UMass goes to the Oscars

With eight movies nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars, millions of people are having very strong opinions on movies that they haven’t seen, or even heard of, in an effort to seem cultured.

Most of UMass students only saw one movie this year and sadly “Jurrasic World”, “The Avengers” and “Star Wars” didn’t make the Oscars’ cut, leaving most students in the dark on the nominees.

I’m going to break down each nominee for you in order to help you do what us college kids do best: argue and complain about something that we don’t understand.

Mad Max: Fury Road

A group of girls flee a wasteland, where they are held captive, for a beautiful green oasis. But they have a few unexpected and unwelcome guests and then a bunch of people die.

This is basically a spring break road trip gone horribly wrong. It’s like that time a bunch of your friends planned on driving to Myrtle Beach for spring break but one of them invites their weird roommate who ruins it for everyone. Except your biggest worry was sharing a room with someone who collects bugs and doesn’t shower, theirs was death in the desert.

Room

Room is about a girl who gets kidnapped and is held in a small windowless room for a prolonged period of time with her young son. This hilarious comedy stars Kristen Wiig and her son is played by Will Ferrell. Just kidding.

This movie is so depressing. I’m sure being kidnapped and living a dark room with another person is terrible but it’s what Sylvan residents call “reality.” Adding insult to injury, they don’t even get to go to the Oscars.

The Martian

Matt Damon plays an astronaut on Mars. His crew gets stuck in a storm and has to make an emergency exit except they forgot one thing, Matt Damon. They leave him there. On Mars. The rest of the movie is how he plans on making it back to Earth.

It’s basically like when all your friends leave you at a frat party and your phone dies. Except on Mars.

The Revenant

If The Martian is the night of, The Revenant is the morning after. Leonardo DiCaprio gets attacked by a bear and his friends leave him the woods. The scene where he wakes up in a ditch alone, confused, and really thirsty is universally understood. He spends the rest of the movie grunting and crawling through snow trying to get home.

AKA he plays a UMass student at the beginning of spring semester.

A lot of people are saying he will finally win an Oscsar for this movie which is really good news. Because even though he’s a world famous millionaire and only dates supermodels, his life really does suck because he hasn’t won an acting prize. #prayforleo #leo2016

Spotlight

This movie is about the Boston Globe reporters who exposed the Catholic Church for system wide child molestation.

I can’t really compare that to anything UMass related, but I guess that’s a good thing.

The Big Short

Don’t go see this movie if you are in a lot of student loan debt. This movie focuses on the housing bubble that burst in 2008 and crashed the world economy. Steve Carell, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling all wear horrible wigs and talk about how our economy is a joke and the system is only making it worse. Seeing this movie will probably make you enraged about everything. Mainly morgages, college tuition, and Uber surge pricing.

Brooklyn

This movie follows a young Irish immigrant through 1950s Brooklyn. She falls in love with an American man and has to decide between him or her life back in Ireland.

It’s a lot like when you had a crush on the foreign exchange student from Amsterdam who never remembered your name but you were sure you guys could make it work.

Bridge of Spies

Your dad’s favorite actor, Tom Hanks, stars in this Cold War drama. He plays the lawyer responsible for negotiating the swap between an American pilot captured by the Soviet Union, and a Soviet spy captured by America.

It’s so incredible that this section was cut out of Forrest Gump just so he could run across the country and catch shrimp.

There are so many people worrying about who wins this award it’s insane. Sure, it’s the highest prize in movies, but we all know it will be overshadowed when Jennifer Lawrence gets drunk and says something funny/vulgar/embarrassing.