2023 Academy Award Predictions As Good As Oscar Gold

Frankly, my dears, you’re right: Nobody gives a damn about the Oscars anymore.

Well, unless a famous, hypersensitive actor slaps a famous, chill comedian who happens to be onstage hosting. Then it becomes whoa-boy fun again.

Anyhoo, don’t expect anything like that happening on Sunday, March 12 during the 95th Academy Awards ceremony (ABC: 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT).

This year’s races for Best Picture and Best Director (Sorry, Steven) seem to be forgone conclusions with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” set to snare many of the night’s biggest prizes, so I doubt there will be many surprises.

However, you can make a few bucks if you look closely at a couple of categories.

And there are two I like, both slight underdogs, that pay even money or better.

The odds I’m using are from DraftKings Sportsbook, one of our top-reviewed sports gambling sites here at OddsSeeker. But be sure to read all of our reviews here.

You can also bet against fellow Academy Award prognosticators at another fave or ours: Kalshi.com.

This year, my lock for Oscars night is …

Best Actress

That should – and will – go to Cate Blanchett for her tour de force as an increasingly unhinged symphony conductor in “Tár.”

Simply put, she was phenomenal. I think it’s the best work the two-time Academy-Award winner has ever done.

She should have three Oscars by now, but in 1999 she lost in shocking, head-shaking fashion to Gwyneth Paltrow (“Shakespeare In Love”) who rode Harvey Weinstein’s campaigning efforts all the way to the podium.

Ugh, all the way around.

This year, Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) has the momentum following her Best Actress victory at Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards and she’s now the favorite (-140).

She would become the first Asian-American in the Academy’s 95-year history to win the award for Best Actress and that’s something voters could find irresistible. Plus, Yeoh’s performance is fresher in voters’ minds. Final Oscar voting takes place from March 2-7.

But, Blanchett (-105) was in damn near every scene of “Tár” while showcasing a wide range of emotions throughout, often during intense scenes with lengthy lines of dialogue. Blanchett won an Oscar for starring in Woody Allen’s 

Oscar voters eat that up. Blanchett has already won bellwether awards (Golden Globe, Critics Choice and BAFTA prizes) thus far and I believe she’ll upset Yeoh.

Here’s one more where I don’t think “Everything Everywhere All at Once” will win, even though it’s the heavy favorite (-175) and that’s for …

Film Editing

I’m betting Eddie Hamilton (+125) wins for Top: Gun Maverick, even though Paul Rogers (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) is the heavy favorite to take home the trophy.

Here are the reasons why:

First, voters might want to give at least one award to the box-office smash – which was better than most critics expected and has earned six Academy Award nominations, all in the visual/audio/special effects categories.

Second, the trophy doesn’t always go to the Best Picture winner.

In fact, that hasn’t happened since 2012, when “Argo” garnered Oscars for Best Picture and Best Editing (William Goldenberg).

Finally, “Top Gun: Maverick” has been hailed as a visual masterpiece and Hamilton had to cull 650 hours of director Joseph Kosinski’s aerial footage, with sequences shot using multiple cameras, to obtain and present his version of the final cut. “It was so time-consuming and there are no shortcuts. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s ‘Top Gun’ and we all wanted the film to be incredible.”

This will be the one and only Oscar that TGM takes home. If it weren’t for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” maybe there would be more.

But this should be the token one.