Disney

#4) Alice In Wonderland

The Movie: Despite the title, this is actually a sequel to Alice in Wonderland. You know, like the actual book Through the Looking Glass already was, except this one goes back to Wonderland where the Red Queen has gone nuts. If this sounds familiar, this is because that was the plot of a video game that came out more than a decade ago.

The Wins (Yes, Plural): Art Direction and Costume Design

Did It Deserve It? Considering most of it was pooped out of a computer, we’re going to say “no”.

The Weinstein Co

#3) The Reader

The Movie: Yet another movie about the Holocaust, but apparently we’re supposed to feel really bad for Buchenwald stairwell guards because they can’t read, look like Kate Winslet, and are willing to bone teenaged boys. Mostly this movie is infamous for being the movie the Academy deliberately subbed in for The Dark Knight, which got boned out of nominations in every major category despite being vastly better reviewed and better received than The Reader.

The Win: Best Actress

Did She Deserve It? Well, she was up against Meryl Streep in a movie about kid-touching, Angelina Jolie in a movie about the cops putting a mom in jail to cover up screwing up a child murder case, Melissa Leo dealing with Canadian illegal immigrants, and Anne Hathaway playing a whiny brat in a movie about upper middle class people being uptight. We’re pretty sure if Hathaway, an immensely talented actress whom we deeply respect, had actually gotten her top off for this one instead of that godawful Havoc movie, she would have won. But instead it went to Winslet, although it makes this bit from Extras just that much funnier:

And you totally stopped reading this after the title and are at Google Images, right now, looking up “Anne Hathaway Havoc Boobies.” You’re welcome. Please stop doing that with a tab open. It makes the surveillance cookies we hide in your web programming cry.

Warner Bros.

#2) The Blind Side

The Movie: Sandra Bullock plays a rich, white redneck who adopts a poor, black kid or something. We don’t know, we just saw the trailers and went into diabetic shock.

The Win: Best Freaking Actress

Did She Deserve It? Let’s see, she was basically playing an annoying rich lady from the South, which she is, and was up against Meryl Streep playing Julia Child and Helen Mirren playing some Russian chick, but she’s Helen Mirren. We’re assuming Bullock got this because Streep and Mirren already have a lot of awards, Carey Mulligan didn’t make anybody a lot of money, and Gabourey Sidibe is both black and large, two qualities the Academy pretends to admire while tossing awards at skinny white ladies. Precious was Oscar-bait, but it forgot to include a self-congratulatory white character who saves the black characters. And if it had, that character would have nabbed some other white woman a Best Actress award.

Lionsgate

#1) Crash

The Movie: Paul Haggis wants you to know that he feels very, very bad about how he treats his maid. Like, really bad, you guys. It’s one of those movies where everybody is a stereotype that white people who are really looking forward to that “avoid ghetto” feature on their GPS like to think tells them something profound about race–like that they were really smart to buy a house in a development away from anybody not white.

The Win: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing.

Did It Deserve It? Heeeeeeell no. The reason Crash did so well is because the Academy, despite largely consisting of gays, were terrified that somehow, they’d be dinged in the ratings if Brokeback Mountain, that gay cowboy movie everybody said was going to win, actually won. So, to prove to people who didn’t care that they were, like, down with political correctness but not down with giving the gays an Academy Award, they instead flocked to an after school special with more guns and nobody doing PCP, screaming about bugs, and jumping out of a window.

Dan Seitz is the creative director at GammaSquad and the gadget guy at Guyism. This is his companion piece to Five Movies Stiffed This Year by the Oscars.