As the saying goes, there are two things you never want to see get made, laws and sausages. Whether that’s true or not I can’t speculate, but if I could add one thing to the expression, I would say the third thing you never want to see made is the Academy Awards. Now I know what you must be thinking… “You can’t see how the Oscars are made!” Ah, but you’re wrong. Of all the awards, positions and accolades given out by a body of people, the Academy Awards are easily the most transparent. Even the Mtv Movie Awards have more suspense these days (How could Dustin Hoffman in Meet the Fockers beat Will Ferrell in Anchorman for Best Comedic Performance? He’s Ron Burgundy! He has many leather bound books! I mean, Dustin Hoffman… really?).

The problem isn’t with the nominees, who more often that not are right on the mark. The problem is that the winners are so pre-ordained that if you don’t win your office Oscar pool every year, than you just aren’t paying attention. This isn’t like the NCAA tournament where the weird girl from the smelly cubicle can randomly throw darts on her bracket, pick Gonzaga over Rhode Island, and steal your money. For the Oscars, there are real ways to determine who will win. For example, merely keeping an eye out to the state or affairs in Hollywood will cue you in on the Best Picture race.

(Brokeback Mountain will win because Hollywood is being progressive this year in a motivated anti-right creative splurge. Why do you think V For Vendetta is getting so much buzz? It has a 0% chance of being a big hit. It’s not like it’s Sin City. That film had Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson’s ass AND the Bruce, and it still didn’t do that well. Look for Vendetta to open number one with $18 million and top out with $63 million. Wait… wasn’t this an Oscar column? Right, well then…)

The directing Oscar generally matches the Best Picture, and the two writing Oscars are determined mostly from the WGA, and thus are beyond obvious come Oscar night. And absolutely no one cares about the technical awards. Even the costume designers don’t care about their category. The eight awards given to civilians are very much like throwing darts at a bracket, they don’t affect the Oscars in any real historical way, and besides, doesn’t John Williams win every year anyway? For all the arm-chair critics that decry the Oscars for being too long, how about making it like the Golden Globes and only give out awards where the winner is someone we recognize.

So that covers pretty much the entire show, except for the acting. And that’s what this column is going to cover. Over the next 2000 words or so, depending on how many “I Hate Reese Witherspoon” tangents I go on, I will teach you how to predict the acting Oscar winners. There is a proven formula that I will share with you today. Yes my loyal readers (and by loyal readers I do mean my Mom), don’t say I never gave you anything. Call this tutorial an apology for the lack of February content. I promise never to give you a schedule of content ever, EVER again.

Some think that the acting categories are merely a popularity contest, the High School student-body president race of the Oscars. Those people are wrong. I know this, the Academy knows this, and most importantly, actors know this. Actors are well aware that there are ways of manipulating the Academy into giving you an Oscar. Ever heard the phrase “Oscar bait” when someone is talking about one of those pretentious December movies that Miramax puts out? Career decisions are often made not by money, but by how it will affect their relationship with the Academy. It’s a dance, you see. Some are good at it, and dip their way into Oscar gold before their feet even hurt. Others take so long to learn the steps that when they finally figure it out, they can barely do a box-step waltz. But make no mistake, every actor knows the way, and now you will to.

There are six ways to absolutely guarantee you an Academy Award for acting. Any one way on its own gives you the edge in your category; any combination of the six will give you front-runner and likely winner-status. Any three put together, and the other four nominees shouldn’t waste their time writing one of those “I’m so humble about all this” speeches that George Clooney has been giving lately. Now there are exceptions to this rule, as there will be for anything, but these six ways are tried and true.

The Six Ways to Win an Academy Award for Acting

1. Be Fat (a.k.a. Completely Screw Up Your Body)

There is just something so endearing about pretty people gaining weight. It doesn’t even really matter sometimes if you were any good, so long as we can read those charming stories of you stuffing your face with spaghetti. Oh, you are so much like normal people! The Academy loves to reward the heavies (and I don’t mean bad guys). From Charlize in Monster, to De Niro in Raging Bull, gaining weight is one of the best ways to win an Oscar. Here are some recent weight-y winners:

• Charlize Theron – Monster
• Kevin Spacey – American Beauty
• Adrien Brody – The Pianist (For losing a grip of weight, instead of gaining it. Must love the starving ones. Which is odd because, wouldn’t they have looked this way anyway?
• Frances McDormand – Fargo
• Ben Kingsley – Gandhi (Another skinny one)

2. Be Challenged (Mentally or Physically, it doesn’t much matter)

Playing “retarded” is the Academy-equivalent of playing drunk. Everyone wants to do it, it’s exponentially more interesting to watch than if you were playing normal or sober, and it gives the (fake) impression that you have compassion for whatever illness you are playing. I don’t know why the Academy likes it so much, but I think it has to do with giving Hollywood the impression that it cares about people, and not just about explosions. I mean it’s gotten to the point that if you have Lupus it’s a guaranteed nomination. The apex of this was 1994, when Tom Hanks won for being “stupid” and Jessica Lange won for being “crazy”. I wonder if somewhere in a talent agency in Beverly Hills there’s not a slew of up and coming actors screaming at their agents to get them roles where they play people oppressed by their ADD. Oscars, here they come.

A list of recent winners who played challenged:

• Angelina Jolie – girl, interrupted
• Jamie Foxx - Ray
• Geoffrey Rush – Shine
• Tom Hanks – Forrest Gump
• Jessica Lange – Blue Sky
• Dustin Hoffman – Rain Man

3. Be Old (Dying also helps. As does being near death. Reese, take note of this.)

We love young actors because they’re pretty. But we love old actors because they are wise. They get slack for sub-par performances, especially the debonair ones, because they make us remember how great they once were. The Academy (who is still mostly made up of old white guys) loves seeing older actors wipe the floor with younger ones. It makes them feel like they are in control, like they have stopped the wave of time from rolling through and passing them over. These days, if you are over 60 and have at least one good scene in a movie, chances are good you can go ahead and rent a nice dress or a smart-looking tux the first Sunday in March (Gloria Stuart from Titanic is a perfect example of this). And if you’ve never won an Oscar before… congratulations, the statue’s finally yours. Like I said before, it doesn’t much matter if you are the most deserving, people will vote for you because they are worried you will die before you get a chance to win.

Here is a list of recent oldies (but goodies):

• Morgan Freeman – Million Dollar Baby
• Michael Caine – The Cider House Rules
• James Coburn – Affliction (This was a post-mortem win. Or what I like to call a “guaranteed coffin souvenir”.)
• Judi Dench – Shakespeare in Love
• Martin Landau – Ed Wood
• Jack Palance – City Slickers
• Jessica Tandy – Driving Miss Daisy (The ultimate Be Old winner)

4. Be Ugly

This is somewhat of an offshoot of the Be Fat category, as the same rules apply here. Only, the rules are heightened when you get ugly for an award. Slap a bad nose on, loose some teeth, dress as a boy, have a glorious head wound, anything you can do to de-pretty yourself for the camera. It’s no wonder that Charlize won for Monster, she got fat and she got ugly. The Oscar was hers from day one.

Some recent unpretty winners:

• Charlize Theron – Monster
• Nicole Kidman – The Hours
• Chris Cooper – Adaptation
• Hilary Swank – Boys Don’t Cry
• Nicolas Cage – Leaving Las Vegas
• Daniel Day-Lewis – My Left Foot

It’s this category that gives me pause for this year’s Best Supporting Oscar race. You would think George Clooney would be a shoo-in as he gained weight and looked ugly playing CIA agent Robert Baer. It has all the makings of a perfect Oscar gambit, but I still think he loses because his competition, Paul Giamatti, falls into the one category that trumps all that come before it…

5. Be Owed / Be Needed

Nothing trumps the snub. Oscar voters have snubbed countless fantastic actors, but if they come back and give a fine performance, the Academy will trip over themselves to correct their mistake. MSN has a good article about the affect of the snub, which you can read HERE. Similarly, some actors “need” to win. It’s like in sports, the best players need to win the championship so that their sport can say the best have won. The Oscars are no different. Why do you think Julia Roberts won for Erin Brockovich? That wasn’t nearly the best female performance of the year, yet the Academy practically rushed her on stage so that they could finally say that America’s Sweetheart is an Oscar winner (This is unfortunately why Reese Witherspoon will win this year). Sometimes the marketers have more say over the voters. It’s too important for marketers to be able to say “Academy Award Winner Julia Roberts” in trailers, for her not to win. So if you don’t think Paul Giamatti is winning this year, you’re insane. The biggest Oscar travesty in recent history was Giamatti not even getting nominated for his brilliant performance in Sideways last year. And while he was good in Cinderella Man, he wasn’t the best supporting actor of the year (I think Jake Gylenhaal had a more important role in Brokeback). But he’s going to win because he’s been snubbed in the past, and because he’s too important an actor not to have an Academy Award.

Hollywood needs certain actors to have the award, because if a great actor doesn’t have an Oscar it says something negative about how the industry works. Think about the best actors currently alive who don’t have Oscars. The list is pretty small. And lately the Academy has been doing their part to knock people off the list. Morgan Freeman finally got his due, and he was probably the biggest Oscar slight. Julia got hers; Al Pacino finally got his in the early 90’s. Sean Penn and Tim Robbins recently cleared their shelves. And Renee Zellwegger received her Best Supporting apology for losing out in Chicago and Bridget Jones. It’s very simple, the best actors need to be given their proper dues. So if you think the Academy is going to pass up a chance to give Oscars to Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti, widely considered to be two of the greatest actors working today, well then hell, we might as well just give any random actor an Oscar. Why not Best Supporting Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar? Why not Best Actor Keifer Sutherland? Actually, that would be kind of cool.

The final way to guarantee Oscars is a surprisingly obvious, yet at the same time, an unsurprising way to win an acting Oscar. It’s a way that few often go to get their glory, but is, in my mind, the best way to do it.

6. Give the Undisputed Best Performance of the Year

This trumps all five other rules. It doesn’t matter if you are a fat, crazy, old actor who has been nominated five previous times. If you’re competition gave the absolute, no questions asked, best performance of the year, then you don’t have a chance in the world. However this doesn’t happen very often, mostly because Hollywood is the most jealous place on earth and is so stingy with the compliments they’d probably hesitate to give props to Humphrey Bogart if he rose from the dead to present an award. But once in a while, an actor gives a performance that is so good, so right, so legendary, that it is criminal not to award them for it. It would be like Michael Jordan never winning the NBA Finals. Or like Albert Einstein never getting a Nobel Prize. The historical performances must get due historical respect. Winning this way is hard, but critics usually make the difference. Roger Ebert said this about Charlize Theron in Monster: “This is one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema.” When the top critics say this about you, and all the critics groups are giving you their awards, than you have achieve Rule 6. I wish we had one every year, but we don’t. We can’t. But I’m always on the lookout for them; those once in a blue moon performances that changes everything.

Here in my mind, are the recent Undisputed Best Performances of the Year:

• Charlize Theron – Monster (If you noticed, she also satisfied Be Fat and Be Ugly. There was nothing more she could do to help her chances. Not even dying.)
• Tom Hanks – Forrest Gump
• Anthony Hopkins – Silence of the Lambs
• Robert De Niro – Raging Bull
• Marlon Brando – The Godfather
• Jack Nicholson – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

So these are the six golden rules for manipulating your way to Oscar gold. Here are five lesser-known rules that sometimes will guarantee you Oscar gold:

1. Be British
2. Be A Kooky Choice For Best Supporting Actor
3. Be in the Best Picture of the Year
4. Be A Real Person
5. Be Jack Nicholson

If you use the six major rules to choose the winners on your Oscar ballot, you can’t go wrong.

Bangarang!

Hindsight is 20-20. Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let’s be a bit less politically correct. Some actors, writer and directors, they come out, they are lauded for whatever reason, then as time goes by we realize something quite substantial… they suck. Maybe an actor got lucky with a role, or a director’s movie touched audiences because it related to what was happening in the world at the time. For whatever reason, Oscar chose them, and history has to deal with them.

You see sometimes, just sometimes, Oscar gets it wrong, and they were never that great to begin with. It starts out small… a bad big-budget movie here, a surprisingly awkward cameo on Will & Grace, and then an out and out blunder with their next big drama. Or with a beloved movie: they win the Oscar, and then DVD sales aren’t as good as expected. They are left off the lists of greatest movies in their genre, or of their decade. And we look back at what might have been for other, more deserving films (John Madden and Shakespeare in Love, I’m looking right at you).

When you win an Oscar, public opinion says that you must now go on and do better, more challenging work. Charlize Theron can’t go back to getting naked in a “2 Days in the Valley” sequel, as much as we may all want to see that. No, she’s forced to ugg it up again and again, to prove that the Oscar win wasn’t a fluke (hence why we were inflicted with the mediocre, and depressing North Country). Yes, there are exceptions to the rule; after all, Nicolas Cage became an action star (and a bit certifiable… Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, anyone?) after he won his Oscar, but, he did come back into the fold with a string of well-received performances (Adaptation, Lord of War). The point is, when you win an Academy Award your subsequent movies are expected to be good, and you are expected to be great in them.

So what happens when that great career never materializes? History notes your achievement, but it never promotes you. For example, we will always remember Robert De Niro famously gaining 65lbs for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, and winning a much-deserved Oscar for it. But how many of you really remember that Whoopi Goldberg won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Ghost? Yeah, she’s a good comedian, but an Oscar winner? The star of “The Associate”? And “Eddie”? And “Sister Act 2″? There has to be more to this. Winning an Oscar means more than getting to cash in on big budget movies for five or ten years. You should be required to make great movies, with great directors. You should be expected to strive for dramatic excellence. And if you’re not, you should be asked, if not forced, to give your Oscar back.

Yes, that’s right, if you follow up your Oscar with a string of crappy movies, and not even make an effort to make an effort in anything worthwhile, you should forfeit your rights to the Oscar, and the award should be re-voted on, to determine the new winner. Just like with Miss America, if they fail to live up to their title, it gets stripped and given to the runner-up. Wouldn’t this make the Oscars better? Wouldn’t this remove some of the atrocities in Oscar history? Wouldn’t this shake-up the power in Hollywood, and give past accolades and due back to where it belonged the entire time. No more will we have to stifle our laughter every time we see the graphic “Marisa Tomei, Oscar Winner”. No longer will Julianne Moore be considered the best actress never to have won an Oscar, because Kim Basinger forfeits her win for L.A. Confidential due to the craptastic line-up of Bless the Child, I Dream of Africa, Elvis Has Left the Building and Cellular.

We can make it better; we can make right, what once went wrong.

Will my dream ever become a reality? No, probably not. Awards are voted on, and the winner is the winner. And truth be told, if I won an Oscar and had studios throwing money at me to be in their crappy movies, I’d probably say yes to all of them. And there’s no way in hell I would give up my Oscar, even if I did make Scooby Doo 4 or Captain Corelli’s Mandolin 2: Revenge of the Obo. So let the bad actors and the crappy movies win Oscars. Let them have their moment. And you know what we’ll do? We’ll make fun of them.

So forthwith, here is the top ten list of the actors, writers and directors that no longer deserve to be known as Oscar winners. The group that owes the Academy their Oscar; a group I like to call: “Oscar I.O.U.’s”.

10. Cher, Best Actress – Moonstruck

This is a slightly cheap shot, since by all counts Cher is a singer and not an actress. But she hasn’t made a good movie since Moonstruck, and no, Mermaids doesn’t count. The main reason she’s on this list, though, is because she made a movie called Faithless, which stands as one of only a handful of movies that I have walked out on in a theater. It’s an infamous list to be on, as I’ll sit through just about anything if I paid for it (Case in point: I sat through The Big Hit, Don Juan De Marco and The Island of Dr. Moreau… twice, just to name a few no star stinkers.). So for Cher to make a movie that bad, she’s gotta pay the price by returning her Oscar.

9. Callie Khouri, Best Original Screenplay - Thelma & Louise

Another cheap shot (the last one on this list), but there’s some truth to it. Callie Khouri wrote The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, the signature chick flick of the last twenty years, and easily the most derisive date movie since Sleepless in Seattle (Are men even aloud to see a Meg Ryan romcom if they haven’t been castrated? I’ll look into it.). Thelma & Louise was a terrific script and a great movie, but until she atones for her date movie sins, she owes the Academy her little golden boy.

8. Joe Pesci, Best Supporting Actor – Goodfellas

Now we’re into the real list. Joe Pesci is not someone you consider to be a bad actor. Point of fact, in the right role, he’s tremendous. Marisa Tomei would not have won ther Oscar for My Cousin Vinny without Pesci providing expert comedic support. And he crushes any Scorsese movie he’s in right out of the park. But let’s take a look at his oeuvre after the Goodfellas win: The Super, Lethal Weapon 3 (a.k.a. Lethal Weapon: The Paycheck), Lethal Weapon 4 (a.k.a. Lethal Weapon: Somebody Shoot Leo Getz Already!), Jimmy Hollywood, Gone Fishin, and my personal favorite, 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag. How do you go from Raging Bull and Goodfellas to 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag? He should have just turned in his SAG card when he walked off that set.

7. Shakespeare in Love, Best Picture

Hey wait a minute, didn’t I say no more cheap shots on this list? Oh well, I guess there’s room for one more. The reason I think Shakespeare in Love should turn in its Oscar is simple, it violates the rules for winning a Best Picture Oscar. Those rules being two-fold, one, it has to be the best film of the year (it wasn’t, Saving Private Ryan was), and two, years down the road the film should be considered the apex of cinema for that particular year. In twenty years no one will remember how cute and clever Shakespeare in Love was, but we will still remember the opening battle scene from Saving Private Ryan. That film was not only the best film of 1998, but also arguably the best war film ever made. So why did Shakespeare in Love win the Oscar? It won because Miramax infamously bought the award by paying $15 million in campaign funds to sway the minds of voters (it also gave out a truckload of free shwag, the premiere way to get on an Academy voter’s good side). If you have to buy your Oscar, you do not deserve it.

6. Kim Basinger, Best Supporting Actress - L.A. Confidential

I stated her case pretty well earlier in this piece, but let’s delve a bit further. Kim Basinger probably never deserved an Oscar to begin with. I think her win was a bit like the Marisa Tomei win in that voters thought it would be cute to vote for the hot girl in 9 ½ Weeks, but were shocked when they realized what they had done. So we know she made some bad movies after her win, but let’s take a look at her pre-Oscar films: The Getaway, The Marrying Man, Wayne’s World 2, The Real McCoy, Cool World, Blind Date, My Stepmother is an Alien, and the infamous Pret-a-Porter. The fact is she got lucky, and if she’s not gonna give her Oscar back to the Academy, she should probably give it to her director, Curtis Hanson. And not just for casting her in L.A. Confidential, but also for casting her again in 8 Mile, the only good movie she’s made in the last eight years.

5. Angelina Jolie, Best Supporting Actress - Girl, Interrupted

Hear me out on this one. Angelina is considered a good actress, and she is. She is considered one of the world’s greatest beauties, and arguably, she is. But what she isn’t, is a bankable actress. And nor is she a good chooser of material. Let’s take a look at her film list since her Oscar win: Original Sin, Life or Something Like It, Beyond Borders, Taking Lives, Shark Tale, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and Alexander. She makes bad movies. What makes her any different than, say, Cuba Gooding Jr.? Just because she has those lips, and those tips, and that Brad Pitt, doesn’t mean she deserves to keep her Oscar. She needs to stop wrecking homes and start concentrating on getting a better agent. It’s only a matter of time before people stop caring about her love life, and start paying attention to the fact that she hasn’t been in a three star movie since Playing By Heart in 1998.

4. Kevin Costner, Best Director - Dances with Wolves

His follow up to Dances With Wolves: The Postman. Nothing more needs be said.

3. Whoopi Goldberg, Best Supporting Actress - Ghost

See above for her post-Oscar choices (which is case enough for the I.O.U.). This is exactly like the Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting win; the Academy enjoyed her comedy, and finally found a way to repay her for the laughs (Though to clarify, I do think Robin was excellent in the movie). I appreciate the sentiment, but we could have given that Oscar to Annette Benning in The Grifters for god sakes, but instead the Academy wanted to honor the comedienne for her entries into the comedy pantheon, Burglar and Jumping Jack Flash. At least Robin Williams had been nominated a couple times before he won.

2. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Best Original Screenplay - Good Will Hunting

If you are a writer or a director and you win an Oscar, you have only one responsibility: make another movie. It doesn’t matter if it takes you fives years to do, or if it turns out bad, you have got to produce something else, or take the risk that history will judge your win as a fluke. So… tell me again what this writing team has produced since their surprise win in 1997? Oh yeah, that’s right… NOTHING! Sure, it was cute to see them on stage together, whooping and hollering and bringing their mothers as dates, and forgetting to thank Kevin Smith, who was the sole reason the movie ever got made. But their Oscar could have gone to Paul Thomas Anderson for his landmark film Boogie Nights. And PTA has gone on to write two acclaimed films since then (Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love), which I remind you, is two more than Matt and Ben. Supposedly, later this year the wonder twins are set to write a new movie together about crusading lawyers, but until an usher takes my ticket and their latest script comes to life on the big screen, I’ll be campaigning for the forfeit of their Oscars.

1. Cuba Gooding Jr., Best Supporting Actor - Jerry Maguire

Chill Factor, Snow Dogs, Boat Trip… this triumvirate of cinematic glory is otherwise known as “The Holy Crap Trilogy”, because when you watch any of them you find yourself saying “Holy Crap, didn’t this guy win an Oscar a few years ago?” For all the good he did as a black actor, for all the good he did with Boyz n the Hood, for all the good times he brought as Rod Tidwell in Jerry Maguire, Cuba should still be deported from Hollywood for the crap he’s inflicted on audiences. And if after sitting through The Holy Crap Trilogy you still don’t think he should forfeit his Oscar, remember, he was the worst part of Pearl Harbor, which is beyond hard to do.

Bangarang!

Crash

Simple, powerful, memorable, and above all, pretentious. I like that the poster is a moment from the film, and not just a mass of floating stars faces, which this easily could have been (The poster is brave enough to not show Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Don Cheadle, Ryan Phillippe, Ludacris, and Thandie Newton). And after realizing that the guy on the poster is neither the bald Billy Zane nor a slumming Vin Diesel, you are definitely intrigued as to who it is and what happened to make the guy scream. So intrigued, in fact, that you spend the entirety of the film waiting for the moment, and when it arrives, the all-consuming pretentiousness of both the moment and the shot selection makes you throw up in your mouth a little (Is my bitterness for this film a bit too unsubtle?). So, you know… good things and bad for this one.

Grade: B+

Brokeback Mountain

This is smart poster for a film that knows its success or failure lingers on the reception from the Heartland. Brokeback was always going to play fine on the coasts, the worry was the middle of the country, where the cliché “gay cowboy movie” would effectively kill any commercial chances it may have. This poster does an excellent job of tamping down the “gay cowboy movie” stigma, without copping out by showcasing the women in the movie. The poster plays it straight (no pun intended), there is Ledger and Gyllenhaal, with the mountains in the background. Their faces and posture tell you everything you need to know about the film, without overtly selling the controversy. Without even showing them touching, intuitively, you understand what the film is about. Like I said, it’s a smart poster.

Grade: A

Capote

Well, the title wasn’t lying. That’s definitely Truman Capote. And you gotta respect a film where the poster completely matches the title. So that’s good. So what else is good? Unfortunately, there’s not a lot else. You don’t get a sense of what the film is about, beyond the gigantic twee-looking man. And while everyone should theoretically know who Truman Capote is, the fact of the matter is that we don’t, and this poster does nothing to inform the uninformed. Also, the poster makes the movie look boring. I mean, look at it again, Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a bowtie doesn’t exactly scream “Action”.

Grade: B-

Munich

When I first reviewed this poster I called it “frustratingly vague” while also concluding that “it is an intriguing image for quite possibly the most intriguing movie of the year”. Those thoughts still apply, though I will say that after having seen the film, I believe the poster is right to look the way it does. One man, gun in hand, questioning his reason for holding it (and possibly using it). Spielberg has a long history of wonderful movie posters, with his Oscar winning films being the highlights (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan). While this is not as powerful or as memorable as his past triumphs, it still remains the most intriguing movie poster of the year, and a model for the type of poster simplicity I long for.

Grade: A

Goodnight. And, Good Luck

What is with the large, lazy white space? And why has it become this year’s dominant movie poster trend (Match Point, Little Manhattan)? I get that I’m supposed to dig that Clooney didn’t plop his face on the poster to sell the flick, but man, a bit more intrigue would be nice. With the blocky cast list dominating the white space, the movie’s title ends up looking like a tag line, not a title. And are we just supposed to guess who the guy is at the bottom? If you’re only gonna use 20% of your movie poster, you better fill it with something a lot more interesting than the cuckolded father from the Kevin Bacon-river rafting thriller The River Wild.

Grade: D

So those are my grades for the movie posters of this year’s Best Picture Nominees. And, as promised here are some of my favorite (and in some cases, least favorite) movie posters of Oscar’s pasts, listed in awards order.

The “We Got Al Pacino and Russell Crowe So You Know You’re Seeing This Movie” Award

The Insider

Too bad America was still two years, one Maximus Decimus Meridius and a Dennis Quaid wife swap from falling in love with the fighting Aussie. Still, it’s a sweet poster that showcases great shots of two of the best actors in the business. Sometimes, that’s all you need.

The “We Don’t Care About Men” Award

The Hours

Let’s see, we’ve got a dowdy Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman dropping from her usual “9″, to here looking no better than a “5″ (at best) and the best looking girl on the poster, Julianne Moore, is relegated to the background. Obviously, whoever designed this poster hates men. And the poster is basically telling women everywhere “Good luck convincing your boyfriend to come see this. Oh, and Julianne Moore is pregnant in this, so you’ve got nothing to sell them on. In your face!”

The “Best Evidence that Hilary Swank is Totally NOT a Dude” Award

Million Dollar Baby

If Hilary Swank ever wanted to convince the world that she was a beautiful, feminine woman, that showing her raging back muscles was definitely a bad idea. Also, on a different note, if Morgan Freeman narrates your movie, please, let us know on the poster. That’s one of the main reasons March of the Penguins did so well. If I saw this poster, and it said “Morgan Freeman narrates the movie. Just like Shawshank Redemption!” I would have totally been there.

The Most Iconic Movie Poster Ever Award

The Shawshank Redemption

How did this movie not make $200 million dollars? I was thirteen when this came out, so I wasn’t exactly cognizant of the movie poster scene, but had I seen this, I may have matured much, much faster. An iconic image from the most underrated movie ever made. I can’t say more good things about this poster. It’s a wall worthy poster of the highest order.

The Creepiest Best Picture Movie Poster Award

Silence of the Lambs

You know a poster is creepy when even without Hannibal Lecter you’re still a bit freaked out. Also, any poster that has a butterfly with a dudes face on it… automatically creepy. Damn, let’s just move on.

The Movie Poster Makes the Movie Award

American Beauty

Possibly the most famous example of a movie poster bring directly responsible for a film winning Best Picture. This was the most intriguing poster of it’s year, with its bare midriff, ironic rose, and perfect tag line. Without this poster, American Beauty is just another dark family drama. With the tummy shot, it’s a powerful statement on the American family and the Best Picture of the year.

The “Jack Being Jack” Award

As Good As It Gets

How can you look at this poster and not want to see this movie. It tells you absolutely nothing about the film, nor anything about Jack’s character, though none of that matters. As long as you have Jack’s giant head and laconic smile on your poster, the movie will be a hit. (And on a related note: It’s always smart to avoid putting Helen Hunt on your movie poster, whenever possible.)

Quirkiest Best Picture Movie Poster Award

Fargo

From the quilted surface and respective needle, to the cool tag line and awesome dead body, the poster is spot on in selling a weird little thriller set in the weird universe of the Coen Brothers.

The Straight-To-Video Award

Field of Dreams

What a disgustingly amateurish poster. If I didn’t know it was a classic tale of baseball and fathers and sons, I would think it’s a low budget B-movie cheapy that was ripping off the success of Bull Durham. Is that supposed to be the Field of Dreams behind Costner? That weak looking row of corn stalks? And is that supposed to be a halo around Costner, or the moon? Did some demented Photoshop designer weasel his way into the Universal art department and nobody noticed? I’m so confused why this movie got such a short shrift, poster wise.

The Out of Nowhere Classic Movie Poster Award

Forrest Gump

Tom Hanks on a bench. That’s all this poster is. And yet, Forrest Gump made $300 million, won a truckload of Oscars and is now an American classic. I have no idea why this poster works as well as it does, but damn if it’s not an icon of poster art.

The “Worst Use of A Movie Star on a Best Picture Poster” Award

The Green Mile

Tom Hanks as a doll. How did anyone think this was a good idea? Does it tell me anything about the movie? No. Does it make me want to see this movie? No. All it does is make me stare at it and wonder “Why is Tom Hanks a doll?”

The “Best Use of a Movie Star on a Best Picture Poster” Award

Gladiator

Russell Crowe, shrouded in shadow, covered in armor, and holding a sword, now that’s what I’m talking about. You don’t need to know anything more about the movie, other than Russell Crowe kicks ass with a broad sword.

And finally…

My Favorite Best Picture Movie Poster

Pulp Fiction

What’s so great about this poster is that you can look at it five times and spot five new, cool things about it. Did you notice the pulp novel she’s holding down? Or the handgun? Or the open pack of cigarettes? So much is happening, from the scratched-out background to the “movie poster as book cover as movie poster” design. It’s ingenious, it’s sexy and it’s cool, everything that Pulp Fiction the movie turned out to be. If you’re a guy, a geek and under thirty, you own this poster, you own the script book and you own the DVD. I stared at this poster for years, praying I’d make a film half as cool as Pulp Fiction. Now, I just hope that when I do make a movie, that my movie poster is an eighth as cool as this, my favorite Best Picture movie poster.

Bangarang!

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