Bored With It All? Take a Quirky Quiz

Talk about your March Madness.

The upcoming Academy Awards may not be quite as wide-open as the NCAA college basketball tournament--few things in life are these days, except perhaps for a gown from the Jennifer Lopez collection--but the Oscars certainly seem like a tossup in many of the major categories.

Sure, “American Beauty” is the favorite for best picture, but after that who knows?

This should make for what the critics call “compelling event television,” replete with auxiliary entertainment possibilities--let’s call it Oscar Synergy and get it on the NASDAQ as soon as possible. Whereas the Super Bowl telecast has to make do with its side salad of big-budget commercials, the cyclone known as the Oscars offers an instantaneous raft of industrywide side effects, psyche-scarring and virtual backstage brawls.

In such a chaotic climate, it makes sense to augment the traditional Oscar pool with a quirkier quiz. To that end, this quixotic questionnaire has been designed for the second consecutive year to encompass the broad range of events that may or may not transpire before, at or because of the 72nd Academy Awards show.

1. Most likely cause for protest:

A) Teen boys upset over denial of Lifetime Achievement Award to “American Pie” pastry wrangler.

B) E! channel’s “Take-Your-Daughter-to-Work-for-a-Decade” beneficiary Melissa Rivers was issued press credentials again.

C) No blacklist to put Jar-Jar Binks on.

2. Scenario most feared by the academy:

A) Haley Joel Osment freaking out during montage of film luminaries who’ve passed away.

B) Richard Farnsworth pulling a Jack Palance and setting a world record for one-armed push-ups, septuagenarian division.

C) Announcement that Jim Carrey is playing the title role in “The Meryl Streep Story.” How would they be able to deny him?

3. Worst new Oscar category:

A) Longest picture.

B) Highest settlement received by a fired studio executive.

C) Best picture diverged from a true story.

4. Best reason “Magnolia” did not get nominated:

A) No picture with two three-named Philips (Baker Hall, Seymour Hoffman) ever nominated.

B) Thwarted by powerful Screen Amphibians Guild lobby led by Kermit the Frog.

C) Legitimate fear that acceptance speech would be an unedited Paul Thomas Anderson-Fiona Apple collaboration.

5. Advancing age of academy membership revealed most by:

A) Best director nomination for Spike Jonze a mix-up--he was mistaken for old bandleader namesake.

B) They thought that “South Park” song was a “Toy Story 2” outtake.

C) Armada of stretch limos with left-turn signals perpetually on.

6. Best new way for Oscar statuettes to disappear again:

A) Academy refuses to display them in public after “All About My Mother” director Pedro Almodovar has them surgically augmented.

B) Richard Farnsworth melts ‘em down, trades in scrap metal for a John Deere rider mower.

C) Pregnant presenter Annette Bening has a strange craving.

7. Best job offer generated by Oscar hoopla:

A) “Being John Malkovich” writer Charlie Kaufman signs three-person deal.

B) “American Beauty” director Sam Mendes courted to chronicle the post-White House Clintons.

C) Haley Joel Osment gets a million bucks to shave back hairline and play “Mini-Malkovich.”

8. Statistics most telling of the current state of the industry:

A) The combined domestic gross of seven films starring best actor or actress nominees was only about $70 million at the end of February (Sean Penn, Farnsworth, Russell Crowe, Streep, Hilary Swank, Janet McTeer, Julianne Moore).

B) “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” has grossed nearly as much--$65 million--by itself.

C) Both African American nominees (Denzel Washington, Michael Clarke Duncan) played prisoners.

9. Best nominee name signifying confidence level of actors:

A) Crowe.

B) Swank.

C) Cruise.

D) Jolie.

10. Biggest surprise of the evening:

A) Armani out, Garanimals in.

B) Cast of “Saving Private Ryan” storms the stage, says it can’t go home until it finds one shiny golden boy left behind enemy lines last year.

C) Streep receives pre-approved nomination application for next year.

Bonus question: least popular post-Oscar party, and why:

A) The Blair Witch Party: Takes forever to find, your date is really annoying, and when you get there, there’s just one guy standing in the corner.

B) PricewaterhouseCoopers: There’s no accounting for taste.

C) “American Beauty” Best Original Screenwriter Party (a.k.a. the Alan Ball): Waiters throw plates against the wall, and worst of all, people say what’s really on their minds.