Prompt Images
It’s that time of year again: TAX SEASON! No, JK, duh, it’s the Oscars. This year is poised to deliver all the glitz, glamour, and self-congratulatory Hollywood behavior we know and hate-love. So instead of positing what steals and snubs might occur on “the industry’s” biggest night, The Prompt’s Erin Vail and Meg Kearns compiled their own categories based on the year in pictures.
1) Best Accents: TIE: Jackie & Manchester by the Sea
M: Did you know, Manchester by the Sea is the longest movie ever made? OK, fine, it’s not, but it really feels like it. One of its redeeming qualities in my eyes (ears?) is the use of the Boston accent, one of my favorite accents. The recurring scene of Lee (Casey Affleck) and his young nephew Patrick on a boat in the harbor arguing, “It’s a shark!” and “It’s not a shark!” is the best part of the movie, and the line has been added to my own Boston Accent Quote Repertoire, along with:
– “Stop antagonizing me” -Casey Affleck, Good Will Hunting (full circle!)
– “Are you a narc?” -Nate Corddry, The Heat
– “F**k you”- everyone in The Departed
E: Let me use this space to express my outrage over Emma Stone’s impending win over Natalie Portman, despite Nat giving a TRULY transformative performance as Jackie Kennedy. Fun fact: Jackie Kennedy had a WEIRD voice. Natalie Portman fucking nailed it, as well as the emotion and calculation and idea of performance in her role as the late First Lady. The voice is what grounds Portman’s as Jackie O, and is the most fun to attempt to replicate, because it’s so distinct and basically impossible. That has not stopped me from attempting to recreate even the saddest scenes from Jackie in that accent.
2) Most OVERRATED: Deadpool
M: For a movie whose marketing campaign was basically “I’m not a regular superhero movie, I’m a cool superhero movie!” Deadpool turned out to be…a pretty mediocre superhero movie! Clunky origin story, relatively useless female lead, lots of man-pain: check, check, check. The only things Deadpool has that other superhero movies don’t are swearing and nudity, which I think were meant to somehow “elevate” the movie, but instead just made it seem like unfiltered fanfic written by a mildly creative 12 year-old boy.
In short: Deadpool was aggressively just fine, but not nearly as smart or subversive as it thought it was.
E: I liked Ryan Reynolds before he was cool! Let’s go back to the late 2000s/early 2010s when we could count on RyRey for cute, underrated rom-coms! The thing I kept reading about Deadpool was that he was “edgy” and “snarky” and “self-aware” as a character, and how “refreshing” that was. Except guess what? THERE IS ALREADY A SNARKY, SELF AWARE SUPERHERO. AND HIS NAME IS TONY ***STARK.***
Seriously?!?! It’s Iron Man’s WHOLE. THING. So Deadpool was fun, it had a good soundtrack, and I enjoy Ryan Reynolds as a human, but Deadpool was not REVOLUTIONARY in ANY way. Even Broad City did PEGGING before it!!!
3) Best Picture: Bridget Jones’ Baby
M: Look, not every film needs to be Moonlight, OK? Bridget Jones’ Baby made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me appreciate how well both Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey are aging. I smiled the whole time because it was a true delight from start to finish. And sometimes that’s all you need from a trip to the movies.
E: I relate to Bridget Jones on a spiritual level. The swearing, the klutziness, the boy trouble—everyone probably relates to Bridget in some way, but she and I would crush several bottles of wine and collapse into giggles at every other breath.
Here are some of the things that cemented Bridget Jones’ Baby as my Best Picture nod: Bridget gets invited on a “mini break” with one of her “work colleagues” and is instead whisked away to a music festival, where Bridget immediately falls face first into a puddle of mud. Patrick Dempsey plays Jack, who pulls her out of the mud, and they have a one night stand, which may or may not end up producing the titular Bridget Jones’ baby.
And there’s more! Colin Firth is back as Mark Darcy, wearing old timey judge robes. Emma Thompson plays an exasperated gynecologist. Bridget’s Google search history is exposed during a work project (TRUE WORST FEAR). And Bridget lip syncs to “Jump Around.”
It’s a truly happy, silly, fun movie, and I wish I lived in the Bridget Jones universe. Also, I will never stop seeing these movies. Also, bring back Hugh Grant.
4) Actor Most Likely to get Us Interested in Any Subject: Adam Driver
M: In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Sixteen, three Adam Driver movies were released: Midnight Special, Silence, and Paterson. In these movies he played: an NSA communications analyst, a Portuguese Jesuit priest, and a bus driver/poet. Midnight Special was more of an ensemble piece that we probably would’ve seen regardless, but Adam’s presence helped move the film to the top of our must-see list. And pretty much only Adam Driver could get us to say “a movie about a 17th century priest and a movie about a bus driver in New Jersey? Sign us up!”
E: Thank god “Girls” is back. I love seeing Adam Driver on my screen week to week. He is such a physical, dynamic, and compelling actor, and it’s neat to see him excel in other performances. (Not so much other accents. His Portuguese from the Silence trailer is iffy.) But I really adore seeing Adam in other projects because it gives me a reason to just think about Kylo Ren, or fall down subreddit holes (might I recommend “Star Wars Speculation” or “Prequel Memes”?), or wonder about how much J.J. Abrams might know about “The Last Jedi.”
5) Worst Movie Seen in Theaters: Batman vs. Superman or Inferno
M: Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. Congratulations to BvS for being the first movie I ever intentionally napped during in theaters. Erin and I saw it around 10pm on the Thursday it was released, and at a certain point I decided rather than fighting my tiredness, I might as well just succumb to it. I wasn’t out for all that long, and honestly, when I woke up I was just as confused as I was before falling asleep, so. I stand by my theater nap.
E: Fun fact about me: I have read every Dan Brown book ever written. I can’t get ENOUGH of the academic-adventurer-who-has-to-stop-a-global-disaster-with-historical-artifacts subgenre. And I will continue to see every Dan Brown movie adaptation despite the decline in quality. I saw Inferno, and not only did it fail to handle the book’s ending, it also completely muddled general storytelling devices like plot and character. This is a waste. Burn Inferno to the ground.
6) Best Cameo: Tate Donovan in Manchester by the Sea
M: Friendship is knowing that when the erstwhile Jimmy Cooper/voice of Hercules skates onto the screen as a kindly, concerned high school hockey coach for two scenes of a movie, you need to text any and all interest parties as soon as possible. Not during the movie, of course, because that should be a jailable offense. But as soon as Manchester by the Sea ended, I texted Erin:
E: Yeah, there’s no way I’m seeing Manchester by the Sea if not for this scene. Thank you for bringing this to my attention/knowing my truest self, Meg. TATE DONOVAN IS UNDERRATED. Also during this time, I was binge watching “Man in the High Castle,” and Tate shows up in the second season. RECOMMEND.
7) Best Use of Mads Mikkelsen: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Fuck you, Doctor Strange)
E: We have written about our love for Mads on The Prompt before. We are MAD for MADS. But he is at his PEAK in Rogue One. He’s got great scruff, amazing hair, and is soaking wet for 80% of the film.
M: We would also be remiss if we did not mention that Mads plays a Hot Dad in this movie. Y’know, if you’re into that look.
There are your Off-beat Oscars. We hope our picks are a little more off-the-cuff and unpredictable than the Academy’s this year, or any year, quite frankly. (E: #JusticeForBoyhood) Now get on out there and fill out your Oscar ballot with a (controversial) La La Land sweep.
RELATED
