Brik Hates the Academy Awards: 80s Edition

It’s no mystery that I hate the Academy Awards. Hollywood spends half the year binging on cocaine and hookers and the other half praising themselves for it. No other industry exerts so much energy and spends so much money on self-congratulatory masturbation than the film industry. These sick fucks have the cushiest, easiest jobs in the world, and they act like what they do is some kind of goddamn accomplishment. “LOL OH LOOK I JUST RECITED SOME LINES SOMEONE ELSE WROTE FOR ME AND SHED A TEAR AT THE SAME TIME! I’M A FUCKING ACTING GOD! QUICK SOMEBODY GIVE ME FIFTY AWARDS LOL!”

In theory, I could get behind the awards if they actually awarded things that were deserving. You know, giving a Best Picture award to the best movie of the year. But the Academy rarely gives that award to the best movie of the year. Hell, they don’t even give it to the most popular movie of the year. Usually, they give it to whatever cool person produced the movie, or to the most obscure, independent, foreign piece of shit they can find. Typically, no one in the mainstream public will have even seen the winner.

They’ve been pulling this shit for years. So, I decided to analyze the past years, offer my own nominees, and declare new winners. Best movie isn’t the one that makes you cry or makes you think. Best movie is the one that you want to revisit over and over again. A movie you watch once and never again isn’t good. It’s only good if you can’t help but watch it a million times. Rewatchability is the hallmark of something great.

This time around, I’ll be taking a look at the Best Picture winners from the 1980s.

Watching the Holiday Classics

Christmas is a holiday steeped in tradition. The music, the lights, the tree, the gift exchange, and the drunken uncle trying to molest you. These are all perennial aspects of this very special time of year. And just like your divorced grandfather bringing in a 23 year-old hooker to make his ex-wife jealous, there are some parts of the holiday you want to experience over and over again. One of those is watching Christmas films. Movies about Christmas have become an entire genre of their own. Some of these films are beloved, timeless classics. Two of my all-time favorites are the stuff of legend. The ones that people herald as utter brilliance, and are watched by families year after year. Of course, the films I am talking about are A Christmas Story 2 and Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure.

A Christmas Story 2

A Christmas Story 2 continues the Christmas adventures of Ralphie Parker. He is now a teenager, about to turn 16, and wants a car for Christmas. Getting a car isn’t easy, especially since this is still vaguely the 1940s and he lives in a modest middle-class family. Ralphie and his father, The Old Man, go to a car dealership to run a scam where The Old Man can get a deal on a new car. While there, Ralphie spies a used Mercury that he falls in love with. A few days later, he shows it off to his friends. Naturally, this involves him breaking into the car so he can sit in it. And when the dealer comes outside, Ralphie gets his pant leg caught on the emergency brake, which leads to hilarious hijinx! The car ends up taking some damage to the convertible rooftop, and now Ralphie will have to pay the dealer $85 or face the consequences. This plot line is completely retarded. Seriously, guys?! His pant leg got caught on the fucking emergency brake? What the fuck is this, a goddamn episode of Looney Tunes? Is that the best the writers could come up with?