..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Unlike many of my colleagues, I would much rather sit through a Ben Affleck Film Festival than be forced to care in print about the odds of certain movies making the cut for Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. That's because, A) I have no horse in any of the races, B) the more the collective media salivates over such peripheral crap as gowns, gift baskets and after-parties, the less I want to read about the honorees, deserving or otherwise, C) the acceptance speeches of Nobel Peace Prize winners are treated with less significance than the bleating of Joan and Melissa Rivers, and D) if scoring a Globe or Oscar was such a big hairy deal, I'd be able to remember the titles of all the Best Picture winners, at least for the last 10 years, and, sorry, I can't.

Plus, it's kind of an inexact science. So, why bother?

That said, however, I do happily peruse the predictions of real-life odds makers, when they post their annual guesstimates. Not only are these outsiders generally more accurate than the prognosticators in the press and fansites, but they also have far less of their collective egos vested in the outcomes. After all, one has to cyber-surf a considerable distance outside the borders of the U.S. to wager on their hunches.

More's the pity.

Like ratings for most major sporting events, the numbers generated by even the most prestigious of awards shows have been dwindling for years. Last year's Lord of the Rings juggernaut elicited more yawns than cheers, in Nielsen-land, at least. And, if it's true that viewers tune into the Globes primarily to see which of the nominees can't hold their liquor, then it's time to raise the ante.

Neither the NFL's Super Bowl, nor the NCAA's Final Four, would generate nearly the interest they receive if it weren't for the fact that 90 percent of all Americans seemingly have some financial interest in the outcomes. Take away the office pools and parley cards, and what's left is the Stanley Cup (which, because of a crushing strike, is unlikely to be presented again to any hockey team in the near future).

I say, let's allow gambling on awards shows, if only the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys. (Forget the Globes. If more than a T-shirt is at stake, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association can't be trusted not to stuff the ballot box). The CPAs at PricewaterhouseCoopers have precious little else to do than accurately count ballots, so it would be difficult to rig the individual contests. Amateur handicappers already compete in makeshift office pools come Oscar night, and there's plenty of information available from which to make informed choices.

The academy would benefit from ads taken out by Las Vegas and other off-shore betting concerns. Those proceeds could go either to the Motion Picture & Television Fund, or be used to purchase stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for celebrities without movies or record albums to plug. (What, you thought those things were free?)

The infrastructure already is in place.

John Avello, the race and sports book director for Bally's and the Paris Las Vegas hotels, has been setting entertainment odds on the Academy Awards for the past seven years. His numbers are based less upon seeing the individual candidates than scouring data garnered from the trades, box-office reports and industry insiders, including publicists handling Oscar campaigns. The personable horse-racing enthusiast may do it for fun, but the annual exercise also brings lots of attention to the casinos he represents. Each year, he's interviewed by dozens of print and broadcast reporters.

Even if the academy allowed its trademark to be used in some sort of gaming enterprise, Nevada gambling watchdogs probably would frown on legalization.

Someone will know who the winners are before they are announced, Avello says, and that makes it a non-starter.

Off-shore, however, punters are perfectly free to place bets on the outcomes of the major contests. Indeed, Internet players can bet on everything from the celebrity divorces and babies, to Time's choice of Man of the Year and the weather on Christmas Day in Chicago.

Rob Gillespie, president of BoDog.com, said that his Costa-Rica-based service broke just about even with its Golden Globe lines last year. It lost in most categories, but got well on Bill Murray's victory. The company's odds for 2005 have yet to be posted.

Topping Avello's current list for Best Picture are The Aviator (3/1), Sideways (4/1), Ray (6/1), Million-Dollar Baby (8/1) and Finding Neverland (10/1). Fahrenheit 9/11 (750/1), Alexander (1,000/1), The Passion of the Christ (1,500/1), The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (3,000/1) and The Door in the Floor (5,000/1) are almost prohibitive longshots in Bally's shortlist of serious contenders.

In the Best Actor category, Jamie Foxx is a top contender for Ray (3/1), with Javier Bardem (The Sea Inside), Paul Giamatti (Sideways), Liam Neeson (Kinsey) and Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator) rounding out the top five at 4/1, 5/1, 6/1, 7/1 and 8/1, respectively. In the race for Best Actress, Annette Bening (Being Julia) and Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) are neck and neck, at 5/2 and 3/1, with Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby), Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Sigourney Weaver (Imaginary Heroes) all within reach, at 4/1, 5/1 and 6/1.

If legal, forward-looking longshot players could get 12/1 on Emmy Rossum (The Phantom of the Opera) from Bally's, 20/1 on Julia Roberts (Closer), 20/1 on Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) and 35/1 on Julie Delpy (Before Sunset). Or, 10/1 on Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), 12/1 on Jeff Bridges (The Door in the Floor), 18/1 on Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) and 25/1 on Kevin Spacey (Beyond The Sea).

Juicy, huh? More lines will go up after nominations are announced.

Another tote sheet for movie geeks, Hollywood-based Gold Derby.com, also has jumped whole hog into the crystal-ball business. In its most recent e-newsletter to and from industry "insiders," In Touch Weekly's senior editor Tom O'Neil contributes his thoughts on the campaigns, much of which is based on critics' polls and on the reactions of academy members at special screenings.

According to O'Neil, The Aviator warrants being made top pick (6/5) to win Best Drama Picture at the Globes, and it's likely to prevail at the Oscars.

"Being sweepingly cinematic, tech-sexy and costume-draped, it will no doubt lead with the most Oscar noms and that has foretold Best Picture victories in 18 of the past 20 derbies," he muses. "Oscar voters tend to confuse Best Picture with BIG Picture: the longest contenders -- like Aviator (2 hours, 49 minutes) -- win about half of the time. Even when voters don't choose the longest films, they often opt for epic ones, preferably based upon real-life, heroic characters."

O'Neil points out, as well, that the selections of critics' groups are suspect because the voters are "a testosterone-blinded gang (more than 80 percent of the N.Y. and L.A. critics' groups are male) of cynics who routinely form wolf packs to savage sentimental films (a genre often beloved by Oscar voters)."

This year, he theorizes, "the critics are drunk with joy -- or wine or testosterone -- over Million Dollar Baby and Sideways. Macho Man Clint Eastwood's Baby LOOKS like a featherweight boxing flick, but it turns into a sentimental weepie half of the way through. At that point cynical guy critics are already hooked and, because Clint gives them permission to surrender to gooey feelings, they do so, and -- yikes -- suddenly they discover old emotions they squashed back in film school and they become Moonies. Granted, Baby is a fine movie, but these same critic cranks would probably dismiss it -- undeservedly -- as a Lifetime TV Movie of the Week if it was directed and acted, frame for frame, the same way by nobodies."

Tough to argue that one.

GoldDerby gives Million Dollar Baby 5/2 odds to win Best Drama Picture at the Globes. As for Sideways, it enjoys "a Moonie following and it's riding a high, dizzy wave of booze toward the Oscar finish line. Sideways has pressed forward at virtually every major critics' award to claim the Best Picture prize, but it's performed modestly at the box office." Fox Searchlight apparently is waiting until January 28 before expanding it nationally to 1,200 screens. In this way, it can take advantage of its expected Oscar nominations.

O'Neill offers this theory on the success of such sodden films as Lost in Translation, Cat Ballou and Affliction, come time for the Academy's Award big prize: "Despite the Hollywood trend toward Rehab Chic, substance abuse is STILL the industry's Big Dirty Secret, which gets revealed at the Oscars often when alcohol fuels upsets."

For that and other half-baked theories -- a half-dozen examples, from 40 years of Oscar tracking -- feel free to check out, www.goldderby.com/index.asp.

No matter how many self-appointed experts contribute to the dialogue ahead Oscar night, though, it isn't likely the academy will have to cancel the ceremony due to lack of suspense. Santa Anita and Hollywood Park offer many opportunities for racing fans to absorb the knowledge of experts … before, during and after an afternoon's card. And, yet, they still hold the races.

Personally, I can't waiting for Avello and Gillespie to set the wacky proposition bets for which they've also become famous.

I'm especially interested in the over/under on the number of times host Chris Rock's choice of material will be severely edited, bleeped out or otherwise censored by the academy on Oscar night (I'm guessing, five or more). A line could also be set on the number of complaints made to the FCC, after Rock's monologue, by the same delicate viewers whose only trip to a multiplex in 2004 was inspired by the opportunity to watch the bludgeoning of their lord and savior in The Passion of the Christ (I'm guessing, over 1,000).

Or, maybe, the number of boobs that will fall out of a designer gown on the red carpet (one).

Now, there's a horse even I can support.

- by Gary Dretzka

December 24, 2004