I’d like to thank the Academy

Now I have a free evening – February 22nd.

See, I won’t be tuning in to see the Oscars this year because 1) the speeches always go on way too long, 2) there are only about ten awards that the viewing public gives a rat’s ass about, so the rest of the show is annoying filler, and 3) the Academy members are all pretentious douchebags.

What’s the point of making a movie? To entertain? Nay, my innocent friend. Oh that may be the stated goal – to put a smile on the faces of all the children – but you can bet your buttered popcorn those studios are in it for the money, and only the money. They leave the happiness hokum to the PR flacks and the Marketing shills.

So Hollywood turns out huge, action-loaded special effects bonanzas in the summer to get the money they need to finance the rom-coms, period pieces, and dramas they foist on us the rest of the year, then completely ignore those popular films during Awards time.

It’s total bullshit.

Look at this year’s nominees for Best Picture:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire.

How many of you have seen The Reader? How many of you have even heard of The Reader?

Taken all together, these five movies cost $247 million to make, and as of today, have only earned a combined total of $184,598,493 – a loss of $62,401,507.

By contrast, The Dark Knight cost $185 million to make, and is the second highest-grossing film of all time, earning $531,037,655 – almost a 300% return. But of course, it wasn’t an “important” film, so no Best Picture nomination was forthcoming. Oh they might give Heath Ledger Best Supporting Actor because he died, but had he lived, you know he wouldn’t have been nominated.

I checked the earnings of the Best Picture winners for the last fifteen years, and none of them lost money. If the Academy wants to continue that trend, then it’s really between Milk and Slumdog Millionaire, since they’re the only two nominees that have made a profit. It will come down to whether the Academy members feel they should pander to the gay community or the “poor Indians” this year. Since they slobbered all over Brokeback Mountain a couple of years ago, I’m betting they’ll give the statue to Slumdog. Interestingly, if you read the reviews of Slumdog at IMDB, you’ll find that Western audiences overwhelmingly love it – it “touched” them – while audiences in India and other Asian nations generally don’t like it, complaining about the stereotypes as presented by its Western director.

But people’s reactions don’t mean anything to the studios (otherwise, why would they greenlight a Karate Kid remake?) They want you to give them your money, eat your Mike & Ikes, and shut the hell up. It doesn’t matter how much you liked Death Race, they’ll tell you which movies were really important on Oscar night. I’ll save myself the time and ignore it completely. If I wanted to watch a four-hour self-congratulatory smarmy circle jerk, I’d turn on C-Span.