Arriving this Autumn (because we all know that you can’t release an Oscar nominated film outside of the months of September, October, November or December), in a confusingly staggered release format of festivals, followed by New York and LA theatres only, then slowly releasing into every other cinema meaning that no one can quite place its exact release, no one knows anything about it other than that New York and LA critics liked it because they’re the only ones who have seen it, the general populace only seeing it after it gets nominated for all of the Oscars possible and the UK audience not seeing it until January at the earliest, comes Oscar Bait: The Movie!
Directed by one of Steven Spielberg, Alejandro Inarritu, David O. Russell, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, The Coen Brothers, David Fincher, Ron Howard, Ang Lee, Paul Thomas Anderson or Kathryn Bigelow; because we can’t have more than one female director in the running, comes the astonishing true life story based on a book written autobiographically about a gay, disabled, war veteran, lawyer who is making a film whilst going through a tumultuous emotional time in a period of racial tensions in the inter-war years in this psychological, gritty, human, feel good story.
Get ready for the movie that will have you smiling, thinking, crying, laughing, dancing, singing, reflecting and cheering. Critics are calling it “Stunning”, “Astonishing”, “Simply a masterpiece”, “A better time at the cinema this year you will not have”, “Heartbreaking”, “Gripping”, “Powerful” and “Uplifting”. Featuring an emotionally complex white male lead, the elusive love interest with an emotionally delicate past, a kindly old person who will inevitably die and score a definite nomination, a scene stealing thespian, the black best friend, a kid, the underwritten douchebag whose sole purpose is to make the white guy look better, and the jarring appearance of a comedic actor or musician. Enter the cinema with the intention of escaping life for a little while, only to see something so depressing, uplifting and human that you’ll feel like you’re watching someone else’s unrelatable, boring and inspiring life on-screen.
With a running length of over half an hour too long, prepare yourself for a transcendental movie going experience that you will really like at first but then fail to understand all the hype, causing you to go on Twitter or YouTube and complain that it isn’t as good as this other more generic crowd-pleasing mainstream film or smaller film about a more unique topic. Marvel at needlessly complex and extravagant cinematography, an over the top and dominating score, loud showy acting, subtle nuanced acting, and intelligent writing that puts every other film of the year to shame because as satirical as this may sound, the writing is always great.
The film that launched a thousand think pieces, angry trolls, conflicted online message boards, super fans, cinema purists and confused casual movie goers will ultimately divide everyone for the course of three months as this movie cleans up at every award show before ultimately losing Best Picture to that other bait movie which was always going to be the only thing that could possibly beat it.
Starring Tom Hanks, Eddie Redmayne, Robert De Niro, Jeff Bridges, Judi Dench, Denzel Washington, Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Mark Ruffalo and, of course, Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis, see the movie that will be the talk of the town until the surprise February/March hit after Awards season, followed by whatever Marvel release next, only for that be topped by the next Star Wars movie before we get Oscar Bait: The Movie 2 at exactly the same time next year. But as excited as we all may be for the follow-up, it will eventually end up being a failed attempt to replicate the success of the first go round and result in a total of zero Oscar nominations.
