’s Something About Basterds, A Precious Education, The Blind 9, and a few others.
Best Actor: James Cameron for Avatar. He made us believe in furry blue people called Na’vi in a far away land called Pandora, and then he revealed to our dismay that the movie was not a documentary like his last couple of pictures, and was instead entirely fictional. He duped us, and for that, he deserves an Oscar. Also, the whole symbolism of calling the planet Pandora – aka, the box full of bad stuff that we shouldn’t open; very nice, Cameron. I caught that. On my second viewing.
Best Actress: Meryl Streep for anything, because shouldn’t this award be named for her at this point? A more pressing issue, somewhat akin to women’s ski-jump, shouldn’t Streep just start competing against the men at this point? She could out-Jack Sparrow Johnny Depp any day of the week. Just wait. After that, she’s going to release a mixtape. Eat your heart out, Lil Wayne.
Best Original Screenplay: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, simply because after the conclusion of Transformers 1, I saw absolutely no way for them to make a sequel. Everything was wrapped up so nicely. It was like a neat little bowtie, made of explosions. I’m sure you were just as surprised as I was.
Best Adapted Screenplay: District 9, but you know, I’m really tired of people adapting my life story to film. It’s getting old, guys. Next time, though, make sure to make my hair come down to my shoulders, even if you have to do it in post. That’s how it happened.
Best Animated Picture: UP, because I cried. And it didn’t even have unicorns.
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, because James Cameron should not be encouraged. Smurfs and Pocahontas do not mix, dude.
Best Picture: UP. This one is the hardest award to give out, simply because it’s the last and my fingers are getting tired from typing. (Editor’s note: This is a lie. Bruce doesn’t type. He dictates to a monkey.) Avatar made more money than any other movie ever, but technically – at least according to the rules I’ve never read – the Academy Awards is not actually a popularity contest. The Hurt Locker is another big contender, but as most of us learned in high school, and I learned in pre-school, popularity does matter, at least a little. So neither of those can win. Up In The Air was a good movie, full of empathy and flying, but if you have the chance to fire George Clooney in a movie, you just have to do it. I mean, come on, the man lives a dream life! While I assume there were other contenders, my monkey didn’t write very clearly on this napkin, so I’m not sure what else was nominated. Which leaves me with UP. Even though there were no unicorns. So congratulations, Pixar. Your first best picture win. All you had to do was make a movie about a crazy old man in a flying balloon house. How hard was that really?
This is Bruce, signing off.
Somehow, we weren’t quite right about our Oscar predictions on Sunday night and – for some reason – we didn’t win anything, but on the plus side, people noticed our little hotel (here, here, here, here, here). It’s not a close-up, but we’ll take it. 
