The Tripod

First, as a brief and blunt preface, this writer is very much disenchanted with the Academy Awards: While 2009-2010 presented a variety of films, many of them beautiful works of cinematography and a few mindless endeavors tempting the limits of studio budgets, the 82nd Oscars was charged with identifying those that ennoble the Art. Unfortunately, most years it seems that the Academy often selects films by way of heavy drinking and the use of a Ouija board. The four-hour-long pageantry of the Oscars can hardly be considered the final word on what makes a movie great, and the ineptitude of the Academy is well precedented (Best Picture: 1981). That said, the Academy does seem to have some strangely specific and reliable likes and dislikes. For example, to win Best Actor or Actress one must have played a troubled creative genius or Elizabeth I, respectively; to win Best Picture the movie must somehow be about a war that kills people Americans don't care about (Nazis or non-whites, preferably). With these caveats in mind (the alternating strangeness and predictability of the exercise) the 82nd Oscars were under way.

Sweeping the Oscars this year were two heavyweights: the intensely gritty The Hurt Locker and the beautifully rendered (and horrifically expensive) Avatar. Best Picture, Directing, Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Writing (Original Screenplay) were all pulled in by the former, while Art Direction, Visual Effects, and Cinematography were claimed by the latter. Up was likewise well received, netting the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and Music (Original Score). Crazy Heart (Best Actor and Music (Original Song), and The Blind Side (Best Actress), satisfied the Academy's odd infatuation with more of those specific roles (tortured musicians and cheery, problem-solving white women).

Purely going by nominations, however, the Academy made its preferences known in its top five (in order): Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, Up in the Air, and Up. Recalling that this is the Academy, however, and much to the surprise of many critics, Up in the Air was widely denied. Perhaps in atonement for the 81st Academy Awards snubbing of The Dark Knight for a nomination for Best Picture, the Academy decided to let the mostly "artsy" nominee fall by the wayside.

On the topic of the Academy's previous follies and their self-castigations, this year Oscars watchers were treated to no fewer than 10­­­ nominations for Best Picture. For a broadcast that already borders on coma-inducing, stretching the labor any further is worthy of one of the deeper circles of Hell. Also, considering the current length of the bleary-eyed babbling known as acceptance speeches, and the ridiculous fanfare of whoever is hosting (in addition to a bevy of guests), sitting down to the Academy Awards from start to finish is a pure endurance exercise. The 82nd Academy Awards were no different - Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin hosting, while entertaining for amount of time within human limits, became like a double root canal by hour three.

Now, turning to the red carpet, this article will refuse to acknowledge it beyond how neatly it summarizes the Awards as a whole: an interesting yet tedious update on Hollywood gossip wrapped up in the pretensions of some degree of art or professionalism. Also, now that Joan Rivers is no longer the Minotaur standing midway down the red gauntlet, the whole exercise now feels a little plasticized. The slack-jawed artificiality of "who are you wearing" and the like have now even lost their quirky cult value.

To sum up the event, the Academy Awards are (as the old joke goes) roughly equitable to the Super Bowl of the artsy and intellectual crowd - betting, awards for merit, and a grudgingly painful length highlight the similarities. Yet the Academy Awards bring audiences something extra while taking something away. The Oscar seems to be awarded either by using an ancient and inscrutable formula well-guarded in Scientology, or under the influence of far too many substances to name in one article; it, unlike the Super Bowl, does this with fewer lite-beer advertisements and cheerleaders. In the opinion of this writer, the Oscars are a fine thing to sit down to in stride (and not for their full duration) but should certainly not be taken as an actual indication of which films or actors are actually "good." Taken with a grain of salt, the Oscars can be enjoyable (exceedingly so for some if turned into a drinking game), but at face value, this is intellectual self-pleasuring at its most vapid.

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