My 2023 Oscar Picks

by Mike Covers

Awards Season 2024 concluded this past weekend with the pinnacle ceremony that has been celebrating cinema for millions of years now: the Razzie Awards. 

And–rightfully–Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey took home the coveted Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture.

There was also some kind of encore event the following day, the “Academy Awards” or some nonsense like that. Quite obviously a rip-off of the far more notable Razzies ceremony.

However, for some reason likely involving cocaine or decades of lead in the water, more people tend to pay attention to the “Oscars.” This is because the ceremony purports to celebrate excellence in cinema but, year after year, fails to do so because, again, year after year, they do not think of consulting me for my picks. Instead, they tend to nominate movies that some would call “arthouse” and (most) others would call “I’ve never even heard of these.” Most Oscar winners–and even nominees–are not the kind of movies you will find playing at sprawling neon-festooned AMC or Regal multiplexes, where the scent of $65 popcorn (when it’s on sale) is everywhere, including the restrooms. This is because, god forbid, these places don’t dedicate 20 of their 24 screens to hourly showings of Kung Fu Panda 4. No, Oscar-winning movies are only screened in “indie” theaters: located in hidden, likely dangerous, parts of cities in dark, crumbling, possibly condemned buildings that are a single greased palm away from being a condo complex. People who willingly wear clothes with elbow patches on them, drink nothing but top-shelf bourbon and hot tea, even when they’re brushing their teeth, and have British accents even if they’re from Indiana are the only ones who go to these theaters. 

And, as they do every year, the so-called Academy doled out most of its trophies to some arthouse flick called Oppenheimer that no one at all saw (except every single person who saw Barbie). I personally was unable to participate in the “Barbenheimer” double feature this past summer due to a bad spell of light sensitivity in my eyes; seeing bright-pink Barbie in a pitch-black theater would have killed me. I still have yet to see either one, because I refuse to watch one without the other behind it in rapid succession (and Oppenheimer JUST RECENTLY became available on one of the streaming services I have).

So until I get to those movies, let’s try to focus on the GOOD 2023 cinema that the Oscars didn’t even bother sending entry forms to. In other words, the movies that *I* feel deserve Oscars.

COCAINE BEAR: This is seriously the Academy’s biggest snub since it awarded Best Song to Phil Collins for that godawful “You’ll Be In My Heart” tune from the godawfuller movie Tarzan instead of to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s timeless musical classic “Blame Canada” from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Very few movies outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe sell me on their TITLE ALONE, but “Cocaine Bear” succeeded in this feat. You could have slapped this title on ANYTHING–Kung Fu Panda 4, Oppenheimer, the State of the Union address–and I would have paid good Moviepass points to see it. And its plot–a bear getting high on cocaine and violently mauling people–deserves, at the very least, the Best Screenplay Award. Besides, this was the late Ray Liotta’s final film before he died. Doesn’t that get it any kind of sympathy Oscar, like the one they gave to Heath Ledger for playing the Joker?

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES: My friend Jon and I caught a special sneak preview of this movie after I found out about it from–seriously–a fundamentalist Christian Facebook friend who swears she is giving up Facebook FOR GOOD about once every 5 days. Among the other audience members was a dorky-looking kid, who very well could have been me and/or Jon from the past, clad in a wizard robe, obviously the duds of their favorite D&D character class (“Ranger”). Chris Pine plays a lovingly wise-ass Bard who manages to team up with one of every other D&D class (Halfling, Paladin, Obligatory Sarcastic Woman, etc.) in order to defeat Hugh Grant’s Rogue character, whose historically good looks have apparently recently rolled a 1. This movie deserves Academy recognition just for putting a decent, enjoyable, and honestly funny Dungeons & Dragons movie out there, which was certainly NOT the case the first time Hasbro tried it back in 2000. Current and former nerds know exactly what I’m talking about.

THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE: Yes, we’ll overlook the fact that this movie was the latest thing for Chris Pratt’s voice to appear in; the guy seems to be the go-to for ANY voiceover role these days, including schoolgirls in anime series. While the 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros. movie was good, presuming you were stoned while watching it, the 2023 animated version just improved upon the popular video game franchise it is based on (The Legend of Zelda). Brooklyn plumbers Mario and Luigi (or “Green Mario”) find themselves sucked into the magical Mushroom Kingdom, where Mario teams up with Princess Daisy/Peach/Toadstool/Zelda to rescue Luigi from the clutches of evil King Koopa. I think this is a perfect contender for Best Adapted Screenplay.

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE: Don’t worry: it isn’t necessary to have seen the first 57387608978768069 Marvel movies to understand what is going on in this movie, as it takes place in a separate universe. However, there is a single line that refers to the Marvel movie Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, so maybe you should see those 57387608978768069 other movies to truly appreciate that dialogue. Anyway, it probably IS a good idea to have at least seen Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse to understand this movie. Miles Morales, now s powers as Spider-Man, meets Gwen Stacy (Spider-Woman) and a host of other Spider-Beings including, seriously, Spider-Ham, who is a Spider-Pig (which was first predicted by–what else?–The Simpsons Movie). Since the Academy apparently has to legally give the Best Animated Feature award to a Disney property every year anyway, can this movie at least have that award since Disney now owns Marvel, in addition to 99% of other entertainment?

JOY RIDE: This was a fun, colorful, and exceptionally raunchy tale about two Asian adoptee best friends who travel to China in search of one of their biological mothers. Along the way, they injure an entire basketball team, become a K-Pop group, and save Luigi from Bowser (wait, wrong movie). The story itself is award-worthy, plus there is a line of dialogue where one character describes how she masturbates to Splinter from the Ninja Turtles. That alone should be an automatic win. As far as I know, Oppenheimer did not have such dialogue.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOLUME 3: Another movie year, another Marvel movie (or 13). Unlike Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the third iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise DOES require that you see the other 57387608978768069 Marvel movies that came before it (and those are just the ones that came out in 2022). Starring a live-action version of Chris Pratt (who, unfortunately, is also voiced by Chris Pratt), the Guardians continue their adventures after the events of Avengers: Endgame and Thor: Love and Thunder. The movie exemplifies utter “movie magic,” however, when it makes you feel actual feelings–real feelings–for what is, seriously, the tragic backstory of a CGI raccoon. Forget a single Oscar; this deserves its own damn CEREMONY.

THE MARVELS: The Marvels is a historic piece of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in that it was its first-ever bomb, meaning that it made only a meager $206 million. I mean, pfft! ANYONE can make that kind of money, can’t they?! In it, Captain Marvel teams up with two other women who share the “Marvel” superpower (no one–including the cast themselves–are quite sure what that even is) to stop the evil Dar-Benn from destroying several planets and thus worsening the movie’s intergalactic box office take. I feel that it deserves an Oscar because it is the last movie on my list this year and I am too tired to think of any better reason. If my research is accurate, this is how Titanic also won Best Picture.