From big bets at office-party pools to once-a-week movie buddies recalling what they've seen for the year, Oscar-night picks remain a favorite spectator sport. Despite the insane proliferation of TV awards shows, Oscar night on ABC, from the red carpet to the Best Picture prize to the talk-show recaps, is still numero uno.
Predictions this year are tough because, as one critic opined, it was a year chock-full of worthy number twos, with really no consensus Best Picture. For queer film fans, a banner night for the Todd Haynes-directed, lesbian lovers drama Carol would be thrilling.
Best Picture In the Rolls Royce Best Picture category, my choice is split between two multi-star ensembles that delve behind the scenes of big-time chicanery: Adam McKay's The Big Short, about the wolves of Wall Street hijacking our economy and producing the big bust of 2008; or The Boston Globe's unmasking of the 2002 Catholic priest/altar boy scandal, Spotlight. Both films represent Hollywood muckraking at its finest. Sadly, recent insider forecasts suggest that the lost-in-space drama The Martian may steal everyone's lunch, pushing past the 1950s immigrant tearjerker Brooklyn, the Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies, and the dark horse comic-book-style sequel Mad Max: Fury Road.
Best Actor In this year's Best Actor showdown, if his fur-trapper character in The Revenant almost losing his manhood to a bear in the woods doesn't secure a top trophy for Leonardo DiCaprio, nothing ever will. This prodigiously talented, widely popular actor has to be the sentimental favorite. Sentiment aside, Matt Damon's lonely astronaut may be looming, passing Bryan Cranston's showy take on a persecuted 50s screenwriter in Trumbo, Michael Fassbinder's heroic stab at humanizing the repellent Apple computer founder Steve Jobs, or Eddie Redmayne's saucy crossdressing in the queer pick The Danish Girl .
Best Actress The top-actress pick is less controversial. For me, it's hands-down Cate Blanchett depicting an older glamorpuss lesbian lover in openly gay director Todd Haynes' lushly mounted Carol. Cate should be wary of the plucky Jennifer Lawrence's semi-comic take on a working-class first-time inventor in Joy, not to mention Brie Larson's embattled kidnapped mom in Room, Charlotte Rampling's austere comeback as the angry wife just learning that she was not her complacent husband's first love in 45 Years, or the critically acclaimed Saoirse Ronan's take on a young Irishwoman coming to Gotham city in Brooklyn.
Best Supporting Actor I have to admit, the Best Supporting Actor nominations really ticked me off for Academy voters' scandalous neglect of Paul Dano for his energetic and soulful impersonation of Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson in the underappreciated Love and Mercy. And to think that Sylvester Stallone is the overwhelming favorite for his revival of the tired Rocky franchise (Creed) is truly galling. Runners-up: Christian Bale (The Big Short), Tom Hardy (The Revenant), Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight) and Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies).
Best Supporting Actress My pick is Rooney Mara's exuberant supporting turn as the shopgirl swept off her feet by an older woman in Carol, over Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight; Rachel McAdams, Spotlight; Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl; and Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs .
Best Director Logically, the Best Director should be connected to the already-named Best Picture. Therefore, Adam McKay (The Big Short) and Tom McCarthy (Spotlight ) split my vote over George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road), Alejandro Inarritu (The Revenant) and Lenny Abrahamson (Room ).
Foreign Language Film In a field of mostly underpublicized underdogs (Embrace of the Serpent, Mustang, Theeb, and A War), the Holocaust drama Son of Saul should once again reaffirm Oscar voters' decided preference for this tragic era.
Adapted Screenplay Fair or not, the winners in both screenplay categories tend to be consolation prizes for films that lost out in the Best Picture and Director races. Or, if it's one of those weird "big-sweep winner" years, the bandwagon merely sweeps them up. My pick is for the lesbian-themed Carol over The Big Short, Brooklyn, The Martian, or Room .
Original Screenplay The only chance for an upset here is if Oscar voters toss a consolation bone to the African American drama Straight Outta Compton over Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina, Inside Out and Spotlight.
Animated Feature Film I'll go for Shaun the Sheep Movie, the stop-action animation British entry that was a real charmer and an innovative contribution to the art-form. Runners-up: Anomalisa, Boy and the World, Inside Out, and When Marnie Was There.
Of the ragtag categories, during which many viewers make pizza runs, my choices zero in on Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom in the documentary feature category; and a bio-doc, Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah, in the short doc department, a long-overdue tribute to the creator of perhaps the single most important oral history of this horrific era.