We’ve all been there. You finally get around to watching this year’s nominees, and you think, “Didn’t I see pretty much this same Oscar-bait movie last year?” Yes, you probably did, thanks to the McKee/ Weinstein-driven formula behind most Best Picture candidates. But now you can build your own! Just mix and match elements from these five categories to green-light a surefire nominee:
Hero
A minority professor (Eddie Redmayne) who finds love while facing historic challenges
Leonardo DiCaprio as a man mourning the death of his wife
Tom Hanks as a man resembling what Steven Spielberg wishes his dad had been like
An American solider (Bradley Cooper) who is super brave
and super scarred but screwed over by bureaucrats
An immigrant from times when immigration seems quaint
and exciting rather than scary (Marion Cotillard and/
or Saoirse Ronan)
An action hero who kicks
ass in the only nominee that
normal people have seen
Setting
Old-timey Princeton
The Old West, but
monochromatic and sad
The Cold War, but with buttery, heavenly light blasting through every office window
Middle America’s idea
of the Middle East
A CGI New Amsterdam
that goes kind of watery in the couple shots you see of it
Mars or the wasteland or
Middle-earth or something
Villain
How hard physics and/
or oppression are
How hard making the movie is
The Russians and the
Germans and also some
American bureaucrats
1. Taliban 2. ISIS 3. Liberals
The old world’s (and
screenwriters’) insistence on making women prostitutes
Tom Hardy‘s probably available
No-Hope Low Point 15 Minutes
Before the Happy Ending
Walton Goggins makes a
big thing out of using a slur
white folks actually used all
the time back then
The white hero dies, weeping for his wife, until a Native American heals him with spirit magic
DEFCON 1/The hero’s son
cries because he has no one
to play catch with
The extended scarification
of the Americans’ flesh
That louse might
be married already!
He’s been shot, and he already lost his bulletproof vest!
Dialogue That Producers
Will Quote in Oscar Speeches
“An action and reaction
comprise one single
interaction — especially in
matters of the heart.”
“You, Pale Man, fight for us all.”
“You’ve taught me that you Russkies hug your kids, too.”
“That flag never means
more than when it’s holding
in your entrails.”
“What does it matter
where I’m from? I’m an
American now.”
“I always wear a second vest.”
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