rather than doing my usual "why i hate the oscars" rant, i was gonna punt the issue back to whatever i wrote last year. except, when i pulled up last year's post, i found that last year i punted the issue up to this year.
d'oh.
i'm punting again. i'll do the full rant in 2006 some time. but just as a small taste, i give you this anecdote:
yesterday i went to talk cinema, a film discussion series i belong to. during the opening discussion, harlan jacobson, the film critic who hosts the series, started talking about his oscar predictions. he predicted that annette bening would win best actress for her role in "being julia" over hilary swank for her role in "million dollar baby" because in 2000 swank got the best actress award for "boys don't cry" over bening's nomination for "american beauty." now, i have no idea whether harlan's prediction is right or not, but the very fact that this is a plausible theory shows what a crock the oscars are. at best, the awards are an opinion about who or what is best in each category posing as some kind of objective measure of something. and it's not a particular good opinion at that, at least in my humble opinion.
maybe i will build this rant piecemeal, one small point a year, until it eventually amounts to something coherent. at this rate, expect to see the completed rant some time around 2013. that is, assuming i'm still doing this then.
