The five people you'll meet at every Oscars party
Going to a party to watch the Academy Awards Sunday? Be prepared to encounter one of these characters while you're trying to endure 20 unnecessary musical tributes.
If you can't make it to the Academy Awards on Sunday because you can't afford the limo fees, you'll have to settle for watching the ceremony at a party. That's where you're bound to run into one of these five classic Oscars party characters. Study them. Remember them. Be prepared to deal with them. The envelopes, please.
1. The Old Timer
Remember when films only had two shades of color and didn't allow big Hollywood stars to use naughty words or show even an inch of side-boob or butt cheek? This person does and he'll remind you of that fact every time he sees something that offends him.
Usually, he just averts his eyes from the TV screen or heads to the kitchen for another bite of artisanal cheese, but eventually, he'll crack. He'll start ranting about how cursing in a movie is akin to federal treason and no one ever showed a millimeter of skin on screen. The only thing that shuts him up is the reminder of his mortality and how much life he's wasted by complaining so much every time the "In Memoriam" segment starts.
2. The Quiet One Who Ends Up Dominating the Oscars Pool
It's too bad Academy Award parties don't hold a separate pool to guess who's going to win the actual Oscar pool because you could really rake in some money by betting on this person.
The quietest one at every Oscar party who actually watches the broadcast and barely completes a full sentence all night always walks away with all of the money. She may seem shy and unassuming, but don't let that fool you. She's a lion when it comes to picking the winners.
How does she do it? Is she a Hollywood insider? Does she have a master's degree in film? Does she have telekinetic abilities? Maybe it's because she always saves her winnings to actually buy tickets for the nominated movies instead of guessing by picking the snootiest-sounding name in every category.
3. The "I Saw That" Guy
By the end of the night, you'll know every movie this person has seen. That's because he'll announce it at the presentation of every movie during the broadcast as if everyone else is playing some kind of "What Movies Did This Guy See? Bingo."
Best picture nominee "The Revenant?" He saw it. Best cinematography nominee "The Hateful Eight"? He saw it in HD and the 70mm version. Best live action short film nominee "Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)"? He saw that as well, even though the nearest art-house movie theater is 200 miles from where he lives. It doesn't matter how obscure the movie sounds. If it pops up on the screen, he will point at it and scream like Donald Sutherland at the end of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
4. The "That's Not Funny" Person
Doing comedy at the Academy Awards is hard. You have to make a global audience laugh by placating a theater full of people who couldn't take a joke if it was stapled to their palms.
So imagine just how much harder such a gig would be if someone in the audience just kept saying, "That's not funny" over and over again at the end of every joke. She does that at the screen every time the host or a presenter tries to tell a joke that doesn't make her comedy barometer spin like a merry-go round being pushed by a kid with a blood sugar imbalance.
Thankfully, the communication channels for television only move in one direction (unless that's a new feature on the smart TV Apple is developing). Otherwise, James Franco and Anne Hathaway's cringeworthy co-host performance in 2011 would have looked like two people being tortured by the voices in their heads for three straight hours.
5. The Handicapper
You don't have to know anything about movies to enjoy an Oscars party or even appreciate the experience of watching the Academy Awards. It's not about impressing your friends with your knowledge and opinions. Someone should tell that to this guy.
It's very easy to spot him. He will make his predictions WAY before celebrities even start walking down the red carpet and he never brings them up again once the Academy Awards start. That's because his predictions are always wrong and completely misinformed. He wants to look smart, even though he never saw a single nominated movie. If he did, he would have realized that the only award "Jupiter Ascending" is up for is a Razzie.
He may talk a big game, but it's painfully clear the only movie he saw last year was "Mortdecai" because it sounded like a snooty indie flick.
The 88th Academy Awards ceremony airs Sunday on ABC at 5:30 p.m. PT, with the red-carpet show starting at 4 p.m.