So predictable
Since this is my last column of 2001, I think it would be only fair and honest of me to go over the
predictions that I made at the beginning of the year and see how I did.
No, I don’t mean the “predictions” I wrote on January 4. Those were
just for a laugh. I mean my real predictions. Unfortunately, I can’t provide a link to them
because pranksters seem to have hacked into my web site and removed the original page. So, I
will have to repeat them here now. In a testament to my sense of honesty, I can vouch that I
have not tampered with them in any way in order to look more prescient than I really was. Here
they are:
The year 2001 will be marked by a strong shift in public taste for gritty, realistic,
character-driven dramas. Fantasy films will not fare well, especially during the year-end
holiday season.
Disgusted by Russell Crowe’s carrying on with then-married Meg Ryan, the motion picture
academy will snub the actor at the Oscars. There will also be a backlash against Julia Roberts
for being so pretty and popular.
A blue-ribbon panel appointed to settle the 2000 presidential election once and for all,
announces its unexpected finding that Bill Clinton was actually elected to an unprecedented
third term on the strength of write-in votes. Consequently, Hollywood scraps most of its new
projects, which were based on patriotic themes, and revives old plans for a slew of comedies
about teenage boys trying to bed young women wearing wet tank-tops.
Because of the still-strong residual popularity of the 1999 sleeper hit, The Sixth Sense, filmmakers will continue to steer
clear of movies with plot lines about people who are dead but don’t realize it.
In the autumn, people will flock to movie theaters, mainly out of boredom. This will be
because of a totally predictable and inevitable World Series, of which the outcome is never in
doubt. Most pundits will be proven correct when the Seattle Mariners take baseball’s top prize
in five games.
The tabloids will carry endless articles about how despondent Gene Hackman is because the
veteran actor is totally unable to find work.
Steven Soderbergh will have alienated virtually every actor he has ever worked with, and all will
adamantly refuse to work with him a second time. The list will include George Clooney (Out of Sight), Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich), and even Topher Grace (Traffic).
So, there it is. I’ll leave it to you, my astute reader(s?), to decide just how well I did. Oh
yeah, and Happy New Year!
-S.L., 27 December 2001
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