11th Annual DL/Mackenzie Oscar Contest

That is, if Mackenzie comes out from his mouse hole long enough to throw his picks together. My hunch is he's still smarting from my clean sweep from last year (the first of such in this event). The winner always gets steak dinner, but I'm upping the ante for this year: a free copy of Diary of a Husker by Husker Legend David Kolowski. If no sign of Mac by Sunday, we'd love to have Bsmoked Turkey's thoughts, even though I'm still waiting for that copy of A Fish Called Wanda that I won during his College Bowl Contest. Come on man, I need some petty cash, that thing will bring in $3.00 off ebay EASILY!

Anywho, the locks:

• BEST PICTURE: Nobody flipped and flopped on a movie more than Mackenzie did on The Departed. He went from the old Larry David, "Ehh" to being first in line to buy it when it came out on DVD. It's a great movie, better than anything else it's up against (including the vastly overrated Little Miss Moonbeam). It's not Goodfellas, it's not Taxi Driver. But it's Marty's time...
• BEST DIRECTOR: In this decade, we've seen Roy Williams finally win a National Championship, the Red Sox win a World Series, and Peyton Manning finally win the big one. Martin Scorsese has been overdue for years (we still live in a world where Kevin Costner beat him out for Best Director for Lounging With Wolves, the same year Marty was up for GOODFELLAS!). He got killer performances from everyone in the cast and easily made the most entertaining flick of the year.
• BEST ACTOR: All signs point to Forest Whitaker in a movie that nobody's seen or can remember the exact name of. My big question, other than the omission of Sacha Baron Cohen was why Matt Damon didn't get a nod here for The Departed. Go with Forest here, it'll be one more alum from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to have an Oscar.
• BEST ACTRESS: Helen Mirren for imitating the Queen of England. The one sure thing, let's just move on.
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: I love how everyone says that since Norbit came out before the votes were in, Eddie Murphy isn't the shoe in he once was. As if that killed his comeback or something. So if Forest Whitaker would have done Big Momma's House 3 during the same period, would he be in trouble? Come on, this baby's Eddie's moment. But as much as I love Eddie for his SNL years and stand up comedy videos alone, it wouldn't disappoint me at all if Marky Mark got this thing, if only because he was so robbed for his landmark role in Boogie Nights.
• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: This is the one where all of the upsets happen (like when Jack Palance "allegedly" read Marisa Tomei's name in 1993 when it was supposed to be Judy Davis. That's right, Marisa one for My Cousin Vinny, and we're not to believe Palance read the wrong name?). But mostly, this is the category that likes to reward the little girls. That's why we'll have an upset again this year. Go with Abigail Breslin from that Little Miss Moonshine movie. You heard it here first. That poor American Idol reject will be a bridesmaid yet again. You've got to pick the upsets in this category, like Mackenzie did stunningly in 2001 with his writing down the name Marcia Gay Harden, which was waaaaay out of left field. I bought dinner that year.
• BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The other thing they'll give to Little Miss Sunshine, although if Borat were in THIS category, where it should be, instead of adapted, it'd give that Little movie a big run.
• BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Departed. It just feels like Marty's night.

That's it, that's the list. Those are the categories we play. To paraphrase non-nominee Jack Nicholson from Batman, I have taken off my mask. Let's see if you'll take off yours.