You Know What Really Grinds My Gears #3 -- The Oscars

You know what really grinds my gears? The Oscars.

Has there ever been a phonier award show presented by phonier people who want to pretend that they are important? Ever? And exactly how irrelevant have the Oscars become? I mean, there was a time when people actually went and SAW the movies that were in the chase for the "Best Picture" award. While this sometimes seems like it was 40 years ago, if you look at the "Best Picture" nominees from 1994, when Forrest Gump grossed $300MM and won, you see these names:

Four Weddings and a Funeral -
Pulp Fiction
Quiz Show
The Shawshank Redemption

All acceptable entertaining commercial pieces.

And in 1995, with Braveheart winning, we had as also-rans:
Apollo 13
Babe
Il Postino (The Postman)
Sense and Sensibility


14 short years later we have films in the running that I would never watch if you paid me. I rented "There Will Be Blood" from last year's list. Uh, someone wanna tell me what the hell THAT was all about? If I wanted to see a guy get beaten to death in a bowling alley, I would have followed Allen Iverson around as a youth.

And now we have the whole HD format and the director's odd decision to do the super-zoom-in. Look, I don't want to know that Kate Winslet could be a ZZ Top member if she so chose. I don't want a super-tight close up to show me that Amy Adams and Marissa Tomei are flat chested. Message received on regular-def. Don't need the extra info. So who holds up under the scrutiny of HD? Well, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. And............yeah just about it.

So if you are a guy with 3 percent body fat or a striking 26 year old woman, yeah, looking good at the Oscars. Otherwise, no thanks.

So watching films that I will never see constantly monopolize awards that I don't care about -- that is the current state of The Oscars...............and that is what really grinds my gears.


HM