First of all, to address your gaping jaw and look of utter bewilderment, that image above is not fake.  Paramount Pictures has indeed made a push for the Academy to nominate Transformers: Age of Extinction for Best Picture.  They want Michael Bay to get a Best Director nomination and for the flick to get a whole bunch of technical nods.  Look closely and you’ll also see that they want a shot at Best Original Song.  Seeing that made me go, “wait, there was music in that movie?” Obviously this is disturbing but I believe it can be explained in one of two ways.

Way one: Everyone who works at Paramount is a total Neanderthal.  They speak only in grunts, carry clubs around, drag their women by the hair and explain what they want in a movie by saying things like , “THING GO BOOM! MAN RUN! BIG MONSTER! BIG ROBOT! FLAMES! FIRE! METAL BANG! GIRL BIG BOOBS!” to whatever poor directors and writers they manage to hire.  Bay is obviously their ideal candidate as he understands perfectly how horrible cavemen think.  So that’s way one and it’s depressing.  So let’s not think that way.  Let’s check out way two:

Paramount is straight up trolling the Academy.  They’ve had it with the bullshit.  They’re tired of spending billions of dollars on prestige pictures that people only go see out of obligation just so they can take home a few gold statues.  They’re saying, “Oh fuck it, you want a nominate one of our movies? How bout this shit? Yeah, it’s crap but have you seen the grosses? Numbers don’t lie mutha fuckas.” They want to show the world that Oscar season is just as much a cynical cash grab as the summer movie season.  And if that is the real reason why they’re doing this, then my response can be summed up with the following gifs:

The only thing that disappoints me about this is that they didn’t go full walrus with it.  Why not demand a Best Actor nod for Wahlberg? Why not demand that girl, whatever the hell her name is (I don’t care enough to look it up), gets a Best Actress nod? Can you imagine the Oscar clips? Just them running and screaming.  Would be great.  Hell, why not ask for a nomination for both Best Picture and Best Animated film? AND SCREENPLAY! Let’s not forget that! Come guys, it’s not easy to write “characters run from robots and shit blows up” over and over again.  And dialogue like, “Look out!” or “RUN!” or “OPTIMUSSSSS!” is not easy to come up with.

I hope other studios follow suit.  Give it up Sony, you know you want to nominate Blended.  And don’t The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles deserve a place in the spotlight?  Horror never gets any cred! Give Paranormal Activity: Whatever a nomination.   And Expendables 3! And Hercules! And Sex Tape! AND ALL THE OTHER HORRIBLE SHIT! Oh man, this is exciting.  The possibilities are endless.  Just don’t ever nominate a Kirk Cameron movie.  That’d be crossing the line.