Pushing the Envelope to Pick Oscars of Future

Any two-bit psychic can predict this year’s Oscars, but only we can forecast next year’s winners. Our picks are based on Hollywood’s penchant for sequels and recycling old ideas. And the winners are ...

“A Beautiful Mime”: Russell Crowe plays a mathematical genius whose obsession with wearing white-face makeup and pretending to be trapped in an invisible box drives everyone around him insane. Winner, best soundtrack and best lip-syncing of a Marcel Marceau tune.

“Jack Lord of the Rings”: “Hawaii Five-0” meets Middle-earth in this story about a gang of orc jewel thieves. Book ‘em, Frodo. Winner, best hobbit surfing scene.

“In the Bedrock”: Barney and Betty Rubble puff tons of cigarettes while grappling with the murder of their son, Bam Bam, during a love triangle involving Pebbles Flintstone and Leonardo DiCapristone. Winner, most smoke-filled scenes since “The Towering Inferno.”

“James Earl Jones’s Diary”: Renee Zellweger, who previously gained 20 pounds to portray Bridget Jones, outdoes herself by putting on 170 pounds and undergoing a sex-change operation to play a baritone-voiced black man looking for love. Winner, largest underwear in celluloid history.

“Snow Dog Day Afternoon”: Accompanied by a team of talking sled dogs, Al Pacino tries to rob a New York bank in order to pay for his male lover’s sex-change operation. Winner, best gaffer and best best boy.

“Ocean’s 7-Eleven”: In yet another elaborate heist, George Clooney and friends hold up three convenience stores simultaneously. Winner, best Slurpee fight sequence.

“Saralee”: Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet of “Amelie” returns with a wacky sequel about a frozen dessert heiress whom nobody doesn’t like. Winner, best foreign film and best flaky crusts.

“Moulin Stooge”: Larry, Moe and Curly woo Nicole Kidman in turn-of-the-century Paris. Don’t miss the surreal pie fight scenes! Winner, best impersonation of an LSD flashback.

“American Pi”: Merchant Ivory enters the lucrative teen comedy market with a movie about four prep school students who make a pact to calculate pi to the 100,000th decimal point before their senior prom. Winner, most boring teen film ever.

“Star Shrek”: Subbing for Kirk and Spock, an ogre and his pointy-eared sidekick, Donkey, boldly go where no computer-animated characters have gone before. Winner, best supporting mule.

“Monster’s Rollerball”: A Georgia prison official devises a new method of executing inmates--a sport called rollerball. Winner, best excuse for another nude scene by Halle Berry.

“I Am Summer of Sam”: A high-priced lawyer (Michelle Pfeiffer) helps David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz win the right to raise a child. Because serial killers are people too. Winner, best knee-jerk liberal screenplay.

“Mulholland Driving Miss Daisy”: After Morgan Freeman crashes their white limo, Jessica Tandy wakes up in a Hollywood apartment with questions about her sexuality. Winner, most incomprehensible David Lynch film since, well, actually, they’re all incomprehensible.

“Pearl Barber”: A translation error causes Japanese pilots to bomb a Hawaiian hair salon in 1941. But that’s incidental to the steamy love story involving Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale and Howard McNear, who played Floyd the Barber on “The Andy Griffith Show.” Winner, best explosions.

“Hudson Hawk Down”: An elite force of Hollywood agents tries to rescue the career of Bruce Willis after he stars in one of the worst films of the 1990s. Based on a true story. Winner, best film about a bad film.

“The Count of Monty Python”: A British pet store owner is falsely accused of selling dead parrots (they’re actually just pining for the fjords). After escaping prison, he exacts revenge with a band of merry knights. Winner, best bird makeup.

“Gosford Jurassic Park”: One of the most overrated movies of the year is mercifully cut short when a herd of wild dinosaurs stampedes a 1930s English estate, killing everyone inside. Winner, best ending.