Biopic “DiCaprio” draws Best Actor buzz for Zac Efron
By Zach Augustine
Feb. 24, 2013
Upcoming biography film Leonardo DiCaprio, directed by the winner of last year’s Best Picture and Director awards, Justin Bieber, has already drawn the sort of buzz usually reserved for Oscar contenders.The film deals with the struggles that DiCaprio faced in his career, including his lack of any Academy Awards, ever. Upon the realization that “if Inception won’t do it then goddamn it nothing will”, DiCaprio fell into a deep depression in late 2010. The film follows his existential crises and the significant weight gain he suffered until his death in 2019.
Test audiences describe Efron’s performance as nothing short of remarkable. Many feel that the role has firmly demonstrated that Efron is a modern day well, uh, erm, DiCaprio. Critics agree that the praise is not unfounded with the Starbucks Gazette stating, “Efron has transcended cinema. He succeeds in every way DiCaprio failed as a living medium. No wonder Leo was never cast in The Dark Knight Rises like the rest of the Inception cast.”
Efron is perhaps best remembered for his dramatic tour de force in cult classic Charlie St. Cloud. This is to not say he has always played characters on the darker side of the human condition: consider his spunky early days dabbling in the sublime absurdist comedies High School Musical and of course Hairspray. We’re all trying to forget about grammatical atrocity Me and Orson Welles but perhaps the comparison between Efron and the father of Citizen Kane don’t end there. They’re both white males, born into upper-class America and both deeply involved in shaping cinematic history. That’s not just a correlation.
As first-year prospective CMS major Ralph Whiting told the Shady Dealer over a San Pellegrino in Harper Café, “It’s a film about film, it defines the very nature of performance. And I don’t say this to all the movies I see. I’m just taking Media.”
Buzz about the upcoming 100th annual Academy Awards has remained relatively quiet compared to the excitement surrounding last year’s tumultuous best picture contest when Michael Buble’s Transformers Nein, Pixar’s Monsters: Retirement Community starring Donald Glover, and Steven Spielberg’s political biography Polk all garnered significant media attention. However, as is so often the case, the underdog took the proverbial horse-meat flavored treat. The success of Bieber’s directorial debut, the dramedy Steve Jobs eats an Apple: A Capitalist Manifesto, in receiving Best Picture quelled any doubts that corporate sponsorship—or money for that matter—plays any factor in the contest. Bieber, who first stormed the art world when he was just 15, told the story of the early days of political giant Apple Computers & Political Affiliations. Critics arguing that Beiber wasn’t old enough in 2028 to know about, let alone commentate on Apple, were promptly excommunicated.
As a population that takes communal solace in our collective escapism, we can safely recline and take a Big Gulp now that this awards thing is finally ruled by the honest opinions of the common folk. With the democratic issue out of sight and out of mind, our nation now looks forward to the centennial Job’s awards.
DiCaprio declined to comment on his lifetime of failures.
