The 7th Annual Oscar Awards Guess the Plot Feature

Below are the titles of this year's Oscar Award nominees. Your job is to guess which plot description is the real one. The fakes were submitted by EE and the Evil Minions. A true film buff should have no trouble getting all nine.



Les Miserables

1. A history of the French people, from Robespierre to Gerard Depardieu.

2. A group of runaway slaves struggle for survival in Paris.

3. Prisoner 24601 escapes and creates a new life for himself, caring for the daughter of a factory worker and frequently breaking into song for no apparent reason.

4. They were the most effective Marquis of the French Resistance in WWII. They hid in the forest. They slept on the ground and foraged for food. Rarely did they have a hot meal or a bath and went weeks without washing their clothes. No wonder they were known as . . . Les Miserables.

5. Prison janitor Jean didn't think his life could get worse. Of course that was before becoming a hostage in riot-turned-jailbreak for which everyone believes he's the mastermind.


Beasts of the Southern Wild

1. It's bad enough living in the south in the summer, but when global warming causes the ice caps to melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures, it's time to head inland.

2. Frat house screwball comedy featuring nerds and jocks and boozing and cheerleaders and zombies.

3. Werejavelinas, werepossums and weredillos- in 3-D!

4. A group of runaway slaves struggle to survive in the hostile Everglades, pursued by hunters and alligators.

5. Porter the porcupine is worried. For three years, rains rarely come. The forest is dying and the woodland creatures are thirsty. One night, Porter sees colored lights in the northern sky. Taking it as sign, he organizes the mammals and birds. They begin a long trek to the northern rain forest. Also, a proselytizing vegan who won’t shut up -- so the cougars eat her.



Amour

1. Hitchens has quietly harbored his affection for Calista for four centuries, sure a gargoyle can't convince a saint he wants more than a one-night stand. When they catch Father Francis obsessively scrubbing stains from the altar, Hitchens grasps for his chance at...Amour.

2. A gripping tale of love between two slaves as they struggle against their oppressive masters.

3. Amour's parents named her in the heat of the groovy sixties. When she loses her job as an accountant for a denture-manufacturing firm and the bank forecloses on her suburban Houston home, Amour is forced to move in with her parents on the commune while desperately searching for another job.

4. A heart-wrenching story of two people in love. What more needs to be said? Oh, right, no sex scenes. Which is probably a good thing, as they're both in their 80s.

5. When their woodland is cleared for a shopping center, Molly the mole and Porter the porcupine are made homeless. Older than the other creatures, Molly and Porter team up. Each has abilities the other lacks. By the time they are settled into a new woodland, they are deeply in love. Can this illicit bi-species love last through the rigors of new homes, new friends and old age?



Lincoln

1. A group of freed slaves build a new nation in Nebraska, and name it after the president who freed them. It never amounts to more than one town, and they move to Texas after two years.

2. Abraham Lincoln survives the assassination attempt, and struggles with his views on capital punishment: "Sure, no one died, but this guy tried to kill me! Either he hangs, or we at least make him my slave."

3. President Abraham Lincoln must decide whether to end the Civil War or keep it going long enough to ram slave emancipation through congress. Think The West Wing, with Honest Abe playing the role of Jed Bartlet.

4. Twelve year old Lincoln Larsen leaves home to commence her physics degree and faces a predatory professor. She has an unexpected ally in an escaped human-extraterrestrial hybrid.

5. After heart surgery, Vito enters the convalescent hospital for several weeks. High school buddies Sam and Jack ‘borrow’ his Lincoln land-yacht for a joy ride to Florida. When they have a flat, they open the trunk and find two corpses sealed in plastic. So, Vito Gambino is one of those Gambinos. They can’t go to the police but if they don’t they might wind up in a car trunk.



Argo

1. Jason and the Golden Fleece, as told by his snarky ship, Argo. Argo would like nothing more than to lounge around the docks and frolic in the bay with the other ships. But that jackass King Pelias sends Jason and his band of Argonauts – ancient Greek for Keystone Cops – on a quest for some old furry rag. Argo has a low opinion of people, and thinks even less of mythical creatures like centaurs and gods -- especially that nitwit Poseidon.

2. The CIA and Canada collaborate on a film called Argo. It's sort of a film within a film, with both films called Argo. Both films are a huge success, though only one of them is a box office blockbuster.

3. A sudden nationwide outbreak of chicken pox leads to dramatic shortfalls in cornstarch supply. Shady deals at Argo Corn Products leaves line engineer on the hook for more than lumpy gravy.

4. An adorable little garter snake argues with his brothers and sisters about whether it's safe to explore the hole in the garden fence.

5. When six-year-old Johnny doesn't return after heading into the swamp on a quest to find what he terms an "argolator," the sheriff's only clue as to what might have happened to him is a partial recording recovered from a pile of gator doo with Johnny's voice saying, "Wow! I just found me an argo--"



Silver Linings Playbook

1. Sure every cloud has a silver lining, or so Joe's been told, but when you're a backup quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, sometimes it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

2. Former slave Silver Linings writes the first book of defensive plays for Harvard football--just in time for the big game with Yale.

3. If every cloud has a silver lining, then Seattle is the champion. So its newest high school’s team nickname is The Silver Lining. When coach Bud Adams retires from the NBA, he goes there to try out some revolutionary ideas. The Silver Lining win nearly every game but their playbook is stolen just before the state championships. Can the Lining win if the opponent knows all of their secret moves?

4. On the vaporous world of CumuloNimbulex, Thunderhead, the captain of Cloud Team 9, has finally come up with a stratusgy that should let him win the coveted silver medal at the Cloud Olympics. If only he could get the rest of the team to stop goofing off and be cirrus.

5. Recently released from a mental institution, Pat feels he can manage on the outside without medication solely by healthy living and looking for the "silver linings" of every cloud that rains on him. His goals: get his teaching job back and reunite with his wife. The latter one won't be easy, what with the restraining order.



Life of Pi

1. Bound by her sorority blood oath, Teresa lies on the witness stand to protect fellow Pi, Shayna, from life imprisionment. Detective Malarkey knows a fish story when he smells one.

2. It's rough being the shortest kid in the class, but Pi has a good comeback for the kids who laugh and say he's only three feet tall: Actually, asshole, I'm 3.14159 feet tall.

3. Traveling from India to Canada to start a new life, a shipwreck leaves Pi on a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a tiger and a hyena. Three guesses who gets eaten first in the struggle for survival.

4. Pie, the horse from National Velvet, breaks away from mankind's domination and goes on a journey to find himself. He even learns to write his own name--almost.

5. When he played the game, he was the best third baseman ever. But his fame was made with his bat. He hit over .300 ten times and never struck out more than 28 times in a season. For fifty years Pi Traynor kept a daily diary. This biography is based on that diary and reveals how his love of Pie resulted in his memorable nickname.


Django Unchained

1. A year in the life of indie rock group Django Unchained as they tour and inflict their noise on unsuspecting bar patrons around the country and fail to either score a recording contract or any female attention.

2. The Normandy invasion fails and gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt organizes the resistance to the NAZI occupation of Belgium. At night, Django’s jazz band entertains SS-SD officers. Plying them with hard liquor, the group’s girls get their secrets. Then they strike the Gestapo offices and NAZI supply depots.

3. Django's romp through Compton reunites estranged cousins Sheeq and Luce on the eve of a gang war. Also, clowns.

4. A dentist gives up his profession to become a bounty hunter, buys the freedom of a slave named Django, and trains him to be his deputy. Carnage ensues.

5. When Mrs. Dja Dja Django agrees to a little handcuff hanky-panky with husband Djo Djo, she doesn't know he's going to get a sudden urge to make a run to the beer store...with the handcuff key still in his pocket...AND GET PULLED OVER! Boy, is Dja Dja ever going to show Djo Djo where to put that key when she gets unchained!


Zero Dark Thirty

1. George discovers odd marks on the old oak, realizes that they are signposts for the Underground Railroad and knows that he and his family must leave for Canada now.

2. Playwright Zero Jones attends tryouts for his new musical. There he sees Angelina. She's stunning, young and sings like an angel. Zero is in love. But he's fifty, short and overweight. He pays a witch to cast a spell. Instantly, he's tall, trim and young. He has 30 days to win her heart. Can it last when he reverts to himself?

3. A group of neighborhood kids like to play Army, but they have to be safe indoors by what Billy calls "zero dark thirty." Their plan to eliminate nightime will leave the real military wishing they'd kept a better eye on their uranium supplies.

4. In an experiment to determine whether a movie's title has any bearing on its success, an Oscar winning director uses a random word generator to title her latest film.

5. One woman is confident she knows the location of the world's most wanted terrorist. The men aren't so sure, but to prove her wrong and humiliate her, they send a SEAL team in. Turns out she was right. So of course the guys try to take credit.



Answers below


Fake Plots were submitted by
Khazar-khum, Mr. Furkles, EE, James, Jo Antareau, AA, Anon



Answers

Les Miz  3
Beasts...1
Amour....4
Abe........3
Argo.......2
Pbook....5
Pi...........3
Django...4
Zero.......5