Win Your Oscar Pool With Categories Nobody Knows!

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be televised live on Sunday, February 27. If you’re like 99% of viewers, you take your bathroom break during the awards for shorts, documentaries and foreign films. These films aren’t easily available, and they don’t get major media attention, so most viewers know nothing about them. This is where Oscar pools are won or lost. Since I live in New York and I was able to see all of them, (thanks IFC!) I’m going to help you win your Oscar pool by giving you at least two choices for these lesser-known categories (and my ultimate picks).

Best Foreign Language Film
Dogtooth – Greece
Incendies – Canada
In a Better World – Denmark
Outside the Law – Algeria
Biutiful – Mexico

The only thing beautiful in Mexico's ironically titled film is Best Actor nominee Javier Bardem. Biutiful is depressing and odious the way only director Alejandro Inarritu could render. It is however the most recognizable, so you may want to go with that. I'm tempted to go with Denmark's Golden Globe winner, a pretentious yarn about a doctor commuting to an African refugee camp that's basically Crash 2: Colonialism Strikes Back. It's the safest pick, but I'm hoping either the gorgeous craft of Incendies or the massive critical approbation for Dogtooth will produce the sixth-in-a-row disconnect between Globe and Oscar. The former is about an ancestral journey to the Middle East that smartly roots political themes in personal relationships. The latter is a dark, unemotional film about a couple that imprisons their children. Oscar likes Big Themes or Big Hearts, and Incendies has both. Plus, the Academy doesn't like its films too foreign (51 winners here are European aka America's Parents) and this one is from Canada aka America's BFF.

Best Documentary Feature
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Wasteland

If you think Oscar voters will go for sexy and fun, choose Exit, a delightful box office hit about graffiti art that barely feels like a documentary. If you think they’ll go for intelligent and classy, choose Restrepo, which artfully follows a 15-month deployment in Afghanistan. However, if you think they'll just go for cheap and easy, choose Inside Job, which takes on the financial crisis. I’m sticking with Exit, but Inside Job is the safest bet, if only because it's the closet thing to a Michael Moore film i.e. an artless, well-meaning polemic that becomes tiresome after twenty minutes.

Best Live Action Short
The Confession
The Crush
God of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143

God of Love—about a Brooklynite who becomes Cupid—has hipster cred, is the funniest film here, and is the most artfully shot…which is my way of saying it won’t win. My favorite is Na Wewe, which delineates the absurdity of ethnic classification when armed men interrupt a bus ride of innocent people. It has everything that screams award-winner: high seriousness, tension, ethnic children, and even U2! You should pick it too. Except, I have to make you aware of the depressing fact that over 50% of the time, this category goes to the last film viewed by the screening panel. This year that's Wish 143, which is about a boy whose dying wish is to get laid. It's admittedly funny and moving, has a terrific lead performance, and it features cancer. Your call.

Best Documentary Short
Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors of Quiguang

Sun Come Up, about climate change refugees from the Carteret Islands, is the best-made, most visually appealing film here, but Oscar voters will likely be torn between Poster Girl and Strangers No More. The former has anti-Iraq War topicality, following a female soldier who returns home disenchanted and psychologically scarred. The latter has adorable children in a refugee school, harrowing stories turned into uplifting ones, and…OK, Israel. I’m going with Strangers, but it should be noted that Poster Girl has a strong individuality factor the others lack.

Best Animated Short
Day and Night
The Gruffalo
Let's Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar

Pixar’s Day and Night is the most artful with its animated premise, succinctly and inventively sketching a picture of tolerance via a Chuck Jones (Bugs Bunny) homage and a clever sound-mix. It's also the most popular (featured before Toy Story 3). However, I’d be shocked if anything other than The Gruffalo wins here. It’s much longer than all the others, it tells a complete narrative, about a mouse in the forest outwitting three predators, and it’s a cute film based on a cute children’s book.

Javier Bardem: Photo By PR Photos

Exit Through The Gift Shop Photo Credit: Revolver Entertainment