The Oscars for films you've actually seen

ARE you unlikely to ever watch Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom or Mank, no matter how many Oscars they win? How about Oscars for fims you’ve definitely seen instead?

Best picture: Carry On Camping

Everyone’s seen this, slumped on the sofa one afternoon with a hangover, too apathetic to change channels. Barbara Windsor’s bra flying into Kenneth Williams’s face with a ‘boing!’ is an iconic moment to rival anything in Citizen Kane, probably. You’ve not seen Citizen Kane. It sounds boring.

Best cinematography: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Everyone’s seen this, even though nobody cares about Kevin Costner, Robin Hood, or Kevin Costner as Robin Hood. The key thing is that you’ve watched it, and that ain’t going to happen with this year’s worthy Oscar-nominated drama Nomadland about unemployment in the American West.

Best actor: Gregory Peck for The Guns of Navarone

It’s odd to give a 2021 Oscar to an actor who’s been dead since 2003 in a film from 1961, but this war film’s got you through a lot of sickies so what better? Why should Oscars only go to new films that are good? What about old crap?

Best actress: Linda Hamilton for Terminator 2

Running the full gamut of emotions from badass to scared to clutching a fence shouting ‘NO!’, there’s never been a better performance in an action film regularly shown late at night on digital channels when your partner’s gone to bed and you should too but just want to see this next bit which is a good bit.

Best screenplay: National Lampoon’s European Vacation

From the opening when the Griswolds win Pig in a Poke to whatever happens at the end, you’ve usually nodded off by then, this script is a witty romp through offensive national stereotypes and endlessly quotable. Because you’ve seen it 40,000 times. Because it’s always on.

Best original score: Grease

Name another film where everyone knows all the songs. Exactly.

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Register dissent by writing a letter in your head: Priti Patel's guide to reasonable protesting

HI, Priti here. Don’t reply, that would be far too noisy and you’ll be detained. Protest will be allowed under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill, in these forms:

Wait until the pandemic is over, plus five years

Protest is the cornerstone of democracy, however there’s a time and a place for democracy. Pandemics are unsafe for protestors as are the months and years following. If there’s one person with sniffles anywhere in the UK, your protest’s cancelled. Public health comes first.

Keep it to less than one person

Angry mobs of one person are incredibly dangerous and disruptive. If you’re thinking of attending a protest, and there’s a chance that your presence could raise numbers to as many as one person, call it off. We cannot have our police feeling threatened.

Shut up

The human ear is very delicate, so no shouting, talking or whispering should take place. Some fonts are also be very loud, and pictures can say a thousand words, so let your lack of any objections or demands do the talking. Call off your protest silently.

Think nicer thoughts

Protesting is a horribly negative way to live. It leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Not my words – the words of Jedi master and peacebringer Darth Vader. Call off the protest within your own mind or we’ll crush it by force.

Stay inside and don’t move

Try sitting in an empty room and being grateful that I haven’t put you in prison. If you have the perverse wish to protest, write it in a letter, inside your own head, and never send it. Then call it off. Then turn yourself in to the police.

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