Determining the Oscar Winners in the Acting Categories Based on the Pajiba Scale of UGLY SEXY CRAZY

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Seriously Random Lists | Comments (40)

The Academy Awards ceremony airs this Sunday, the culmination of months and months of award ceremonies, lobbying, politics, and web and print copy. Did you know that there were actual websites devoted exclusively to the Oscars? That, starting with Sundance, they spend the entire year debating, predicting, and speculating upon who might win an Academy Award? That they begin compiling potential nominees list in April? They actually update odds on a weekly basis leading up to the Academy Awards, based on a number of factors, and these writers often even stake their entire reputations on their prognostications.

It seems like an excruciating, near pointless and almost silly exercise, but there is apparently an audience for it. In the acting categories, however, it seems you could probably throw all those prognostication skills out and reduce predictions to five simple factors, which seem to almost guarantee predicting success: 1) Physical or mental illness (and extra consideration is given if the movie turns on that illness); 2) ugliness (either natural or cosmetic, and points are given for effort to look ugly, even if that effort failed (see Jennifer Lawrence)), 3) the level of sex or nudity; 4) Accent, either natural or affected; and 5) past nominations. Using those very factors on this year’s acting nominees, we’ve come up with our own Pajiba predictions, based on our sophisticated Crazy Sexy Ugly Oscar algorithm. It’s more than foolproof; it’s science.

Each nominee is ranked in each category from the least (1) to the most (5).

Best Actor

Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Physical or Mental Illness: 4 (Cancer)

Ugliness: 2

Sex or Nudity: 2

Accent: 3

Career Nominations: 3

Total Score: 14

Jeff Bridges, True Grit

Physical or Mental Illness: 2 (Alcoholism)

Ugliness: 3

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 3

Career Nominations: 6

Total Score: 15

Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

Physical or Mental Illness: 2 (Aspergers)

Ugliness: 1

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 1

Career Nominations: 1

Total Score: 6

Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Physical or Mental Illness: 5 (Speech Impediment)

Ugliness: 1

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 3

Career Nominations: 2

Total Score: 12

James Franco, 127 Hours

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 1

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 1

Career Nominations: 1

Total Score: 5

Best Actor Winner: Jeff Bridges

Best Actress

Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right

Physical or Mental Illness: 1 (Slight OCD)

Ugliness: 1

Sex or Nudity: 2

Accent: 1

Career Nominations: 4

Total Score: 9

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Physical or Mental Illness: 3 (Grief)

Ugliness: 2

Sex or Nudity: 2

Accent: 1

Career Nominations: 3

Total Score: 11

Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 3

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 4

Career Nominations: 1

Total Score: 10

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Physical or Mental Illness: 5 (Crazy)

Ugliness: 2

Sex or Nudity: 4

Accent: 1

Career Nominations: 2

Total Score: 14

Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 2

Sex or Nudity: 5

Accent: 1

Career Nominations: 2

Total Score: 11

Best Actress Winner: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale, The Fighter

Physical or Mental Illness: 4 (Drug Addiction)

Ugliness: 5

Sex or Nudity: 2

Accent: 4

Career Nominations: 1

Total Score: 16

John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone

Physical or Mental Illness: 3 (Psychotic)

Ugliness: 4

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 3

Career Nominations: 1

Total Score: 12

Jeremy Renner, The Town

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 1

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 4

Career Nominations: 2

Total Score: 9

Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 1

Sex or Nudity: 3

Accent: 1

Career Nominations: 1

Total Score: 7

Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 4

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 4

Career Nominations: 4

Total Score: 14

Best Supporting Actor Winner: Christian Bale

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, The Fighter

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 2

Sex or Nudity: 2

Accent: 3

Career Nominations: 2

Total Score: 10

Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 2

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 3

Career Nominations: 2

Total Score: 9

Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Physical or Mental Illness: 3 (Crazy)

Ugliness: 5

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 5

Career Nominations: 2

Total Score: 16

Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Physical or Mental Illness: 1

Ugliness: 3

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 3

Career Nominations: 1

Total Score: 9

Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Physical or Mental Illness: 4 (Crazy)

Ugliness: 4

Sex or Nudity: 1

Accent: 3

Career Nominations: 1

Total Score: 13

Best Supporting Actress Winner: Melissa Leo

Each Time You Like, Share, Tweet or Stumble a Pajiba Post, An Angel Does the Paul Rudd Dance

← HALL PASS Review: The Most Depressing Comedy of the Year | Ranking, from Worst to Best (and Without Comment), The Last 25 Best Picture Winners →

Comments

Brilliant!

Posted by: Caspar at February 22, 2011 12:11 PM

Just went and saw The Fighter on Saturday. Holy Shit did Bale do a magnificent job.

Seriously, if he doesn't win, I will BURN THIS FUCKER DOWN!

Posted by: superasente at February 22, 2011 12:16 PM

This is great. And pretty accurate, I'd guess.

(Formatting ate your Best Supporting Actor Winner line.)

Posted by: Scully at February 22, 2011 12:19 PM

Am I to assume that the lowest score for any of these categories is 1? That doesn't seem right.

Also, Jeremy Renner should get more than a 1 for Physical or Mental Illness in The Town. His character had some *serious* issues.

Posted by: tamatha at February 22, 2011 12:20 PM

If I ever saw science in my life, then this is it!!
Brilliant indeed.
The only thing that got me a little lost is how speech impediment gets more points then cancer. I mean, I don't have a medical degree or anything, but...

Posted by: Mariazinha at February 22, 2011 12:35 PM

OK, but I think Colin Firth is going to take Jeff Bridges. Isn't there a category for Americans' reverence for Britishness and Masterpiece Theatre-type thingies?

Posted by: June Velcro at February 22, 2011 12:39 PM

Is Melissa Leo seriously crazier/uglier than the murderous Jacki Weaver?

And is CANCER really less of an illness than stuttering?

Not sure I entirely agree with some of the scores, but I like the idea. Reminds me of my brother-in-law's wacky formula for picking winners at the track.

Posted by: Sara Tonin at February 22, 2011 12:40 PM

Benning's an alcoholic, too, who has to refrain from alcohol for one night to advance the plot of the film. That has to give her copious bonus points.

Williams gets stalked (it might be by Ryan Gosling, but he is playing a skeezy guy in the film) and abused (definitely emotionally, arguably sexually, suggested physically). I don't know how that would fit into scoring (emotional trauma? that seems right), but it shouldn't be overlooked.

And Jackie Weaver is gorgeous in Animal Kingdom. You're just a hater.

Posted by: Robert at February 22, 2011 12:41 PM

This is awesome. But I'd say that Colin Firth gets an extra 5 points for the fact that the movie is a biopic. Oscars LOVE biopics!

Posted by: figgy at February 22, 2011 12:46 PM

HBC got a 3 for accent? Was it that big a stretch? Didn't she grow up upper crust?

Posted by: sars at February 22, 2011 12:48 PM

it is named baity characters

Posted by: carrie at February 22, 2011 12:48 PM

Out of all of these I've only seen Winter's Bone, The Social Network and The Town and only because they're out on DVD. I need to get out more obviously.

Posted by: Paultera at February 22, 2011 12:49 PM

OK Sara Tonin, I'll bite. What is your brother-in-law's wacky formula for picking winners at the track?

Posted by: tamatha at February 22, 2011 12:55 PM

Doesn't Amy Adams have three career nominations?

Posted by: jimbob at February 22, 2011 1:15 PM

Pretty good start, but if we're going to get all Oscarmetric about this, there has to be a calculation for "already has an Oscar/recently won an Oscar." Say there's a flat -3 for winning an Oscar and it goes to -5 if the actor has won it within the last five years: there's a pretty clear tendency for the Academy to avoid giving actors too many trophies in a short span of time. Tom Hanks doing it for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump was honestly kind of remarkable in that regard.

(Also, this math explains why Meryl Streep hasn't won an Oscar since 1982 despite having been nominated twelve frigging times since then.)

Applying this math to the Best Actor race, for example, gives Bardem and Bridges -5 each (for No Country For Old Men and Crazy Heart), knocking them down to 9 and 11 respectively, and putting Firth back into the lead.

The system also needs some sort of "living legend" modifier to consider the effect of "he has had a great career and this role was pretty good so let's give him an Oscar for it because he hasn't won one yet" which led to, say, Jack Palance winning for City Slickers. That's +3, +5 if the actor in question is older than sixty-five and thus benefiting from "might die soon-itis." Both Annette Bening and Melissa Leo get the nod from this factor this year, which pushes Bening into competition with Natalie Portman and gives Melissa Leo an almost insurmountable lead.

However, specifically in the actress categories, "young" needs to be added as a positive modifier (don't kill the messenger, people!) to the tun of +3, which reinforces Portman's lead over Bening and puts Hailee Stanfield up a few notches in the Supporting category.

Posted by: mightygodking at February 22, 2011 1:31 PM

Yeah, AA was nominated for Junebug, Doubt, and now The Fighter.

Posted by: Correctaholic at February 22, 2011 1:35 PM

mightygodking

Your logic is unassailable.

Posted by: Mrs. Julien at February 22, 2011 1:43 PM

If the characters of Nicole Kidman, Melissa Leo and Jacki Weaver all qualify somehow as being mentally ill (which I think is a stretch), then surely James Franco's character should qualify as being physically ill -- no? The guy has his hand squashed, has to self-amputate, and is severely dehydrated.

Posted by: Thijs at February 22, 2011 1:54 PM

Thijs beat me to my point about Franco, so all I have to add is this:

Jeremy Renner, The Town

Physical or Mental Illness: 4 (at least), sociopath.

"Whose car we takin'?"

Posted by: , at February 22, 2011 2:04 PM

tamatha, damned if I can fully remember it, but jockey weight was part of it (and it was squared or something). I don't recall him having great success with it though.

Posted by: Sara Tonin at February 22, 2011 2:36 PM

thankkk you thjis...clearly franco is going through some shit during the movie he prbly has the greatest physicality issues of any of the actors and yes jeremy renner nails it as a sociopath.

and while i love this article i completely agree with mightygodking there are a ton of other factors tht play into this..DEFINITELY including oh yes he's had a great career and this was a decent enough performance so we'll give it to him while the academy lovess honoring young ingenue actresses specifically in the supporting categories which is wht makes me nervous for Leo!

Posted by: anna at February 22, 2011 2:53 PM

Trying to figure out what kind of make-up magic gets Amy Adams and Helena Bonham Carter the same "2"...

Posted by: godzilla_foil at February 22, 2011 3:29 PM

Robert, we seem to have been shown a different film when we went to the theater to see Blue Valentine. You saw Ryan's character as abusive and Michelle as abused? I didn't get that at all.

Posted by: Melissa at February 22, 2011 3:57 PM

the whole thing is made into a joke when bale and rush are
nominated for " supporting " actor. they were great but did far
too much heavy lifting to warrant a supporting designation.
they belong in the big league category and john hawke should have walked off with the statue.

Posted by: snake at February 22, 2011 5:01 PM

I had an easier time understanding what Colin Firth's King George was saying than Jeff Bridges' Rooster Cogburn.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at February 22, 2011 5:06 PM

I have to agree with Thijs -- Franco's character had to cut off his arm. I'd argue that counts as a 5, easily. (As an aside, I'm shuddering violently at the very thought, which is why I could never, ever, ever, ever see that movie.)

Posted by: GeekChic at February 22, 2011 6:00 PM

Amy Adams is 2 on UGLY?

What the fuck, man.

Posted by: sailboat at February 22, 2011 6:10 PM

How the hell was Geoffrey Rush uglified in The King's Speech? Suits, pocket squares, bowties, well groomed hair. Add an accent and the Shakespeare playtime with his kids and you have one dead sexy man.

Posted by: Empress of All the Russias at February 22, 2011 7:53 PM

A speech impediment is an illness but missing a goddamned arm isn't?

Posted by: Constance Reader at February 22, 2011 8:15 PM

Well...I haven't seen the movies, but it's not like he SUFFERS from an amputated arm the whole movie, is it?

I'm being semi-facetious, but I'm guessing that the answer is around that area...

Posted by: figgy at February 22, 2011 11:18 PM

to sailboat
I'm gessing it's not about how attractive she actually is but what effort she made to look less photoshop-y and more au naturel, i.e. Theron in Monster. I too second mightygodking and that was brillant Dustin and you smell real nice, but can someone explain to me, cause I haven't been as a frequent visitor as I used to be, is it an inside joke among the staff to use the term "affect" whenever (even when 'do' or, here, "faked", could suffice) and confusing it with 'effect'?
I'm french see, and, while I purposely emulated critique extraordinaire Armond White here and there, truly the difference between the two verbs is clear to me, so it's just awful to read, I know I could just go fuck myself, nobody forces me to read english reviews but I like it. If you meant to say that accents are affected, changed, then accepte mes excuses, but if not, just stop please. Thanks to you now I'm a grammar cop, and that's not what I want to be when I'm a grown-up. Damn you Rowles.

Posted by: rg at February 22, 2011 11:19 PM

Yes, figgy, he literally suffers from it for a major part of the movie. He's not an amputee suffering emotionally from the loss of limb, his arm is slowly dying hour after hour. So yeah, since the movie is about survival through amputation using a butter knife, I think he deserves at least a 7. Minus 5 because the academy doesn't really like graphic violence and not to frighten geekchic more but God it is graphic. I rarely cringe at the sight of blood but the head-crushing in Irréversible and the big nerve cutting in 127 hrs are exceptions.

Posted by: rg at February 22, 2011 11:42 PM

Career Nominations should be changed to "nominations without a win" or "consecutive nominations without a win".

Also didn't Amy Adams get somewhat nekked during the fighter? Atleast more than a 2.

Posted by: feelsgoodman at February 23, 2011 12:38 AM

*rg* to affect is defined as "to assume artificially, pretentiously, or for effect: to affect a Southern accent." This is just one of several definitions of he word. Most often used for is "affectation" as in "he doesn't really like the moustache, its an affectation because he's a hipster tool."

Posted by: kbinaz at February 23, 2011 1:28 AM

*definitions of THE word, Most often used FORM. Christ, here I am trying to be the grammar police and all I do is ruin everything. Super.

Posted by: kbinaz at February 23, 2011 1:34 AM

kbinaz That example sentence really made me laugh.

Posted by: lingli at February 23, 2011 10:16 AM

Shouldn't it be like +5 if the nominee is hosting the cerimonies? Firth still wins though.

Posted by: Mental Case at February 23, 2011 8:28 PM

I always thought hosting the ceremonies was a -5.

Meaning "we like you, but not this year."

Posted by: Janis at February 23, 2011 8:39 PM

Kings speech, fuck everything else.

Posted by: clancys_daddy at February 23, 2011 8:53 PM

Isn't "cutting off his arm to get un-trapped" merit more then 1 point for James Franco in the Physical and Mental Illness category?!?!

Posted by: CGG at February 27, 2011 6:57 PM

Pajiba

Pajiba: Reviews, Commentary, Angst

Determining the Oscar Winners in the Acting Categories Based on the Pajiba Scale of UGLY SEXY CRAZY

Comments