Who Cares What Oscar Thinks?

Do you watch the Academy Awards? Do you care who wins? Or do you think it's just a bunch of rich, Hollywood-types giving trophies to each other?

I've read a few blogs recently that focus on the Academy Awards and I've come to realize that many people need the Oscars to legitimize their own personal opinions of Hollywood blockbusters. There's a whole slew of people out there who argue with strangers over the internet about this stuff. It's like they honestly need Avatar (or Hurt Locker, or whatever) to win the Best Picture Oscar so they can prove to their friends that they're some kind of movie connoisseur. I'm not kidding.

People really believe this stuff, they become emotionally invested in this competition and they treat it like it's a laboratory experiment that offers indisputable empirical data on the quantifiable artistic merit of competing films.

Me? I think movies are fun and winning awards is nice. But art is subjective. And opinions change over time. I don't watch a lot of TV so I probably won't even see the Academy Awards tonight. But if you do, just enjoy it for the goofy spectacle that it is and remember -- even if your favorite movie fails to bring home the Oscar, that doesn't mean you can't like it anymore. Grouchy work-in-progress steps below. -v