…the Movie Godz, deeply offended, will do what they can to arrange for the winner to “pay off the debt”, so to speak, by condemning him/her to star or costar in…okay, perhaps not a string of mediocre films, but at least one or two.
Ned Beatty to Peter Finch in Network: “And you…will…atone!”
I wish I could say that one current example is Jamie Lee Curtis. Her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her laboriously broad performance as an IRS agent in Everything Everywhere All At Once, a deeply despised bullshit genre hodgepodge that opened three and a half years ago (3.25.22), was an awarding that will live in infamy. I literally shouted “no!…no!” when her win was announced.
Alas, Curtis’s career has been going great guns since she won that Oscar in early ‘23. Praise for her work in The Last Showgirl, and Freakier Friday even. Not to mention a well-received guest performance as an alcoholic matriarch during The Bear’s second season. Plus her successful children’s books.
But at least she’s costarring in James L. Brooks’ Ella McCay, which is allegedly an embarrassment. (A critic friendo calls it “awful”.) The trailer tells us that Curtis wildly over-acts as Emma Mackey’s mom.
It goes without saying that the careers of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, co-creators of EEAAO, will be adversely affected by those damnable ‘23 Oscars. Okay, I don’t know that but these guys ought to suffer. They damn well should. Will they? Who knows?