The Oscars (or “Oscar” as the Academy obnoxiously insists on calling it this year) are this Sunday and “The King’s Speech” is essentially a lock to take home Best Picture over the superior “The Social Network.”* In honor of the Academy once again failing to correctly pick the best movie of the year let’s take a look back over who won the top award in film the last ten years, & who should have won.
*Nearly every critics’ award for Best Picture has gone to “Network,” which once again brings us to the insanity of awards in the entertainment industry. In sports the players and coaches do not decide who wins awards at the end of the season, rather sports writers decide the winners. This makes sense seeing as sports writers are paid to cover the entire sport, while players & coaches are merely concerned with their own teams. Yet in the movie, music, & television industries it is those within the industries, & not the critics whose job it is to judge what is produced, who decide the awards. Hence instead of having awards decided by an educated, relatively unbiased group of individuals we’re left with awards being handed out by an uneducated, petulant group of people with definitive favorites. Why? Because celebrities love nothing more than patting themselves on the back.
