Well...maybe not the Oscars themselves. The awards give us something to strive for each year. The golden carrot of excellence dangled in front of those who might not normally produce good films. Producers and studio heads who, in the absence of the Oscars, would look else where for profit increasing benchmarks. Imagine if instead of the Oscars we had the, "Made-it-for-nothing-put-no-effort-into-it-and-still-made-a-shitload-of-money" awards. A scary world indeed. When I say they are obsolete I mean the awards ceremony in itself is obsolete...all of them. If anything this writer strike has taught us it's the world still keeps spinning even if the stars don't pack themselves into expensive bullshit and walk down a carpet to congratulate one another. In this Youtube/IMDB age there is no need to sit through a 4 hour circle jerk. I can now look up the winners and see their exceptence speeches online...the good parts. And nothing against Jon Stewart, a very tasteful, funny hosting job, but condense it down and you have what I can watch every night in 30 minutes...it's called the Daily Show. I also don't need to watch a popularity contest where a spoiled, white, suburban, boring, former stripper who can't write, receives an Oscar. I thought this was the night we honored the best of our industry, not just gave out awards to people for being on Oprah, or for making up hipster bullshit phrases like "what the blog". More like what the fuck. If we're going to start giving Oscars to people like that we should simply just hand the ballots out to 4th graders and ask them how many Hannah Montana songs we should nominate. All pandering to the popular vote does is cheapen the whole thing and make a mockery of those who have devoted they're entire lives to making cinema.
Next year I'm going to take my four hours and invest them into something that moves my life forward. Read a book, take a walk, write a poem, anything else but sit on that fucking couch.I can get all the Oscar news I need in 5 minutes the next day on yotube. I wonder how many more millions of dollars the "independent" film Juno is going to make now.
Congrats to Daniel Day Lewis and all the other classy, brilliant actors and craftsmen/women who worked so hard this year to bring us great films. I think we should all strive to make work that good. And hey, my new philosophy is..."If Diablo Cody can win an Oscar...I totally have a shot!" I might just put it on a T-shirt.
cheers
John
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