• Oscar® MPAA® Oscars® Academy Awards® Every other legal discalimer, please dont sue us for using the image®
• Actually, I am Oscar (singular) so technically, calling me "Oscar" is correct.

As we prepare for the annual masturbatory Hollywood exercise that is Oscar®—am I the only one to notice this year's tendency to call the show by the singular "Oscar®" as opposed to the traditional Oscars®?—let's get all the bitching and complaining about getting robbed, stolen awards, and overlooked performances out of our system.

The sooner you accept the fact that the awards are issued by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences®—a body comprised of people who work within the industry, or who are associated with it—the easier it will be to accept their decidedly ecclectic choices.

Couple this with the fact that actors make up a disproportionally large part of this body—as opposed to directors, writers, and producers—and it should become evident that, unlike the Sacred College of Cardinals, the Academy far from infallible.

(Actors favor a specific type of project, especially one directed by a former actor—See Robert Redford, Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Ron Howard, Kevin Costner, Warren Beatty. Actors are also resistant to certain hi-tech and animation and other developments which diminish the importance of the performances. This is why Avatar failed to win and why Pixar will likely never win an actual Best Picture Oscar®.)

Also, once you accept that many of the voters actually do know more about the industry than you do, and can distinguish the subtle nuances between best sound editing and best sound mixing, the easier it is to accept that dividing awards between Best Picture and Best Director is not only a good decision, but actually makes sense.

Otherwise, why have the two categories at all? If they are always inextricably coupled, why recognize them with two awards?

To dig deeper, let's take a look at the unspoken truth: essentially, the Best Picture Oscar® is really the "Best Producer" Oscar®.

Isn't it?

If not, why does the producer take home the spoils, and not the director or cast or studio?

Which begs the question, why not introduce a "Best Producer" Award?

That way the "Best Picture" award could really go to the best film of the year, while the best produced film (invariably a blockbuster like Avatar or Inception with tons of moving parts, and a cast of hundreds, and a post-production cast of thousands) could also earn some recognition?

Then the producer could take home her award for best producing, and the studio or distributor that released the actual best film could take ownership of the statue?

Just a thought.

That way, columns like this—with 20/20 hindsight—couldn't pick on the poor ol' Academy® for some of their boneheaded choices.

1. Like when they gave Best Picture to Dances With Wolves. Over Goodfellas.

• Rides with Flag
• There Wolf. There Castle.

In fairness, Goodfellas was up against Coppola's underwhelming (and superfluous) Godfather Part III, which could have split to vote, diluted the pool or otherwise confused and confounded voters.

Also worth noting is the inclusion of Ghost(!) and Awakenings(!) in the Best picture mix. So perhaps the Academy sidestepped another potential land mine. (And yes, Ghost did win a best screenplay Oscar®...so...what are you gonna do?)

2. While The Sting is workman like, and good fun, it is hardly worthy of Best Picture? Is it? The Academy loves it some Robert Redford.

That George Lucas was denied an Oscar® for American Graffiti, which is easily in the classic arena, likely drove him into Blockbuster territory. Was The Exorcist just too gritty, dark, or heavy for an Oscar®?

• Let Jesus sting you, let Jesus sting you. Let him sting you.

That both Graffiti and Exorcist reflected the country's Watergate mood—one a nostalgic look back to a more innocent time, the other looks at an innocent who becomes deeply infected and corrupted by evil—is not lost on a modern viewer, whereas The Sting, an old-fashioned comic take on old-time con men, feels safe.

Perhaps it was the escapist elixir the country was looking for?. But what a shame the Academy played it safe, because the other choices would have made a far stronger impression.

3. This Carpetbaggin' Yankee may be cruisin' for a bruisin...but I'll call my shot and stand by it: even by 1939/40 standards, Gone With the Wind was out of date, out of touch, overly melodramatic, and hopelessly nostalgic for antebellum slave days in the good ol' South. (That it is epic in scope and scale, and fully deserving of my aforementioned Nest Producer Award, is beyond question.)

• The original MM
• Fiddle-dee-dee

But the sad fact is that the film is out of its league when viewed against its competition for best picture: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, and Ninotchka are enduring classics in their genres, and masterpieces by renowned directors, while literary adaptations Of Mice and Men and Wuthering Heights feel fresher than the pre-determined cyclorama craft of GWTW. Director Victor Fleming, in the year of his career, also directed Wizard of Oz, and to this day, the film remains a fanciful, surprise filled surrealist masterpiece.

Only Goodbye Mr. Chips and Love Affair feel as corny as GWTW, while Dark Victory, with a terrific performance by Bette Davis also wades deep end in the melodramatic pool.

4. 1956's Around the World in 80 Days is just a downright silly choice.

Especially considering that it was up against Giant.

• Not Shepard Fairey
• Giant has a posse

Overwrought? Sure.

But Giant is grand cinema. A major studio picture with ambitious goal, filled with big ideas about capital "A" America, and made manifest by terrific performances by James Dean Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and Mercedes McCambridge.

That the film won the Director Oscar® for George Stevens offers some vindication.

Considering the competition—The King & I, the Ten Commandements, as well as William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion (a Civil War era film about which I know very little)—80 must have felt safe. Like fancy free fun.

You can imagine lots of voters splitting on their top choice, but 80 making everyone's 2nd

At issue here is the fact that John Ford's masterful The Searchers was snubbed completely.

• Victory!

5. Five years of hindsight have done little to quell the disappointment the rocked the critical world when Jack Nicholson delivered the one-syllable dagger that may go down as the worst choice in Oscar® history: Crash.

Against a cinematic tour-de-force like Brokeback Mountain, the formal exercise that is Good Night and Good Luck, Spielberg's decidedly complex, and retrained vigilante thriller Munich, and the gritty, indie historical biopic Capote, Crash feels like the kid at the grown-ups table.

I'll never forget the words a fellow programmer uttered after we watched a screener copy of the film while we considered the prospect of booking the film for a theatrical run at an art-house theatre, "Crash is trash."

Admittedly, I liked the film more than he did. I appreciated it with the understanding that we were looking to make a business decision, not an artistic one. (We booked the film, and it made a lot of money.) At the time, I also viewed the film ironically.

That the issues and topics discussed in the film were revelatory to some audiences shocked me.

In the season where Brokeback was pushing boundaries, Crash felt immediately dated and hopelessly out of touch. It was no more progressive than past Oscar® contenders like Driving Miss Daisy, Glory, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

When it won the Oscar®, I gasped.

In retrospect, this should have been no surprise at all.

Remember the actor rule. (Note: George Clooney, who won a Supporting Actor Award that same evening for Syrianna, will have to wait for his directorial statue, as GNGL was just a bit too artsy for the Academy®.)

Crash is a film filled with lots (and lots) of actors, all sketched as hypocritical multi-dimensional characters dealing with "hot" topics like racism and rape, all given tons of scenery to chew on, and at least one ah-ha moment each.

This is Oscar® fodder.

That any one expected Brokeback Mountain to win is pure folly.

After all, how man every actors in Hollywood other than Eric Stonestreet really want to make a career playing gay?