February Predictions - Oscar Edition

Posted on February 15, 2009 at 8:28 am by Lee

Our experts - that rag-tag bunch of awkward eccentrics that we’ve assembled for this site - are delirious.

First they accurately predicted that Obama would become president, and last month they predicted the Steelers would win the Superbowl.  This success has given them amazing confidence in this month’s set of predictions.

- The Oscar goes to…

Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger

Best Supporting Actress - Penelope Cruz

Best Actor - Mickey Rourke

Best Actress - Kate Winslet

Best Picture - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Director - Danny Boyle

Best Animated Feature - Wall-E

Best Foreign Film - Waltz With Bashir

Best Original Screenplay - Happy Go Lucky

Best Adapted Screenplay - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Documentary - Man on Wire

Best Original Score - Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Song - ‘Down to Earth’ - Wall-E

Best Cinematography - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

And - if you need that tie-breaking category for your Oscar pool - Best Live Action Short Film - New Boy.

Our experts have also predicted the following about the Oscar ceremony…

- Hugh Jackman will have 12 costume changes, but they will all be black tuxedos.

- Heath Ledger will be the first actor ever to accept his Oscar posthumously.  Thanks to the wizardry of film editing, his acceptance speech will be pieced together through clips from Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight and A Knight’s Tale.  It will not be tacky at all.

- Heath Ledger will receive the most applause during the segment where they show everyone who has died in the last year, which is why they will save him for last.  This makes it less awkward than if they had put him in the middle where he would be followed by some guy who invented the lens cap in 1938 who only gets the golf clap.

- Sean Penn will flip out when he doesn’t win and will challenge Hugh Jackman to a fistfight.  Hugh Jackman will totally shred him with his Wolverine claws.

- As usual, there will be inexplicable pairings of celebrities to announce categories and read lame introductions.  This year’s odd pairings will be:  Will Ferrell and Penelope Cruz, Po (the Kung Fu Panda) and Wall-E (talk about awkward!) and, even more awkward, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

- Best dressed on the red carpet will be Will Smith and Scarlett Johannson.  Worst dressed on the red carpet will be Owen Wilson and Glenn Close.  Most annoying on the red carpet will be anyone with the last name “Rivers”. Seriously, that is one blood line we need to just make go away.

- While presenting the nominees for Best Sound Editing, Joaquin Phoenix will go rogue and start jumping up and down, rapping, and waving his arms in the air like he just don’t care, all while Casey Affleck rushes the stage to capture everything with his camcorder.  It will be one of the many highlights in the duo’s upcoming film, “Joaquin Is Fucking Crazy”.

It should be a heck of a show!

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Predictions for 2009!

Posted on January 1, 2009 at 12:15 pm by Lee

Happy New Year everyone from all of us here at The Next Chapter, and that includes our experts who, after their amazingly accurate predictions for last November, have been on vacation for the last little while.

But they are back, and as enthusiastic as ever about their predictions for the New Year.  These are some of the predictions they have shared so far.

- The Pittsburgh Steelers will win the Superbowl over the Atlanta Falcons, after crushing Miami and narrowly beating Tennessee in the post-season.  Our experts would like to add that, by September, because they had been so crushed and morally defeated by Pittsburgh, the Miami Dolphins will have given up their right to play in the NFL and will have sold the team to West Palm Beach where they will be renamed the Palm Beach Porpoises.  Team jerseys are not a popular sell with the kids.

- The Academy Award for Best Picture goes to… The Love Guru?  It is later reported that not a single member of the Academy had ever seen an Austin Powers movie and had lauded The Love Guru as “fresh” and “original”.

- Barack Obama 12-Month calendars will outsell Fireman calendars in December.

- People will buy eleven times the number of electric cars in 2009 than they did in 2008 for inner city use.  Many cities will add “rev lanes” to their roads so that drivers can push their car backwards several hundred metres before quickly jumping in as the car shoots forward.

- Green will continue to be the new black as everything from grocery bags to Tim Hortons cups to candy bar wrappers will be affected by the new national “landfill tax”, which will help support important green initiatives like the creation of government pamphlets discussing the need for green initiatives.

- A major disaster will occur somewhere in the world between June 3rd and November 17th and the news media will report on it.  There will be some survivors and some non-survivors.  A blog will link to a news story about it with a comment about how “tragic” this event was.

- Pictures of breastfeeding will be banned from all sites on the mainstream Internet due to “indecency”.  This includes sites that properly educate and instruct new mothers on how to breastfeed.  Those educational sites will now only be available on .xxx domains.

- Gay pet marriage will make the news in the U.S. this year, and it will be banned in all States except, for some reason, Missouri.  Canada will continue to allow gay pets to be married and those pets will continue to enjoy all the same benefits as heterosexual pet marriages.

- The biggest movie of the year will be Piranha 3-D, set for release on July 24th.  Our experts stand by this prediction more than any other.

- George W. Bush will be disappointed when no library or monument is named after him once his presidency is over.  He will get some small satisfaction, however, when all Burger King locations in Texas briefly feature the Bushburger with Fries Combo on their menu.  The combo features a small, regular Hamburger, with pickles, mayo and relish, but it’s really the side order of fries that is the main feature as they come in the largest size ever sold by the franchise and overshadow the burger completely on the tray.  The combo will later be renamed the “Fries Combo with Bushburger”, and that is how it will be remembered by future generations of Burger King patrons.

- For at least the month of January, and perhaps part of February, everyone will be feeling the effects of the leap second and will feel slightly out of synch with the world.  Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.

That’s it - we hope everyone had an excellent New Year’s Eve and that you’re as excited for 2009 as we are!

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November predictions.

Posted on November 2, 2008 at 10:21 am by Lee

Having a look back at some of our expert October predictions, we once again admit that not all the predictions were entirely correct.  In fact, really, none of them were.

However, our experts do point to this news story that says Sarah Palin was one of the top costumes for Hallowe’en this year, and since that did factor into one of their predictions, we’ve decided to give them a stay of execution and give them a chance at November.

Here’s what we can expect this month, from our expert fingertips to your eyes:

- Barack Obama will be elected the 44th President of The United States of America.

- Chinese-Americans will be skeptical of their new president as the number 4 is bad luck in the Chinese culture.  They are also forced to defend themselves against accusations of racism whenever they say their new president’s name.

- On November 10th, “Obama Bucks” will be introduced in most national department stores, entertainment venues and restaurant chains.  This discounted “American Dollar” will become so popular that by the time Obama is sworn in it will have replaced American currency.  “Obama Bucks” will have a picture of Barack Obama on one side and, on the other side, another picture of Barack Obama, earning the currency the nickname “Barack Backs”.

- Joe the Plumber will start taking correspondence courses towards finishing his University Degree.  Looking to lose his now famous moniker he will proactively launch his new website, joethehumanresourcemanager.com.

- Quantum of Solace, already receiving negative reviews overseas, will live up to its overthought name and will portray James Bond as a man too real to be any fun watching.  Audiences will demand their Obama Bucks back in droves.

- “Body Break, The Movie” will be developed and distributed by Sony Pictures.  Will Smith will be cast as Hal Johnson and Sandra Bullock will portray Joanne McLeod.  Bill Cosby will be the voice of their time traveling canine companion, Muttsy.  An advance trailer has been made available online:

Our experts have a good feeling about this month - we’ll check back in December to see how they’ve done!

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October Predictions.

Posted on October 2, 2008 at 8:36 pm by Lee

While reviewing the accuracy of our expert opinions on September, it seems the mark was missed on more than one occasion.

Strangely, people did not forget that the 23rd existed and, even more shockingly, reports indicate that the new 90210 isn’t all that bad.

And even the experts admit they did not see that whole “fall of Western Economy” thing happening…

Even while these results are dismal at best, we’ve decided to publish their predictions for October.  Partly because they asked nicely, and even threw some puppy dog glances our way, but mostly because content has been hard to come by this week.

Here’s what the experts have to say about October:

- the American economy will continue to experience troubles and, with no government bailout in sight, the American dollar will soon be worth less than the paper it is printed on.  This, ironically, will boost profits for paper companies who will invest those profits back into the banks.  All should be fixed by, oh, about the 28th or so…

- an attempt will be made on Sarah Palin’s life.  Oh, wait, that wasn’t Sarah Palin.  That was just one of the hundred thousand women going as Sarah Palin for Hallowe’en.

- the Buffalo Bills will continue to go undefeated throughout October, surprising everyone and completely effing up my… er, Lee’s fantasy stats.

- the actor who played the original Mr. Clean will die.  Honestly, we predicted this before it was reported, Lee has just been too sick and busy this week to post these predictions until now!  In an extreme coincidence, the animated Mr. Clean is also killed this month when called in to clean up a warehouse drenched in what turns out to be Dip.

- following this year’s Downtown Toronto Knitting Club’s Socktoberfest, and the Trekkie fan-event Spocktoberfest, we are officially out of punny names for events that take place in October that have nothing to do with bratwurst.

- the creepily chipper brother-sister team on the Amazing Race will go all Angelina Jolie and James Haven on each other after winning three legs of the race in a row, causing host Phil Keoghan to vomit on the small Egyptian woman standing next to him, who will in turn vomit on the camera crew and, boy, it’s that scene in Stand By Me all over again.

We’ll check back with our experts in November to see how they did!

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September predictions.

Posted on August 29, 2008 at 2:19 pm by Lee

The good thing about all of the people I’ve stayed in contact with over the years is that they have a variety of special talents and areas of expertise. I plan to draw on this panel of wonderful folk and utilize their special gifts. They shall, on this website, from now on be simply referred to as The Experts.

Here what the experts have to say about September:

- there will be an altercation during a particularly hot and muggy week on the ferry between Toronto and Centre Island when someone refers to the weather as Indian Summer. No actual Indians will be involved.

- the price of gas will rise until it becomes more expensive than whiskey. Posters will encourage people to “Drink, and don’t drive.”

- someone will create a website about Miley Cyrus that has a countdown clock on it. The countdown will begin at 3 months, 14 days and 36 seconds. It will countdown to the exact moment she goes over-the-moon nuts. Seriously, that kid is a ticking bomb.

- the new 90210 will be the worst thing to hit television since According To Jim, but people will watch it anyway. Somewhere there will be a blog about the show.

- a kid will be made fun of for his back-to-school haircut and for not having a pencil sharpener that includes an MP3 player.

- the ice caps will continue to melt at a record-setting pace, thanks in large part to people like the numbnutses down my street who, this afternoon, have rented the largest stretch SUV limo I’ve ever seen and have left it idling while they were getting ready inside.

- Air Canada will charge a small fee for the inconvenience of having to rebook so many people due to Zoom’s bankruptcy, and then a $2.00 surcharge to cover the cost of the reformatting and text editing of their “fees” section on their website and e-tickets. You can opt out of paying these charges by rebooking with another airline.

- a kid will be made fun of, first of all, for eating a peanut on a dare when he knows he is allergic and, second of all, for not having a denim case for his EpiPen.

- somehow everyone will forget about the 23rd. We’ll all just go from the 22nd to the 24th and no-one will ask any questions, except the guy who runs the blog about the new 90210 wondering why it wasn’t on.

We’ll check back with the experts in October to see how many they got right!

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