“Who wants to kiss Abe’s Oscars?”

This post was originally pitched around the release of Lincoln, Steven Spielberg’s cinematic ode to that one They Might Be Giants album, and how its arrival heralds the unofficial beginning of Oscar-bait season. But Les Miserables shot that peg in the head, so to speak, and one-upped Lincoln with its musical misery trailer.

Either way: for the next few months, movie studios are going to pay millions of dollars, on top of the hundreds of millions they’ve already spent, to convince us and Academy voters that their films are subjectively better than other studios’ films. It’s depressing, really, but hey, *lights cigar* it’s Oscars season, baby. No matter how good they might be, both Les Mis and Lincoln look like they were made solely to win awards, as if no one at any point asked, “Does the world really need another Abraham Lincoln film?” No, it does not.

With all that in mind, here are 10 of cinema’s most obnoxious tropes that you see in Oscar-bait film after Oscar-bait film, with two entries dedicated solely to the most shameless award-whore movies in recent history. And neither is Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Yeah, they’re that flagrant.

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When Ang Lee debuted the first footage from his 3D adaptation of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi at CinemaCon a few months back, the 10 minutes of footage he showed already had the movie bloggers who saw it talking Oscar, and you know movie bloggers aren’t prone to hyperbole (sarcasm, sarcasm). Now that 20th Century Fox has released the first trailer (below), you can judge for yourself, even if you don’t have a neckbeard OR a collection of novelty t-shirts. As someone who enjoyed the book – a parable for religion about an Indian boy trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger, a zebra, and a hyena – my expert opinion is that the underwater zebra stuff looks pretty cool (though CG artists still can’t make realistic-looking waves, have you noticed that?), the music is a little… I dunno… butt-gazing, let’s say. Though it does look like Ang Lee has succeeded in creating that highly-stylized, ethereal movie world that Peter Jackson was trying to create in The Lovely Bones, but without all the child-rape.

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Hey, remember Laetitia Casta? You probably wouldn’t if you lived in my house growing up, where an entire generation’s worth of Victoria’s Secret catalogs mysteriously disappeared into my private collection. GO AWAY, MOM! I’M STUDYING! The breasty Frenchwoman, who’s somehow only 34, is still around, and she stars in the latest film from director Christophe Barratier, War of the Buttons, starring Guillaume Canet, being released by The Weinstein Company, who just put out a trailer, which you can watch below. Sadly, the title does not seem to refer to Laetitia’s sweater.

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Ever since The King’s Speech, there have been more and more movies that seem more like unintentional parodies of Oscar movies than actual movies – The Iron Lady, Albert Nobbs, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. But Precious director Lee Daniels (have you ever seen the misspelled credits sequence in Precious? it’s f*cking MINDBLOWING) may have just raised the bar.

Longtime liberal activist Jane Fonda is set to play the revered republican Nancy Reagan in the movie “The Butler.” The Wrap has confirmed that the 74-year-old has signed on for the part.

(*bangs head on desk*)

The  historical drama is based on a story written in the Washington Post about a White House servant, Eugene Allen, who served eight presidents in the White House from Harry Truman through Ronald Reagan -— meaning plenty of chances for cameos from A-list actors.
The stellar cast may also include Forest Whitaker in the title role of butler Allen; Oprah Winfrey as Allen’s wife; and Liam Neeson and John Cusack as Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Mila Kunis has been mentioned for the role of Jackie Kennedy.
Going public with the news to drum up interest before all casting is a done deal could be a play for financing and distribution, which is also not finalized, according to Variety. [Yahoo]

Can we just give Lee Daniels an Oscar an exchange for a promise not to make this? He’s like the North Korea of directors. I wonder if we’ll find out that Nancy Reagan secretly had AIDS and an incest baby and couldn’t read. Maybe Gabourey Sidibe as the sassy Jamaican ambassador? “Ear me now – ya gwan take dem bandulu plane hout me bumbaclot hairspace if ya know what’s good far ya, BUH! BUH! Now whar me put me donut?”

Jane Fonda via jbor / Shutterstock.com

After the jump, I’ve got the new trailer for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel. This is also “the Daldry” that New Yorker critic David Denby said he was looking forward to in his email to producer Scott Rudin yesterday. As in, the new movie from director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, The Hours, Billy Elliot), who seems to make movies specifically for New Yorker critics.

…the story focuses on Oskar Schell (played by newcomer Thomas Horn), a nine-year-old boy from Manhattan whose father (Hanks) dies on 9/11 [So would you call it... OSKAR BAIT? ...I'm so sorry. -Ed]. Two years later, the boy discovers a key belonging to his father, which sends him on a search through the city, believing it will lead to a final message from his deceased parent. [ThePlaylist]

This looks great. I’ll probably throw on a wool caftan, light a few sandalwood candles, and curl up with a nice glass of Pinot Gris. Then after I have myself a good cry, I’ll probably throw the old James Taylor Greatest Hits CD in the Prius and go for a nice drive.

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