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    spoiler alert

    Guaranteed Academy Award winners: Win your Oscar pool with these Internet picks

    Duncan Carson
    Feb 26, 2012 | 4:23 pm
    News_Oscars_2010_generic_March 10
    Replicas of Oscars on display in a shop in front of the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California
    Photo by Gabriel Bouys

    Spoiler alert: I'm going to ruin the Oscars for you.

    I used to watch the ceremony on the edge of my seat, though I've always been an avid cinephile, I could never outguess the Academy: Why would Million Dollar Baby beat The Aviator after it won so many technical categories? How could Crash possibly win anything?
    But a few years ago I discovered the cottage industry of blogs that follow every Oscar precursor, every press release and For-Your-Consideration ad, know all the angles and can predict what will win most categories.
    Basically these blogs do all the hard work for you, making charts of each Critic's circle award, the SAGs, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs and all of the individual filmmakers' guild awards that correspond to the technical categories. They work out which ones match up to the Oscars and predict accordingly — there are even Vegas odds for Best Picture.
    The Internet, like it does for most everything, can remove the wonder from the Oscars but give you the upper hand. It'll drain Sunday night of most of its inherent drama (you can bet on just how wacky host Billy Crystal will be!), but you'll win your Oscar pool if its full of casual moviegoers that don't know Hugo from a hole in the ground.
    This year it's clear that The Artist has a deathgrip on Best Picture, as well as Best Director and Editing (the two most important Best Picture indicators). Star Jean Dujardin (the titular "Artist") has a slight edge on George Clooney for Best Actor, and since The Artist is a silent movie, composer Ludovic Borce had to carry so much weight that he's assured the Best Original Score statue. Plus it's a period piece, it can count on Best Costumes as well.
    Use these in your pool, and if you win then let me know (that I haven't wasted my last three winters obsessing over the Oscar-guessing industry for no reason).
    But the juggernaut ends there: The more colorful, expansive Hugo will beat it for Art Direction, and since it has no dialogue it'll lose Best Original Screenplay to Midnight in Paris (the screenplay category is basically Woody Allen's homefield).
    The Help was the only Best Picture nominee that people actually saw, so it has to take home something: Expect Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer to win Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. Christopher Plummer will win Best Supporting Actor for Beginners, in a classic "He doesn't have an Oscar yet?" move of respect.
    Alexander Payne's The Descendants will have to console itself with Best Adapted Screenplay, and then we have some miscellaneous categories and techs: Rango is clearly the frontrunner for Best Animated Feature, A Separation the obvious Best Foreign Film winner and Hugo will probably take both Sound Mixing and Sound Effects Editing.
    Paradise Lost 3 (about the recently released West Memphis 3) seems to have the edge in Documentary feature, the song from The Muppets will easily beat the song from Rio, and Meryl Streep's Thatcher-ization will carry The Iron Lady to a Best Makeup victory.
    The Tree of Life was incomprehensible, but beautiful, so it ought to take home Best Cinematography. Andy Serkis' motion-capture performance in The Rise of the Planet of the Apes should guarantee that film Best Visual Effects.
    That just leaves the three short films: I'm not going to lie, these are nearly impossible to get right. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore seems like the most memorable of the animated shorts (though it has to beat La Luna from powerhouse Pixar). No one on the Internet can agree about the other two, so I'm arbitrarily going with The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom because it's the most depressing-sounding Documentary Short, and Time Freak for Live Action Short because I love time travel.
    The full list of picks is below. There are always surprises on Oscar Sunday, but if you're a nerd like I am, it's because Transformers inexplicably loses Visual Effects to The Golden Compass, not an upset in the big categories. Use these in your pool, and if you win then let me know (that I haven't wasted my last three winters obsessing over the Oscar-guessing industry for no reason).
    Picture: The Artist
    Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
    Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
    Actress: Viola Davis, The Help
    Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
    Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help
    Original Screenplay:Midnight in Paris
    Adapted Screenplay:The Descendants
    Editing: The Artist
    Cinematography:The Tree of Life
    Score: The Artist
    Song:The Muppets
    Art Direction: Hugo
    Costumes: The Artist
    Sound Mixing:Hugo
    Sound Effects Editing:Hugo
    Makeup:The Iron Lady
    Visual Effects:The Rise of the Planet of the Apes
    Foreign:A Separation
    Animated Feature:Rango
    Doc Feature: Paradise Lost 3
    Doc Short:The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
    Animated Short:The Fantastic Flying Books...
    Live Short:Time Freak
    unspecified
    news/entertainment

    Movie Review

    Houston native Wes Anderson shows off comedic side in The Phoenician Scheme

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 6, 2025 | 4:00 pm
    Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme
    Photo courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features
    Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme.

    If you were to do a poll of the best comedy filmmakers of the 21st century, writer/director Wes Anderson is not the obvious choice to come out on top, but there’s an argument to be made for him. His quirky style doesn’t yield the guffaws that more broad comedies do, but the absurd situations he creates in his films are often more consistently funny than anything else.

    Anderson’s inimitable approach is once again on full display in The Phoenician Scheme. At its center is Zsa-Zsa Gorda (Benicio Del Toro), a much-hated businessman who’s looking to complete a number of big projects in the fictional country of Phoenicia. As he seems to be the target of multiple assassination attempts, he appoints his daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), as his heir to try to ensure his legacy.

    Both she and his new assistant, Bjorn (Michael Cera), accompany him around the country as he tries to enact a scheme to have others cover the bulk of the cost for the various projects. Those he attempts to convince include Phoenician Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed), brothers Leland (Tom Hanks) and Reagan (Bryan Cranston), fellow businessman Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), ship captain Marty (Jeffrey Wright), his Cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson), and Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch).

    Put in Andersonian terms, the film is a mix between the madcap antics from The Grand Budapest Hotel and the impenetrable storytelling of Asteroid City. If you were to try to understand every detail of what’s going on in the story of The Phoenician Scheme, it might take three or more viewings to do so. But the film is still highly entertaining because Anderson fills its frames with his typical visual delights, great wordplay, and his particular version of slapstick.

    Much of the comedy of the film derives from Anderson inserting moments that initially come as a surprise and then utilizing them as running jokes. The film features more blood than usual for the filmmaker, but each time a character gets wounded (or worse), it gets funnier. The assassination attempts get broader as the film goes along, and the matter-of-fact way in which they’re treated by Gorda and others is also hilarious.

    Of course, Anderson is the cinephile’s comedy director, so the film is also full of high-brow things like allusions to paintings, tributes to other filmmakers, and classical music. Each time Gorda has an attempt on his life, he briefly finds himself in a version of limbo, depicted in black-and-white by Anderson. The cast of characters Gorda finds there - including Bill Murray as God - could come straight out of a 1950s Ingmar Bergman movie.

    Del Toro has delivered some great performances over the years, but this one is near the top for him. This is his second Anderson film (following The French Dispatch) and he nails the deadpan method. Also great is Cera, who uses a ridiculous accent to make a big impression. Threapleton, the daughter of Kate Winslet, makes the most of her first big film role. The list of supporting actors is too deep to properly laud everyone, but they all fit in seamlessly.

    Opinions will differ, but for this critic’s money, Anderson is at his best when he fully leans into the comedy of his films. He does just that in The Phoenician Scheme, to the point that it doesn’t matter that the story is overly complex. The combination of his eye for visual detail, a witty script, and committed performances make it a success.

    ---

    The Phoenician Scheme is now playing in theaters.

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