All Hail The Ultimate Egomania Vortex

The Oscars are upon us. Of course I will never bother watching them, but it has been my tradition in recent years to write predictions as to how the ceremony might unfold. I've been doing this enough times that my predictions posts have their own continuity, in case you're wondering. And so here we have it...

Three days before the ceremonies, annual preparations will commence at a Los Angeles funeral home for the embalming updates of the body of Jack Nicholson, who passed away several years ago during an Oscars ceremony and whose will stipulates that his corpse must, forever after, be placed in the front row each year for the ceremony. The specialists working on the treatments will trade some decidedly black humour jokes about a remake of Weekend At Bernie’s with an actual corpse.

Barbra Streisand, still nursing a grudge over last year’s Oscars in which she was unceremoniously dropped off in the middle of the Sahara to prevent her from making a scene, will be furious when she receives a court order forbidding her to be in California over the weekend of the Oscars.

The evening before, the annual Razzies will be held in Los Angeles, dishonouring the worst films of the year. In collaboration with the organizers of that event, the Oscars producers will have worked out an elaborate scheme to have Tom Cruise attend, believing he’s at the Oscars, and thus keep him away from the actual Oscars.

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel will be busy the previous day looking over his notes for the opening monologue, wondering if he should tweak anything, and expecting a tweet storm of criticism from the world’s biggest crybaby over what he’ll have to say.

A limo will bring Tom Cruise to the location where the Razzies are being held. The actor, not the brightest of his profession, will not question why the Oscars have been moved to a Saturday night. Nor will it occur to him that it’s not being held at the Dolby Theatre. He will be oblivious to all of that as he strides down the red carpet, waving at those who have shown up outside, chatting with entertainment reporters as he heads in. He’ll flash that usual Tom Cruise smile, the all teeth grin with the dead eyes, walk inside, and still remain oblivious to the fact that the people around him aren’t the usual Hollywood crowd.

Barbra Streisand will find herself in New York for the weekend, where she will put on a one night only concert for her fans. After three hours of screeching her greatest hits to a legion of adoring nitwits with bad taste in music, she will speak of the court order against her and the disrespect that has come her way from the Academy. “It is time, my darling ones,” she will proclaim. “Time for us to rise up and overthrow Hollywood! Time for Operation Empress Barbra, just as I’ve been planning for years! This is our day! This is my day!” The crowd will go wild.

The weekend entertainment shows will be gushing about preparations for the Sunday night show and talking about who’ll be there. The usual vacant headed entertainment reporters will be chattering on about who’ll be wearing what, who’s likely to make a splash, who’s going to have to deal with rejection, who’s going to be the surprise, and which one of them will get the first big interview with the winner. “Scooter, I’m telling you, it’s going to be fabulous!” Estella Dario, a new correspondent with Access Hollywood, will proclaim, looking as demented as her on screen fellow correspondent.

Tom Cruise, still oblivious to the fact that the people around him aren’t Oscar nominees, but Razzie staffers and various hangers-on just wanting to revel in the utter cheesiness of the ceremony, will yell in triumph as his name is called out as the winner for The Mummy at the Razzies. He will take to the stage, laughing in that dead-soul way of his, and take to the podium, commencing a four hour speech lionizing himself, his career as an actor, his Scientology, and the fact that he’s “still got it, damn it!” He will be completely oblivious to the fact that people will have been filtering out of the hall until finally a janitor will ask if he’s done. Cruise will stop, pause, finally processing that he and the janitor are the only people left. “Where is everyone?” Cruise will ask, looking confused. The janitor will tell him that the Razzies are over. That will only confuse Cruise more. “Wait, this isn’t the Oscars?”

Sunday morning will dawn in Hollywood. Outside the Dolby Theatre, entertainment reporters will be staking out their spots on the red carpet. Fans, having had camped out for a few days, will be awaiting the inevitable arrival of stars they might only catch a three second glimpse of. Melissa Rivers, daughter of the late and unlamented Joan Rivers, will show up, demanding a correspondent’s place along the red carpet. “Do you people know who I am?” she will ask a 300 pound guard doing his best to politely ask her to leave.

Legions of Streisand fans will be packed into cars, on the roads driving west out of New York State after a late start in the morning, with their leader in a limo tricked out to look like something out of a Mad Max film. Streisand herself will be standing on the roof of the limo, singing People. The fact that they can’t drive across the country in less than twelve hours will not occur to any of them.

At his residence, Leonardo DiCaprio will be busy preparing himself for the night ahead. Bitterness and rage will consume him. Yes, he finally won an Oscar after so many years of futility, but he still feels disrespected, what with last year’s delayed acceptance speech/ endless rant being interrupted by the official bouncers of the occasion. He will plan to rectify that this evening.

After getting dressed for the evening at home, John Travolta will occupy his time staring at a wall full of photographs of this year’s nominees to familiarize himself with names. Pointing at a photograph of Alison Janney, he will exclaim, “Apple Jolikins!”

Tom Cruise, furious about the deception inflicted upon him the previous evening, will be planning a Mission Impossible entry into the Oscars ceremony, where he intends to settle scores and throw a tantrum. Staring into a mirror at his favourite person in the entire world, Cruise will tell himself, “Nobody disrespects me like this and gets away with it.”

Jack Nicholson’s embalmed body will be placed in its usual spot in the theatre while last minute preparations are being made. Ceremony producers Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd will stop by, pause to look at the tuxedo clad, sunglasses wearing Nicholson, and notice the scent of embalming fluid. “Can we get a bit of air freshener around here?” De Luca will ask an assistant.

Somewhere in a place with no extradition treaties, Harvey Weinstein will be watching the pre-show while eating potato chips and hoagie sandwiches and washing it all down with depressants, uppers and downers, and vodka. Holed up in a quiet hotel in the tropics at the suggestion of his attorney, Weinstein will be grumbling to himself. “They used to thank me in their speeches,” he will say to no one in particular, feeling a tight vice like pressure in his chest. “Until some ****ing ****er decided ol’ Harvey Weinstein can’t **** whoever the **** he wants to ****. Me too, my big fat ass!”

Backstage, Kimmel will be meeting with the writers for one last go around on ideas. “So are we going ahead with the Shape Of Water meets Dunkirk gag or not?”

Tommy Lee Jones and Marisa Tomei, returning to the ceremonies yet again as the official enforcers and bouncers of the evening, will arrive a bit early and speak with the producers, promising to keep an eye out on the usual suspects. “I’m in a fighting mood tonight,” Jones will confirm.

Streisand and her horde of fans will barrel their way west through country roads in Pennsylvania, irritating Amish farmers as Streisand continues to warble her greatest hits from the top of her limo. “And this is why we keep to ourselves,” one farmer will say to his neighbor.

In the Alberta foothills, legendary RCMP Inspector and thorough grouch Lars Ulrich will be at his detachment, enjoying the peace and quiet of knowing that there is no entertainment reporter within five hundred kilometres of his location. Except for the two currently in a Calgary hospital after showing up last week and asking him what Metallica had to say about the Kim Cattrall-Sarah Jessica Parker vendetta.

Todd and De Luca will find themselves struggling with a last minute problem. Stars are asking not to be seated in the immediate vicinity of Jack Nicholson’s corpse. Mindful of the optical no-no of having empty seats, they resolve the problem by paying bonuses to the seat fillers who agree to fill in those chairs and put up with the scent of preservatives. 

The red carpet show will start getting underway. In a year where #Metoo has been trending, entertainment reporters will still go to the standby questions they ask of every woman coming down the red carpet to head into the theatre. “So who are you wearing?”

Singer Bjork, who comes to the Oscars despite not being an actor or having a song involved, will arrive, dressed in an outlandish way as always, in a sequin silver dress accented with a welder’s mask, vampire teddy bear cape, mismatched purple and psychedelic orange elbow length gloves, and carrying a hammer that looks suspiciously like it belongs in a Marvel comic. “Yes, well, this is Mjolnir, and yes, I am carrying it,” Bjork will tell reporters. “And I’m using it on the first person who makes fun of the way I’m dressed tonight."

John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston will arrive shortly thereafter and notice the spectacle. “Look, honey,” Travolta will point. “It’s that singer, Bedlam!”

De Luca and Todd will confirm to reporters that a repeat of last year’s Best Picture fiasco will not happen. Todd will say, “The accounting firm sent the individuals responsible for that to outer Mongolia, and they haven’t been heard from in eleven months. And we’ve made sure that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will never be on an Oscar stage again.”

Somewhere on Skull Island, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will be running for their lives, chased by King Kong.

Sally Hawkins, the Best Actress nominee for The Shape Of Water, will find herself losing patience with an empty headed entertainment reporter who will ask repeatedly if her film glorifies bestiality.

Jennifer Lawrence, carrying out her secret desire to trip in public, will get it out of the way early by tripping on the red carpet. She’ll laugh it off afterwards, saying, “this is why I didn’t become a bomb disposal expert.”

Leonardo DiCaprio will arrive at the Dolby Theatre, accompanied by this month’s latest model as his date. He will look as sullen as he usually does, a far cry away from his Titanic heartthrob days. When asked about last year’s fiasco in which he threw a tantrum and got beaten up by Marisa Tomei, he will fume and answer, “Don’t you say her name!” He will stalk up the red carpet, accompanied by this month’s latest model.

Gary Oldman will try to refrain from rolling his eyes when an entertainment reporter asks him for his opinion on the civil war erupting between the Cattrall-Parker factions.

Travolta, looking around at other attendees, will wave at Emma Watson. “Hey, Edith Worthington! It’s me! Joshua Tallingford!”

Network executives watching the pre-show on television will find themselves wondering if this year will finally be the year that the Oscars is done on time. “I swear to God, Carruthers, if this goes late again, I’m having you shipped to a weather station in Alaska,” the network chief will threaten one of his underlings.

Tom Cruise will be dropped onto the roof of the Dolby Theatre by helicopter. His kit bag will include climbing rope, bungee cords, his tuxedo, and a copy of the speech he intends to make, titled Why You Should Bow Down And Worship Me.

Jimmy Kimmel will open the show in a breezy monologue that pokes fun of the major films involved tonight, moves into the #Metoo movement, and teases the current occupant of the Oval Office.

At his resort Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump will write the first of one hundred and eighty seven tweets over the first two hours of the Oscars. “Oscars so dumb! My hair is very real! Unfair!”

In the Hollywood Hills, Kim Cattrall will rally her fan club, now outfitted into her own private army, in what in later years will be called the Battle Of Buena Vista Drive, the first battle in a new American Civil War, against the Sarah Jessica Parker Fifth Motorized Division. Parker will be at the head of her army, while her husband, Matthew Broderick, is off attending the Oscars.

Streisand and her horde of fans, driving through western Ohio, will be setting off endless noise complaint calls to the police as they pass through. Streisand, still standing on top of her limo and screeching her way through The Way We Were, will be described as “fingernails on the blackboard crossed with cats being strangled and a hint of high pitched wails going by at ninety miles an hour” by Springfield resident Alec Haynes.

The first of the categories will be presented, for Best Supporting Actor. Sam Rockwell, nominated for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, will utter a curse word on camera when he’s not named the winner.

John Travolta will laugh and turn to his wife Kelly Preston, whispering, “hey, Kahlee, did you hear what Sebastian Rawlings just said?”

Leonardo DiCaprio will look off to his right and notice Marisa Tomei sitting down in the front row. It will trigger PTSD from previous beat downs she’s inflicted on him. As if knowing she’s being watched, she will look his way, smile in a menacing way, and run one finger across her throat, and then point at him. DiCaprio will feel like someone just walked over his grave.

On top of the Dolby Theatre, Tom Cruise’s big attempt to break into the building in a manner quite like his Mission Impossible series will go horribly wrong when he finds himself dangling upside down from a bungee cord wrapped around his left ankle.

Songs will be start to be performed for the nominees for Best Song Of The Year. De Luca and Todd will look at their watches and start calculating how far they’re behind, and why they had to let The Greatest Showman tune turn into a full blown showstopper that will take up at least fifteen minutes.

As Keala Settle finishes singing This Is Me, from The Greatest Showman, John Travolta will turn to his wife and say, “honey, isn’t that something? She’s got the same first name as you!”

Donald Trump will tweet, “Stupid Oscars! Everyone knows The Donald Is The Greatest Showman! Crooked Hillary fake news!”

White House staffers will talk amongst themselves, wondering if they should contact the President and inform him that there is a major chase underway near the Ohio and Indiana borders involving a fleet of cars heading west, and the governors of both states are feeling anxious.

Still hanging upside down, Tom Cruise will feel the blood rushing to his head and pass out.

Mark Hamill, previously announced as a presenter for the Oscars, will take to the stage. He will pause momentarily, considering whether or not to go ahead with his Plan B remarks: “You know, I played other characters aside from Luke Skywalker. I’m the guy who voiced the Joker for years on end and gave your kids nightmares, but does anyone talk about that?” Instead, he will be gracious and charming and even a bit self-deprecating.

John Travolta will turn to Kelly Preston and remark, “Micah Hodges is a funny guy!”

Donald Trump will tweet, “Fake news! Empire had some very fine people, very fine. Sad!”

Streisand and her hordes, driving through eastern Indiana, will find themselves being pursued by a growing network of Indiana and Ohio state troopers on the ground and up above. They will reach the end of their line when the lead driver loses control, triggering a five hundred thirty eight car pile-up of Streisand fans in the middle of nowhere.

De Luca and Todd will find themselves wondering how the ceremony could already be an hour behind schedule.

Tom Cruise will wake up and realize he’s not going to get any back up to get him out of his predicament. Only then will it occur to him to simply try to right himself and untangle the knot around his ankle.

The March Of The Dead will commence, with the images of actors, directors, writers, cinematographers, and more people who have died in the last year projected onto screens in the theatre, as well as on television screens across the world. People will applaud for those they knew, and ask, “who the **** is that” for those they don’t.

Donald Trump will fire off his last tweet of the evening, writing “Honour Vladimir! This Hollywood collaborate brufakexqstts….” The tweet will go out and remain live for the next fifty seven hours, with the word Brufakexqstts trending on Twitter, while the White House strenuously goes out of its way to deny suggestions that the president has had a major stroke.

The Battle Of Buena Vista Drive will end with both sides running away, leaving General Cattrall and General Parker in a cat fight, scratching and hissing as they try to claw each other’s eyes out.

Tom Cruise will fall four feet to the rooftop after undoing his bungee cord knot. He will feel the aches and pains of his body as he pulls himself up to his feet. “I’m going to be feeling sore in the morning,” he will tell no one, before going to work unscrewing an air shaft grate.

One of the seat fillers sitting beside Jack Nicholson’s corpse will wonder if her imagination’s getting the better of her, or if Nicholson just shifted in his seat.

An Indiana State police captain, in charge of the five hundred thirty eight car pile up, will find herself getting reports on injuries from paramedics, who will inform her that they seem to all be excessively whiny. Ten minutes later she will find out the common bond and reason why they’re whiny: they’re all Streisand fans.

Finished removing the grate, Tom Cruise will take one last look around the rooftop of the Dolby Theatre, and notice something he hadn’t noticed before- the roof access door is wide open. “Dammit, and I broke a nail trying to get that thing open!”

As the March Of The Dead ends, Leonardo DiCaprio will stalk to the stage, grabbing a microphone. “Nobody cares about any losers who died of whatever!” he will yell, glaring and scowling. “They care about me! Two years ago I was robbed of the chance to give my acceptance speech in full, because of a mistake! Last year I didn’t get a chance to finish! Now I’m finishing what I had to say!”

From opposite ends of the front row, Marisa Tomei and Tommy Lee Jones will rise from their chairs, clenching their fists.

The Indiana police captain will discover that Streisand herself is among the wounded. The walking wounded, that is, having had suffered a minor paper cut during the epic pile up. Nonetheless, Streisand will be playing for sympathy. “Nobody’s ever hurt as much as this!” she will say as she hobbles her way out of the pile of wreckage. “Nobody in the history of the world can compare to this kind of pain, not childbirth, not amputation, not anything! Just look at my precious pinkie finger!” The police captain will try to refrain from rolling her eyes while placing Streisand under arrest.  Streisand will start screaming in protest.

Leonardo DiCaprio, not noticing the presence of Marisa Tomei and Tommy Lee Jones on either side, will continue his rant. It will be interrupted in mid-greatest actor ever diatribe by the arrival in the theatre of Tom Cruise. “Why did you start the ceremony without me??” he will bellow at the top of his lungs, stalking down the aisle.

DiCaprio will frown. “Hey! I’m talking here! Now where was I? Oh, yes. Greatest actor ever!”

Cruise will rush the stage, as oblivious to the approaching Tomei and Jones as DiCaprio is. “This Academy owes me an apology!” he will state, taking the microphone away from DiCaprio and glaring out at the crowd. “You don’t treat me the way I’ve been treated! I’m the best actor there ever was, and you humiliated me last night by making me go to the Razzies! We all know The Mummy was a masterpiece, and you treat me like this?”

DiCaprio will push Cruise. Cruise will push back. Neither with much in the way of force or strength. And only then will Tomei and Jones move in… and start beating up both DiCaprio and Cruise. It will end with both egomaniacs being thrown up against the corpse of Jack Nicholson, who will collapse on top of them.

John Travolta will be astonished as he tells his wife, “Wow! Theodore Lyle Jasper and Millicent Tatum are really good fighters!”

The process of having seven hundred and twelve Streisand fans and their diva sent to area hospitals, not to mention criminal charges filed against them, will get underway in eastern Indiana. The governor will trade calls with his Ohio counterpart, debating which jurisdiction this is all going to fall under. Streisand, still under arrest and not ceasing her screaming fit, will be placed in the back of a patrol car on the scene by a police captain who will apologize to the officer assigned to drive her to the nearest holding center.

Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio will be removed from the Dolby Theatre by paramedics, whining and complaining about broken noses and bloody lips. Jimmy Kimmel will crack a joke about the egos of actors that will cast much of the auditorium in an uneasy chuckle.

The last of the major categories will finally be called. Among the winners will be long time nominee, first time winner Gary Oldman, who will take the Best Actor trophy for Darkest Hour. His speech will be gracious and one for the ages.

The Oscars ceremony will finally be at an end. Someone will wake up Jimmy Kimmel, who will wrap up the broadcast with a joke or two about the late hour. The credits will roll, and audiences still watching will be startled to find out that it’s the following afternoon, and Judge Judy is about to start.

The network chief will tell Carruthers to pack his bags, and to buy a few parkas, because as of right now he’s going to be spending the rest of his working life in Nome.

In the Hollywood Hills, Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker will wake up on the front lawn of the Parker-Broderick home, bloodied and dazed, and pick up where they left off, trying to kill each other.

Streisand and her seven hundred twelve fans involved in what has become known as the Streisand Incident will find themselves being slowly processed through the Indiana court system for reckless driving. “Don’t you know who I am???” Streisand will scream at a local judge.

On Skull Island, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will find themselves being held in either front paw of an angry King Kong. “Eat her first!” Beatty will tell the giant ape. “I’m too handsome to die first!”

Dunaway will glare at him and say, “Go **** yourself, Warren.”

In a Los Angeles hospital, Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio will be discharged as patients after being checked out by doctors. Cruise will have a battered face and three broken ribs. DiCaprio will be suffering of a broken nose and left wrist, and will for weeks afterwards suffer nightmares in which Marisa Tomei is body slamming him into a collision with Jack Nicholson’s corpse. To anyone who will listen, he will say, “she broke my nose again!”