Bunk, I tell you! Don’t fall for it!

Scowly-faced Kris Tapley is basically asking “if Anora is locked in for Best Picture, why on earth would Mikey Madison not win the Best Actress Oscar?”

HE answer: I’ve said this two or three times but it has to be drilled in. Demi Moore is apparently going to win because SAG and AMPAS members have all accepted the narrative voiced by Moore after winning a Best Comedy/Musical Actress Golden Globe award five weeks ago (i.e., January 5th).

“Thirty years ago, I had a producer tell me that I was a ‘popcorn actress,’ and at that time, I [took] that to mean that…I could do movies that were successful and made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged, and I bought in and I believed that,” Moore said. “That corroded me over time, to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it, maybe I was complete, maybe I had done what I was supposed to do.

“And [just] as I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out-of-the-box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called The Substance. And the universe told me that ‘you’re not done.’”

For the sixth or seventh time, Moore’s narrative is dishonest. She was not forced into a popcorn box by mean old Hollywood executives. She walked right into that box of her own volition, and she totally reaped the spoils (mainstream fame, huge paychecks, flush lifestyle) until she aged out. And then she pivoted into a body horror flick just like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford pivoted into hag horror in the early ’60s.

In the ’80s and ’90s Moore went for big, attention-getting, high-paying roles in mainstream films, and she became rich and famous from this. She chose this path while the choosing was good.

I’ve never read or heard that Moore tried to prove her arthouse mettle by appearing in edgy Sundance films, and she never tried to be in a critically-approved, Cannes-worthy, outside-the-box feminist statement film, and certainly not in a body-horror film.

She only took the lead in The Substance when she calculated that she’d aged out (duhhh) and a role like this was her only likely shot at revitalizing her career.

Moore played it smart, and the gamble obviously paid off. Coralie Fargeat knew how to make a David Cronenberg film, although The Subtance ie not an emotional, soul-baring film…far from it.

Moore’s Elizabeth Sparkle character is basically a scream queen role…except she doesn’t scream. It’s essentially about ghastly stuff that happens to the poor woman because she’s desperate to stay in the game. It’s a film driven by feminist smirk-rage about a system rigged by exploitive male assholes, and yet a system that just about every Type-A woman has bought into and tried to compete in. Including Demi Moore herself.

It’s not about Moore reaching into her soul and delivering the performance of her life, but about Moore playing a victim…a desperate character reacting to horrific things that are happening to her. The Substance never strays from that path.