Oscar

I don’t put much stock in the Oscars these days. “The Academy,” as they like to call themselves, is artistically and intellectually corrupt enough that their votes for Best Whatever is tainted, fruits of a poisonous tree.

For example, when I found out Precious was nominated for Best Picture as its director for Best Director, I assumed it’d win handily. With the socio-political underpinnings of the story (black people doing black people things), I thought no one would dare vote for anything else.

In other words, these “Academy” voters don’t vote on merit. While I was pleasantly surprised to know that the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars were awarded to Hurt Locker and Kathryn Bigelow respectively, it seemed tainted somehow by that blowhard Barbara Streisand’s comments about it being high time a Best Director Oscar was given to a woman.

I haven’t seen The Blind Side, but I wager it’s not that fantastic. Certainly not Oscar-worthy, but then again, isn’t that my contention? What is Oscar-worthy these days? It seemed Bullock was “due” and so they gave it to her. I’ll withhold further comment until I see the movie, but I’m just not drawn to it.

Christoph Waltz’ performance was exemplary. Simply brilliant. Despite Inglorious Basterds being sort of a “bad” movie, Tarantino’s stock-in-trade cultivation of dramatic tension carried Waltz’ to a great performance.

Jeff Bridges will always be The Dude to me. I haven’t seen Crazy Heart (these days, I’ve not and probably will not see a lot of movies—kids!) but I hear it’s great. I think he deserves an Oscar for playing The Dude so huzzah.

I can’t wait to see Hurt Locker. From what I’ve heard, it deserves the Oscar. What most assuredly did not, however, is Avatar (don’t get me started).