Oscars 2006: [Insert Lame Gay Cowboy Joke Here]

I'm a bit of a film buff. Yes, I do love the movies. And every year, somewhat against my better judgment, I find myself watching the Oscars.

These kinds of award ceremonies, that feed the vanities of the rich and beautiful, are sort of fundamentally obnoxious; but the saving grace is that the Oscars actually do reward merit, at least to some degree. The nominations and awards tend to go to good movies, even if the best ones, the truly great ones, almost never win, or even get recognized by a nomination. I mean, compared to something like the reliably putrid Grammys, the Oscars are like the Booker Prize.

It seems easier to separate the wheat from the chaff in the film world than in other media industries, if only because films are so expensive that only a handful get made and released every year (as compared to music or books), and the relatively small time commitment required means you can watch a lot of them--even the best, most challenging movies are over in 2 or 3 hours, whereas it can take ten times that long as that to read a fat "literary" novel.

So, it would be difficult, but it's at least conceivable that you could see most of the movies released in any given year, and it's certainly possible to see most of the worthwhile ones (after all, there are plenty of movies that, just on their face, have no real artistic aspirations). So I think a lot of people can have reasonably well-considered opinions about the best films in any given year.

Not that I've put in that much effort this year.

I usually find that by the time the Oscars roll around, I've seen four of the five Best Picture nominees. The fifth one usually wins: It's the one that I've avoided because it looks too earnest, sentimental and dull. This year, the one I haven't seen is Good Night and Good Luck, though I haven't actively avoided it, I just have't gotten around to it--I'd actually like to see it. As for the other four, I thought Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Munich were all really good; Crash was okay, but it's the one that seems to fit that painfully-earnest model that gets out the vote every year, so I think it's going to win, even though in my opinion, it's by far the least of the ones I've seen.

Anyway, I'll be watching the show tonight, to see how badly I lose the pool and to watch Jon Stewart. I'm also looking forward to seeing how they stage the song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp". It should be quite the extravaganza! And speaking of pimps, it'll be nice to see Philip Seymour Hoffman get a well-deserved award--he's one of the best actors working today.

Still, as usual, the Academy missed out entirely on the two best films I saw last year: Me and You and Everyone We Know and Grizzly Man. But they're making up for it by giving the great Robert Altman an honorary award tonight, and as long as they keep doing the right thing like that, I guess I'll have to keep watching.