Oscars: Let's Make a Best Picture!

In the spirit of The Help and The Blind Side comes a heart-stirringly, head-shakingly inspirational movie about African Americans and the white people who helped them overcome the adversity of other white people. We all know the story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream, but few know the tale of the two Caucasians who made that dream a reality. Bradley Cooper and Jesse Eisenberg are all the King’s men in a movie that’s guaranteed to make audiences and Academy members feel great that we finally solved that whole ”race thing.”

Leonardo DiCaprio affects his most French accent yet in a historical biopic that dares to suggest that history’s greatest military leader also suffered from one of the Academy’s favorite mental illnesses. Using the same digital effects that convinced you that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a good movie, DiCaprio plays Napoleon through every part of his life: Adorable toddler, emotionally damaged teenager, brilliant general, decadent emperor, tormented exile, and cancer victim. Just for good measure, DiCaprio also lost 100 pounds on a starvation diet, then gained 200 pounds of muscle, then reverted to his original weight to play Napoleon’s twin brother. It’s a performance that’s bound to make every Oscar voter say, ”Oh, what the heck, we gotta give him one of these sooner or later.”

There’s nothing more insidious than exploiting this planet’s resources, not even exploiting that exploitation for a movie. George Clooney stars as the hotshot lawyer who dared to stand up to Big Tuna in the fight against overfishing. If you like patting yourself on the back for sitting in a theater and watching a filmed pamphlet, then you’ll love Fishers of Men, the feel-good-about-yourself movie of the year! Remember, there’s always plenty of fish in the sea…until there aren’t.

Meryl Streep has played author Isak Dinesen, culinary giantess Julia Child, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but the grande dame of thespianism has finally found a character worthy of her limitless skills: Meryl Streep. Watch as she truly inhabits the role in a way that can only be called miraculous, playing the incomparable actress as she takes on daring true-life roles like Isak Dinesen, Julia Child, and Margaret Thatcher. It’s a performance so convincing, you’ll swear you were watching the genuine article, and the scenes in which she accepts her three Oscars will surely earn her a fourth!

Are you tired of fast-paced blockbusters about one-dimensional heroes fighting to save the world from a cartoonish bad guy? Well, then you’re guaranteed to overpraise this slow-paced blockbuster about a two-dimensional hero fighting to save the world from a vaguely topical cartoonish bad guy! Christian Bale stars as a man in a post-apocalyptic dystopian utopia, fighting to save his family from a villainous group known as the Rorschach Gang, who have British accents and vaguely resemble the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, al-Qaeda, immigrants, and…maybe Apartheid? Can Bale stop the bad guys from giving speeches and blowing stuff up? More importantly, will ExMet earn a courtesy Best Picture nomination, or will it have to settle for sweeping the technical Oscars, while fans of the movie argue that the Oscars are biased against incredibly popular movies?

In this classic, tasteful melodrama about the terror of war, Ronald Colman and Ray Milland play soldiers fighting their way through France. There’s just one problem: They’re both in love with the same woman, a beautiful and mysterious French Resistance fighter (Gene Tierney, not French). Also, they’re brothers, and Milland is Colman’s commanding officer, and Colman has to make a terrible choice. But there are only terrible choices…in war.

In this classic, uproarious farce about the hilarity of war, James Cagney and Joel McCrea play soldiers fighting their way through France. There’s just one problem: They’re both in love with the same woman, a beautiful and mysterious French Resistance fighter (Barbara Stanwyck, not French). If you think the Axis Powers were dangerous, then you haven’t met a woman, amiright?

Dripping with the prestige that only comes with an accent, Benny is the story of one of Britain’s greatest heroes. Stephen Daldry directs Toby Jones as comedic mastermind Benny Hill, whose dry English wit and fast-forward chasing of scantily clad women inspired a nation. But life wasn’t all hilarity and Yakety Sax — every genius has a dark side.

The winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the Golden Lion at Venice, the Golden Bear at Berlinale, the Golden Marmot at Bratislava, the Golden Wallaby at Perth, the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Best Narrative Feature at Tribeca, the People’s Choice Award at Toronto, the Participation Medal at Telluride, the West Palm Beach Retirement Home Bi-weekly Bingo Night, and the César for Best Film from the European Union, this demonstrably foreign drama stars Marion Cotillard as a woman named Roberta who has to make a decision. It might not be good, but we can all agree on one thing: It’s got subtitles!

Life hasn’t been kind to Tabitha Gray. Nicole Kidman gives her bravest performance yet as a mother of two who faces abuse, addiction, illness, financial ruin, natural disaster, dental decay, unexpected accidents, ostracism, obesity, sexual harassment, anti-unionism, car trouble, and ugly prosthetics in a movie that’ll make you feel bad you feel good about not feeling as bad as her.

We all know that The Wizard of Oz is one of the greatest movies ever made. But the story behind the movie is just as interesting. At least, that’s what you’ll hopefully think after seeing Going to See the Wizard, a film featuring some of today’s best stars doing spot-on impressions of yesterday’s best stars. You’ll thrill to director Bennett Miller’s spot-on recreations of beloved sets like the Yellow Brick Road and Munchkinland! You’ll get chills watching Jennifer Lawrence play Judy Garland playing Dorothy while hopped up on painkillers! And Hugh Jackman is also in this movie — you love him! If you work in movies, and you want to see a movie about people who work in movies, then this is the movie about movies for you.

This Fall, meet the man who can make your wildest career aspirations come true. Jean Dujardin was just a down-on-his-luck French comedic actor until he crossed paths with Harvey Weinstein (Harvey Fierstein), a mythical man with the Midas touch, and he knew his life would never be the same again. Harvey shows him and director Tom Hooper (Hugh Grant) that making a movie is only the first step of moviemaking and that it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, just as long as you win.