“Make Your Own Oscar Whisper Campaign”

Mark Lisanti hits a home run with this funny piece at Grantland:

The bad news: With final ballots due by 5 p.m. on February 21 and the ceremony following less than a week later, time is running out for Oscar campaigners to sway susceptible AMPAS voters. The good news: In what’s largely considered a mediocre year at the movies, that’s still plenty of time for a savvy player to affect the outcome of many of the hotly contested, big-ticket categories. And so, as a service to anyone with access to a waffling Academy member and a desire to influence any of the major races, we’ve compiled these helpful talking points on all of the biggest nominees. With a well-timed phone call or a few seemingly off-the-cuff remarks over cocktails, you, too, can launch your own last-minute whisper campaign!

Just two examples:

The Artist

“There was supposed to be sound, they just forgot. Sloppy work, you can’t reward that.””I just overheard Harvey Weinstein bragging, ‘I’ve got all these gullible, unsophisticated motherfuckers to vote for a stuttering king and a mute French dancer. I can sell anything! Next year, I think I’ll do ‘blind ASL teacher.’”

“Harvey Weinstein killed my mother. She wouldn’t vote for Shakespeare in Love. He’ll stop at nothing.”

“Eh, too mimey.”

The Help

“Granted, some of the performances were great. Really, really great. But there’s more to a Best Picture than just ‘great performances.’”

“Oprah didn’t feel the script was strong enough to produce it herself, so she had her interior decorator do it.”

“As a white person, I’m not entirely comfortable with being depicted as having solved racism in the South. There are some guilt issues there we should maybe all work through together.”

“That shit pie wasn’t even locally sourced. I don’t care what they tell you, they shipped it in from a Du-par’s in Tarzana.”

For more, go here.