Apples to Oscars

There is a game called Apples to Apples, which consists of two sets of cards. A green card has an adjective or description on it like "Cute," "Awful," "Scary," "Entertaining," "Talented," "Freaky," or "Ugly."The red cards have nouns like "Waterfalls," "The CIA," "George Washington," or "Mad Cow Disease."

Each person gets a set of red cards and each will take a turn as judge to decide the winning answer.The judge turns over a green card and players must play a red card from their hand that they believe will line up with the word on the green card or (more importantly) will appeal to that round's judge. The judge then decides which red card best fits the green card and the one who played the winning red card wins the round.

In the examples of green card adjectives listed above, the correct red card play in all cases would be "Michael Jackson."

In one game the following scenario actually occurred. The green card category was "Depressing," and no one had a Michael Jackson card, so they had to look for a second choice. In one players hand, a red card was, I kid you not, "The Great Depression." The judge of the round picked a different winning card, something that was apparently, to them, more depressing than the Great Depression. This ties into the Oscar's how?, you might ask.

Members of the Academy represent actors, animators, directors, composers, musicians, writers, makeup artists, hairstylists, public relations specialists, and foreign documentary filmmakers. They are the judges who vote on the major awards, and we are the holders of the red cards. We clearly cannot accurately predict what will happen when we play our Kate Wins-a-lot card or our Heath Ledger card, but we think that we have a reasonable chance at winning, just as we are almost positive that The Great Depression was most likely a depressing time.

Predicting Oscar's top picks has become a huge part of the awards-season fun. It's the one time of year when your average movie-goer becomes a Hollywood pundit... and often are as accurate as the so-called experts.

Among the factors to consider: What films have been cleaning up at the year-end critics associations banquets, the Golden Globes and the guild awards (Directors Guild, Screen Actors Guild, etc.)? Which studios have been running the best campaigns? Which actors have impressed audiences and industry folk alike with stellar performances? Most importantly, who has been snubbed countless times for quality work and is "due" to win with a mediocre performance?

All of these are things to consider when making picks. Sure, you can pick who you like, or who you think will win, but that really doesn’t matter - does it? Unless you are a Hollywood hairdresser and you get an actual vote. The winners will be announced and some will be expected, but occasionally you will wonder, What were they thinking?

And now you know who “they” are, a hodge-podge collection of “judges” including Michael Jackson, who don’t really care what you think.