The Gospel According to John

Should Win/Will Win: Everything Else Edition

 So you've got all the important interesting easiest categories on your ballot filled out. But now what? In a race as stultifyingly sewn-up as this one, how do you actually win the pot of money that annoying receptionist who dots her i's with hearts and loves Nickelback is keeping hostage in her desk?

With crap like Sound Editing, that's how. Getting the smaller, technical categories on lock is like a sneak attack, like guerilla warfare, like...I don't know what it's like. The point is: IT MAKES YOU WIN.

So jump the jump and let's win you some cash. 

Should Win/Will Win: Best Picture Edition

And the nominees are: 

• Whatever
• Slouching Black Kid, Stooping Matron: The Michael Oher Story 
• Aliens and Apartheid
• WHY ARE YOU READING THIS INSTEAD OF SEEING THIS MOVIE
• Disarming Bombs Is Hard
• Turns Out Diane Kruger Isn't Nearly As Bland As I Thought
• Precious: Based on the Book of the Same Name By Some Lady Named After a Precious Stone (See What She Did There?) and the Title of Which Its Producers and Director Really Should Have Rethought Because if It Wins (Which It Won't) It Won't Even Fit on Those Columns in the Kodak Theater that List All the Best Picture Winners
• I'm Still Not Even Sure What this Was Even About Even
• Weeeeee!
• Planes, Trains, and OHMYGODAGIRLFROMTWILIGHT! 

And the Oscar should go to:

Should Win/Will Win: Screenplay Edition

And the nominees for Best Original Screenplay Are:

 

And the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay Are:

And the Oscars should go to...

Should Win/Will Win: Best Director Edition

[UPDATED March 5, 2009]

NOTE: I may update this post after seeing Avatar this afternoon. I doubt it, but maybe.

And the historic ex-husband/wife deathmatch nominees are:

• Kathryn Bigelow for Watch My Movie, Then Read What My Budget Was. I Think We're Done Here.
• James Cameron for I'm a Sanctimonious Hack Who's Really Good With Technology But Couldn't Come Up With an Identifiable Story With Sympathetic Characters Written Above an 8th-Grade Level if a Gun Were at My Head
• Lee Daniels for Not Very Good With Details
• Jason Reitman for I Try to Say I Love You, but My Self-Serious Bloviating Gets in the Way
• Quentin Tarantino for I'm a Fucking Badass

And the Oscar should go to...

Should Win/Will Win: Best Actor Edition

And the nominees are:

• Kenny Rogers in Whatever Happened to Kenny Rogers Roasters?
• Cary Grant in Dear God, I Will Serve You Until Death if You Promise to Keep Me From Ever Again Having to Listen to that Self-Serious Bloviator Jason Reitman
• Mark Darcy in Two-Hour Cologne Ad
• Don King in Only Ol' Man Eastwood Could Make Nelson Mandela Boring
• Jeremy Renner in Pig Pen Joins the Army

And the Oscar SHOULD go to...

Should Win/Will Win: Best Actress Edition

And the nominees are:

• Sandra Bullock in A Dior Sunglasses Ad from the September 1992 Issue of Town & Country
• Dame Helen of Mirren in Helen Get Your Gun
• Carey Mulligan in SERIOUSLY STOP READING THIS AND GO SEE THIS MOVIE RIGHT NOW
• Gabourey Sidibe in I Secretly Fantasize She Comes Over Each Week to Watch Glee and Eat Pizza Rolls
• Chicken Wings McGee in Yet Another Mediocre Movie that Would Have Been Insufferable Without Meryl Streep

And the Oscar SHOULD go to...

Should Win/Will Win: Best Supporting Actor Edition

And the nominees are:

• Maaaaaaatt Daaaaaamon in This Movie Was Criminally Boring So Let's Look at This Photo of Matt Damon as That Tortured Gay Closeted Quarterback You Were In Love With in High School
• Some Crazy Dude About to Eat Your Face in Literally NONE Persons Saw This Movie Even Though It's Reputed to be V Good
• Summertime Santa Claus in Ibid
• TOOOOOOCH! in Bishplz
• Christoph Waltz in Sie möchten ein Teil dieser, Schweine-Hund? Bringen. Zuerst habe ich den Kopf werden in mit diesem Telefon zu zerchlagen, dann werde ich breche diese Flasche und schneiden Sie ein Narr, und dann gehe ich meine Oscar sammeln which is German for You Want Some of This, Bitch? Bring It. First I'll Smash Your Head In With This Telephone, Then I'll Break Off This Bottle and Cut a Fool, and Then I'll Go Collect My Oscar
  

And the Oscar should go to...

Should Win/Will Win: Best Supporting Actress Edition

And the nominees are:

                                     

                                                                                                                                                     

• Penelope Cruz in Marion Cotillard Should Be Here in My Place
• Vera Farmiga in I Was a Robot Businesswoman
• Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Fact That There Are No Stills of Me From This Film And We've Had to Use One From Secretary Is Instructive
• Anna Kendrick in Really? 
• Mo'Nique in Ain't None a Y'all Bitchez Has A Chance in Hell

And the Oscar should go to...

The Oscars: Bush-v.-Gore--Except with Movies!

(Still the world's most disturbing photo, as it is like Oscars + zombies + mummies + that weird Chinese terra cotta army thing + the end of E.T. when everything's shrouded in plastic and scary Peter Coyote breaks into the house in a HazMat suit. Nightmares!

Anyway.)

It’s almost Gay Super Bowl Sunday! So get out your office Oscar pool ballots, because here at The Gospel According to John, it’s time for entirely too much analysis (annual Should Win/Will Wins to come!) of an empty, meaningless, rigged event that is sure to be the world’s boringest awards show because every category is already decided!

Except for maybe **ominous music** BEST PICTURE. For here, the Academy's decision to unearth a preferential tabulation system not used since 1943 puts a potential Bush v. Gore situation on our hands, except with the added intrigue of a possible outcome wherein Nader actually wins. 

Don’t believe me? Read on, MacDuff.