Why Each of the 8 Best Picture Nominees Should Lose

It's Oscar time! And boy howdy, are we excited! Enthused is really the better word.... Aware? Yeah. We're aware that the Academy Awards are this Sunday. We're also aware that you've probably read all the predictions and projections for this years winners. So what are we going to do? We're going to predict an astonishing upset. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, wins best picture despite not even being nominated! WHAT???? Looking at the competition, it's not hard to see why.

1 and 2. The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road

You know how when you eat Mexican food, you don't out the window at a different Mexican restaurant? That's because aspiring restaurateurs know that having two places right next to each other with very similar options is a bad idea. The Martian is a QDoba that opens its doors across the street from Mad Max's Chipotle.

I know what you're saying, "Phil, The Martian was so optimistic and character-driven, comparatively to Mad Max's bleak, plot-driven story". Believe me I understand where you're coming from. But to Oscar voters these are two blockbusters set in deserts. Thusly, people who would vote for a blockbuster end up selecting one, but not both as their Best Picture, leaving both in a desert of votes. One of them is just a desert in space.

3. Bridge of Spies

I mean, is milk anyone's favorite drink? No. Is it bad? No. Bridge of Spies is milk, made by Jones Soda. It's ok, not particularly exciting. But the people who made it are expected to create new and interesting things, not milk!

Tom Hanks stars in a Steven Spielberg movie written by the Coen Brothers. This movie should have melted people's faces like Steven Spielberg did at the end of Raiders. How was this not an earth-shattering phenomenon of a movie? Because it was the worst thing it could be: good. If Bridge of Spies was terrible, I'd be happy. I'd say it was Icarus, flying too close to the sun, aspiring to be too great. But instead it was like... just like a normal bird I guess. Meh.

4. Brooklyn

I didn't see this one. I don't know that anyone else did either.

5. Room

Oh Room. I really liked Room, it's probably my favorite of the nominees. It's bleak and bright at the same time. Hope and despair. An emotional roller-coaster with two incredible breakout performances, masterful directing, and a rock solid script. All of this from such a small-scale film, truly this is what all filmmakers should aspire too.

Except the Academy doesn't notice small movies. A bunch of people we don't know filming each other with no substantial budget? Isn't that a Vine-a-gram? Nepotism and politics are a HUGE part of Oscar voting. The "I Scratch Your Back" model is inherently against movies without back scratchers. Brie Larson certainly is about to blow up in a Anne Hathaway/Jennifer Lawrence way because we need to continue the cycle of loving an actress so much that we start to hate them. But currently, she doesn't have the clout to get a lot of votes.

6. The Revenant

This is probably the closest thing to a diverse movie in this years Best Picture nominees. The director is mexican, a lot of the supporting cast are indigenous americans, and Tom Hardy appears sounds like he's from a cartoon. Thrown in Leo receiving a lifetime achievement award thinly veiled as Best Actor and some stellar cinematography and of course this wins Best Picture... right? Wrong. Read the title of the article, everyone lost!

The Revenant was boring. It was. There were some epic stunts and truly shocking moments, but in the end it felt like the bastard offspring of an Alaska tourism video and an episode of Fear Factor. It's the lowest reviewed of the Best Picture nominees on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason. The "true story" it's based on isn't anything special, the characters are one-note, and the 2.5 hour movie stops for a minute to let Leo catch snowflakes on his tongue. Yes, I know it's meant to show hope in a hopeless moment, but when a movies that long it just feels like I'm being punished for something.

7. The Big Short

Ooh, I like this one too. I've had my eye on Adam McKay since the criminally underrated "The Other Guys" tried to teach Will Ferrell fans about ponzi schemes. With the Big Short, McKay dropped the subtlety and would literally have famous people explain the plot like some weird documentary-narrative hybrid. It's visually inventive, incredibly clever, and anchored by the unstoppable charisma of Ryan Gosling.

But this movie is fast. And furious. It moves along at a breakneck pace, similar to 2013's Wolf of Wall Street. Oscar voters don't like that. The majority of the Academy are old people, the average age of 63. They're not into the MTV school of editting. In their minds, movies should be slow, steady, and not too complicated; like Driving Miss Daisy, The King’s Speech or Their Own Digestive System’s. The Big Short is like an economics class on cocaine, and will end up like Do the Right Thing or The Social Network.

8. Spotlight

Spotlight had a lot of early momentum. It was categorized as the frontrunner before a lot of critics even saw it. The subject matter is appropriately dour for Best Picture, it's kind of a period piece and has an ensemble cast of Oscar-friendly (*cough WHITE*) actors. Seriously, this movie takes place in Boston, and there are zero major black characters.

That's kind of a problem. After the nominees were announced, people got pissed. I'm not even saying "black people got pissed" because racial injustice isn't only felt by people of said race. White people (particularly those in the nominated films) came out with a thousand different reasons why it happened, and while it's slightly more complicated than it may appear, it's only very slightly. That being said, with the outrage surrounding the Old White People's Choice Awards, the Academy couldn't give Best Picture to a movie whose diversity runs from eggshell to ivory.

Why Star Wars Wins:

It’s everything. People saw it, unlike Brooklyn.

It’s got Academy friendly people behind it (John Williams, Harrison Ford, and BB-8), unlike Room.

The cast is diverse, with an African American lead, unlike Spotlight.

It’s not boring, unlike the Revenant.

The editing is moderately paced, unlike the Big Short.

It lives up to it’s potential, unlike Bridge of Spies.

And it’s a blockbuster that eventually leaves it’s desert world, unlike Mad Max and the Martian.

So really, it shouldn’t shock anyone that Star Wars will win Best Picture.