Every year, the major film studios unleash dozens of films so cynically engineered to win awards that they unintentionally reveal their soulless cores while grasping for recognition. Remind you of a certain former governor who helped pass healthcare reform in Massachusetts, then condemned the same program during his presidential run tp win conservative votes? Us too. Please allow us to introduce DigBoston’s inaugural Romney Awards.
Most Pandering Attempt at Relatability: Annie
Produced by Will Smith, Inc. and with a lead role originally intended for Willow , this halfhearted update of a celebrated musical couldn’t even be rescued from its nepotistic roots by Quvenzhané Wallis’ cuteness and Jamie Foxx’s charisma. Featuring movie stars who can’t sing and an incongruous blend of peppy show tunes alongside R&B originals, Annie’s qualities fail to shine brighter than its machinations.
Most Glaring Miscalculation of One’s Own Relevance: Magic in The Moonlight
For years, we’ve let Woody Allen get away with too much because his creepy confessionals of wanting to bed increasingly younger and younger women were wrapped up in otherwise terrific films like Manhattan, Mighty Aphrodite, Deconstructing Harry, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (by proxy). So perhaps we should be thankful that his most egregious May-December romance in recent memory, Magic In The Moonlight, is also his worst film in a decade. And guess what his next movie is about. A philosophy professor who sleeps with his student. Oy.
Town Hall Debate Award for Achievement In Mistaking Performance For Substance: TIE: The Judge, The Theory of Everything
Tune in to the Oscars when these dudes get nominated. Watch their clips. Boom, you’ve seen the movies.
Most Confusing Views on Religion: Exodus: Gods and Kings
Is it a revisionist biblical epic? A condemnation of religious literalism? Is it racist or … no, it’s definitely racist. Whatever you want to call Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings, it’s a goddamn mess: a war movie with one and a half battle scenes, a family drama in which no one has the same accent, and the story of the main hero of the Hebrew Bible starring a guy named Christian.
47 Percent Award for Revealing What Everyone Already Knew: TIE: Third Person, Interstellar, Big Eyes
Paul Haggis made a bad movie about racism (Crash), and ten years later he made worse movie about nothing in particular (Third Person). Christopher Nolan made some of the best popcorn movies of the 2000s, but he’s not an auteur just because he’s an intellectual, as his latest, limpest flick Interstellar, or: Love ≥ Science illustrates. And let’s just be honest about Tim Burton: He’s gone soft as Spielberg on us, just more Hot Topic than helicopter dad.
Lifetime Achievement Award in Taking Someone Else’s Idea, Selling It, and Calling It Business: Mitt
No on-the-ground campaign documentary is ever going to be as interesting as The War Room. Period. All Mitt shows—after following his 2008 and 2012 campaigns—is a guy who really shouldn’t have been president not being president twice. Let’s not try to humanize a guy whose main goal once elected was to rob our public services blind and double down on our already shitty foreign policy, okay?
