Everyone has at least one skill that doesn't have a practical use.
Mine is the ability to name every movie ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
I absorbed that knowledge from years of reading critical studies of the Oscars, to the point where, if someone blurts out any year from 1928 to the present, I can pinpoint that year's winner within three seconds. Go ahead, try me — my number is at the bottom of this column.
I guess having that photographic memory has one practical use: It gives me a leg up in making Oscar predictions. The last time I can remember wrongly handicapping the winner was in 1998, when I picked "Saving Private Ryan" over "Shakespeare in Love," but I don't think even Shakespeare's descendants predicted that upset.
In many ways, the Best Picture race is similar to a presidential primary. Both are contests ostensibly about choosing the "best" candidate, but more often award the most politically prudent and least divisive choice. Sometimes, a movie will top the list because it's a popular smash ("Titanic"); sometimes, voters will favor it over a volatile contender ("Crash" over "Brokeback Mountain"); other times, the Oscar serves as a consolation prize (would "The Departed" have taken the gold without Martin Scorsese's name on it?).
