Let's Ignore the Oscars!

Let’s ignore the Oscars. Let’s all turn off our television sets, unplug our internet-boxes, and remain blissfully unaware of awards season’s most excruciating night. It’ll be great. We won’t have to argue over the fact that our favorite film didn’t win. We won’t have to shout about our favorite film that didn’t get nominated. It’ll be time better spent actually watching a movie! We could also go for a run. Or stare at the ceiling. There are so many things we could be doing with our time.

Listen. If we turn off the TV we don’t have to hear them explain what cinematography is! We won’t have to sit through the painful, condescending speech about why editors are “just as important as actors.” We can skip all of the parts where Hollywood’s most glamorous stars pretend that they think documentaries are valuable, but ultimately exclude them from getting anywhere near the night’s top award.

Just think about it. We won’t have to talk about Oscar ceremonies past. Citizen Kane not winning the top prize won’t be discussed. Neither will the fact that no foreign-language film has ever won Best Picture. Imagine a world in which we can forget that hundreds of people decided that Crash was the best film of the year, or that Eddie Murphy’s Norbit might be worthy of a golden statuette. Doesn’t that sound like just the best? We can forget about it all and move on with our lives!

If our televisions aren’t on and the Internet is completely shut off, we won’t have to hold back vomit as we watch America’s economic elite give each other awards and then proceed to cry about them. It won’t be like every other year, where wince in pain as we watch wealthy people who are completely detached from reality make superficial inside jokes about how much money they have. We’d even be able to get to bed at a decent hour!

I know I’m a dreamer, but MAN what a place. It’s hard to imagine the insurmountable joy that would come over all of us when we decidedly turn away in a brilliant act of corporate defiance and artistic solidarity! What a rush!

Utopia. Alas. A perfect place which is no place. Oh well. I hope everyone enjoys the awards. Hopefully Mickey Rourke will flip off the camera at some point during the night.

 Sam Flancher

Films watched in the past few weeks: Wayne’s World, Wet Hot American Summer (twice), The Limey, Little Caesar, Public Enemies, Angels with Dirty Faces, Underworld, The Illusionist, Cedar Rapids, Go West, Dogtooth, F is for Fake, Scarface, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Cries and Whispers, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Persona, Pretty Baby, Dumber and Dumber, The Silence, Through a Glass Darkly, The Girlfriend Experience, Exit Through the Gift Shop, The Musketeers of Pig Alley, Raising Arizona, Room Service