Pat's Guidelines for Picking the Oscars.

Print this out and save it for next year. You'll be glad you did.

(Usually, you can stop when you hit the first item, but some years you'll want to scan the whole list and figure out which nominee picks up the most points from these lists.)

Major categories first.

Acting awards:

1) Always look for the person who is playing a retard, the person who changed their appearance the most, or the pretty person playing an ugly character.

2) Pick the actor playing an actual person (especially if they had to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles).

3) Pick the well liked industry veteran who has been nominated before but hasn't won an Oscar yet.

4) Pick the actor playing a title character.

5) In the supporting catagories, pick the person in the Clint Eastwood movie.

6) Never pick someone in a comedy for a lead role.

Best Picture:

1) Pick whichever one made the most money.

2) Never pick a comedy.

3) Action movies can only win editing and sound awards.

Director:

1) Never pick Scorsese.

Animated film:

1) Pick the Pixar film.

Costumes and Makeup:

1) Pick the film set furthest in the past.

In the documentary and short subject categories, pick them in this order:

1) the movie about the Holocaust

2) the movie about retarded people

3) the movie about kids

(If there's ever a movie about retarded Jewish kids escaping Nazi Germany, bet the house on that one).