Last year, my husband and I created a matrix in order to determine how to win an Oscar in 14 easy steps (which you can read here). This year, we are handing out pretend Academy Awards.
So, without further ado, from our imaginations to your computer screen, here are the top Oscars that no one in Hollywood will be receiving this year.
Best picture set in France in which all the actors speak with British accents:
Hugo
Best picture set in Sweden in which all the actors speak with slightly different, untraceable, can't-quite-put-your-finger-on-where-they're-from accents:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best period mustache. And the nominees are:
Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Sacha Baron Cohen for Hugo
Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs
Best dramatic actor on 4 legs. And the nominees are:
Joey the horse from War Horse
Rosie the elephant from Water for Elephants
Maximilian (Blackie the Doberman) from Hugo
Best comedic actor on 4 legs. And the nominees are:
Dolce (Palmer the Pomeranian) from Young Adult
The dog (Uggie the Jack Russell) in The Artist
(I'd like to make a prediction here. Uggie is the clear frontrunner, having won this year's Palm Dog award at Cannes and having already played a dog in Water for Elephants. Palmer the Pomeranian has no prior experience in films and was hard to work with, according to co-star Charlize Theron.)
Best Acceptance Speech:
The Artist
Best Brad Pitt film. And the nominees are:
Oh, you know what they are, right? In case you don't stalk him like I do, they are Moneyball and The Tree of Life. The odds are, that when you take Brad Pitt and put him in a baseball film based on a book about sabermetrics, there is a 37.5 percent chance of a win, based on prior statistics in which he was nominated for five Golden Globes but only won one, most recently losing to George Clooney for best actor. Now, if you also account for the four Oscar nods Pitt's received over his career, plus the four BAFTA nominations, and if you multiply that by the number of children he has, both biological and adopted, you will discover absolutely nothing about The Tree of Life.
Best dramatic, sad-as-heck movie that was marketed as a comedy:
The Descendants
Best movie that I can't make fun of in any way, shape or form because of the 9/11 subject matter:
Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close
Best Julia-Child-as-Margaret-Thatcher Award:
Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady
Actress you hope wins so that she doesn't act out afterwards in anger and retribution:
Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best movie in which the director realizes he's aged out of playing the fumbling, bumbling romantic lead:
Midnight in Paris
Best movie based on a novel that took forever to get published, thus giving hope to frustrated novelists, like myself, and the hopeful mothers of these novelists, like my mother, who brag about their offspring at dinner parties despite the fact that their creative, brilliant children haven't sold a manuscript. Otherwise known as the "But Look What Happened to Katherine Stockett" award:
The Help
Think of others? Feel free to add them below. Let's watch the fake awards pile up, at least until the real ones do this Sunday, February 26th on ABC.