5 Realistic Awards We'd Like to See at the Oscars
Hey, the Academy Awards are tonight! So while the planet waits with bated breath to see if Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa will walk away with the highest cinematic achievement in all the land, we're bringing you the unofficial list of Oscars the Academy doles out year after year ... without even realizing it.
Best Newcomer With a Slightly More Complex Than Usual Name Who Will Lose and Then Disappear Forever
2014's Winner: Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)
Every year, the Oscars give us fresh-faced underdogs to root for, only to yank the red carpet out from under them so hard that they blast off out of the atmosphere and into a nearby black hole for the rest of eternity. This is tragic, but it's not as tragic as the fact that America will go to any length to not pronounce a word with vowel and consonant combinations outside of their comfort zone. Think of the accolades that would've been showered upon these nominees had they been named Jen Butt or Dee Ugh or Roy Burp.
"Sorry, but we need to save Chiwetel Ejiofor for a superhero franchise later."
Past Winners: Quvenzhane Wallis, Hailee Steinfeld, Gabourey Sidibe, Saoirse Ronan, Abigail Breslin, Catalina Sandino Moreno
Best Foreign Non-CGI Animated Film That Nobody Saw and Is Just There to Take Up Space
2014's Winner: Ernest & Celestine
Considering that the last six winners for Best Animated Feature Film were Brave, Rango, Toy Story 3, Up, WALL-E, and Ratatouille, we planned on renaming this category the "Best Pixar Film (Unless There Isn't One Out That Year)." Then we realized that Rango came out the same year as Cars 2 (a two-hour excuse to sell race car beds) and our entire nomenclature went to pot. Fuck Cars 2.
The first Cars was ripping off a movie that was shitty to begin with. What's your excuse?
Anyway, animation studios, if your movie does not include a computer-animated protagonist whose likeness will inevitably become a theme park mascot, the best you can wish for is to be chucked onto the nomination list as a sacrificial lamb. Sorry.
Past Winners: Chico & Rita, The Illusionist, The Secret of Kells, Persepolis
Best Total Piece of Shit That Ends Up Being Nominated for Something Random
2014's Winner: The Lone Ranger (Best Makeup and Hairstyling)
Best? Really? That's the word we're going with here?
The technical (aka the "let's make a sandwich") categories are a surefire way for any piece of suck to claim an Oscar nomination. Thanks to these categories' absolute indifference to plot quality, a film like The Lone Ranger can go home with an Academy Award despite dolling Johnny Depp up as an 1860s Juggalo with a taxidermy hat. That's right, young filmmakers: 90 percent of your film can blow, just make sure the other 10 percent is spent on sound mixing (whatever that means).
Past Winners: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Best Sound Mixing), Salt (Best Sound Mixing), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Best Sound Mixing), Wanted (Best Sound Editing), Transformers (Best Sound Mixing), Click (Best Makeup and Hairstyling)
Best Short Documentary That's Most Likely to Win Because It's About Overcoming Horrifying Adversity
2014's Nominees: Facing Fear (a neo-Nazi reconciles with the gay man he assaulted), Karama Has No Walls (protesters confront human rights abuses in Yemen), The Lady in Number 6 (the story of a 109-year-old Holocaust survivor/pianist)
We're no monsters -- we understand that an Academy Award can bring international attention to brave people who remained resilient in the face of unthinkable horror and suffering. That said, you'd think that just one year there'd be a Best Short Documentary winner about a fucking dog show or something.
"Hera has fought for her entire show career against the hateful prejudice of not being purebred."
It's uncanny -- the Best Feature Documentary winners have been about everything from folk singers to goddamn penguins. How is it that conquering Best Short only works if you're able to pull the audience's heart out through their anuses?
Past Winners: Inocente, 2013 (the harrowing story of a homeless teen becoming an artist); Saving Face, 2012 (the harrowing story of Pakistani acid attack survivors pursuing justice); Strangers No More, 2011 (the harrowing story of children fleeing poverty and genocide at a school in Tel Aviv)
The Most Likely to Lose Meryl Streep
2014's Winner and/or Loser: Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)
Despite being thanked by Oscar winners more often than God, Meryl Streep maintained an almost 20-year losing streak that was broken only by her win for The Iron Lady during 2012's ceremonies. Prior to that, the consistently incredible actress hadn't won since the freaking 1980s, when she snagged two three years apart from each other. So if history offers any hard patterns, she's next scheduled to lose tonight, win in 2015, and then experience another soul-crushing shutout until 2035.
Which she'll win for the Lone Ranger reboot, co-starring Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Past Winners and/or Losers: Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia), Meryl Streep (Doubt), Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), Meryl Streep (Adaptation), Meryl Streep (Music of the Heart), Meryl Streep (One True Thing), Meryl Streep (The Bridges of Madison County), Meryl Streep (Postcards from the Edge), Meryl Streep (A Cry in the Dark), Meryl Streep (Ironweed), Meryl Streep (Out of Africa), Meryl Streep (Silkwood)
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