Oscar Grouchy

This being a movie blog, I suppose I have to submit an Oscar post. But I don't have to like it. I can't put my finger on why I'm so "meh" about them this year. I suppose my apathy is partly due to the feeling that the biggest categories' winners seem preordained:

Best Actress: Helen Mirren
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker
Best Director: Martin Scorcese

Yawn. Thanks for draining out all the suspense Golden Globes. And there seem to be so many factors in play other than the plain question of which actor/picture/whatever was best. Scorcese's owed one. We don't want Eastwood to have too many. Conflict diamonds are bad, mmkay?

Maybe that's it more than anything. Many of these movies feel like "homework movies," the kind of movies that are good for me, that I'm supposed to like. When more and more I'm learning that the movies I love are unmitigated pulpy genre spook-em-ups. Some of my favorite movies last year include The Descent (Yeah, yeah, 2005. Sue me.), Slither, Miami Vice and Casino Royale. That the paint-by-numbers race relations Power Point presentation that is Crash won best picture last year still burns me. I know Brokeback Mountain was the favorite, and I wouldn't have begrudged it (gay or not, they were cowboys), but I would have chosen Munich. But then we wouldn't want Spielberg to have too many Oscars, and so it goes.

I guess what I'm saying is that as long as The Queen (snore) or Babel (doubleclick to advance slide, ding!) don't win I'll be cool with the Academy. But chances are I'll be asleep. Or watching Layer Cake on DVD.

By the way, Best Documentary Feature, where's Awesome: I F**kin' Shot That!?