On Sunday, America will bask in the glow of weepy acceptance speeches, heinous dresses on beautiful people, and the spot-on humor of Jon Stewart, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out the Oscars. We trust the Academy to take care of the Motion Picture Arts, but here at Seed we're happy to pick up their slack on the Sciences. We are pleased to present the Seed Oscars for 2005's science-related movies:
Best Plan for Sustainable (Re)development
In the touching coming-of-age film War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg reminds activists everywhere that, when it comes to negotiating, a death ray is worth a thousand words. From the moment they set steely mechanical foot on Earth, Martians bring all hydrocarbon emissions to an abrupt halt, instantaneously forcing a shutdown of all driving and manufacturing activities. Although the aliens seem to have traded petroleum for another finite energy resource (human blood), by the end of the film they’re well on their way to creating a fully sustainable Vegas-style re-creation of the Martian landscape, which we are to understand looks something like a giant placenta.
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Best Human-Animal Hybrid
Luckily for President Bush, the dopey man-rabbit halflings in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit are only made out of clay, unlike the fantastical hybrids in our runner-up, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—which at least looked real, kinda. It’s not clear what’s scarier, a bunny who loves cheese or a Brit who loves vegetables, but in either case, that’s what you get for trying to play God. A possible sequel: Wallace somehow uses his soul-swapping invention to grow a human ear on Gromit’s back. Science and humanity reap the benefits.
Best Costume Design
While Martin Lawrence dons his finest fat-suit and muumuu for Big Momma's House 2, and Ewan McGregor will touch naught but Puma in The Island, one costume designer dares to transcend the trends of modern and postmodern design to capture the eternal nature of the penguins' reproductive cycle. The sleek 'n sexy image of the penguin has been claimed by opposing causes: Religious conservatives have held up the penguins' (temporary) monogamy as a standard for human morality, while gays have embraced the homosexual male penguin couple at the Central Park Zoo. So it is only appropriate that the animal look like a cross between a nun and a singing waiter in a tux. Props to the intelligent, nay, brilliant designer of...March of the Penguins.
The "Oh my God, the Corporations are Taking Over and Causing the Pain and Death of People Around the World, Just not Inside our Idyllic American Bubble, so we Don't Notice, but we Should be Seethingly Angry at the...PHARMACEUTICAL Industry" Award
Stodgy suit-wearing bureaucrats are poisoning Africans with weed killer in the name of research, corrupting governmental officials and murdering pregnant women. The only person who can defend us from the tide of corporate evil is the burnt dude from The English Patient, and he’s wearing shorts and might be a cuckold, to boot. Anyone who’s ever used medicine, bought medicine or watched anyone else use medicine should feel guilty right now. Thanks to The Constant Gardener, my Peace Corps application is in the mail. I swear.