Sunday night, as we have done for the past couple of years, we went to a friends' home to take in the Academy Awards show, check out our potluck with others, and compete for the "Oscar"-a squishy Sesame Street Oscar in an equally squishy garbage can, the word "Scram" emblazoned across the front.
As the big night has drawn near, I've been keenly aware of my need to brush up on my current movie knowledge, and to understand the pulse of where things were headed in the awards world. I recall thinking, two months prior, that I was really going to get into it, really study reviews and the industry scuttlebutt. Well, alas, here I found myself, Saturday night, with nothing. I hadn't taken the time, I did not read the Times' reviews for the last two months, did not even go to see a lot of the films that were up for big honors. What did I do? I did what any resourceful person would have done: I asked myself, "Who really cares about who wins"?? The answer, of course, is Vegas! Vegas cares about this stuff more that most because Vegas is making money at it, good news or bad news-there's a Vegas line that you too can get in on. So...letting my fingers do the walking, I tootled on over to bookmaker.com and had a look-see. It worked pretty well. Following the odds posted there, Sunday night I won 19 out of 24 awards categories (there were 2 or 3 that did not have odds; I went to the Times' for guidance there, nodding to A.O.Scott's view over Manohla Dargis for those) 6 ahead of the nearest "legitimate" competitor. When "The Social Network" won for best original score there was a collective groan with everyone-except me-wondering how that could be, "it was a horrible, annoying score" they said. I just smiled, knowing that, for whatever reason, the odds were overwhelmingly in favor of exactly that. I couldn't do it, though, I bowed out of the contest, explaining to all how I did it-it was hilarious. The good fellow who won had truly done it (13 of 24) with his recollections and his passion for film. Even funnier, our ever talented son declined the award immediately after I had, citing first how he just didn't want it, too squishy, I think, but also the fact that he had done a very similar thing, although on his Blackberry, the moment he got to the party. At least I had the benefit the night before of some undisturbed free time to study those odds, and a real, full sized computer.
Las Vegas and gambling has never been of interest to me, and it still is not, but I was struck at how accurate the answers were. Perhaps next year I'll start studying a couple of months before the big night.
