The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : The Oscar Grouch

Text Size

The Oscar Grouch

By W. James Antle, III on 2.23.09 @ 11:50AM

From my perspective, the Oscars are very strange. I don't allow myself many diversions. Music is a given, but I never watch movies during a period of time when I'm interested in sports. When I went to the movies every Friday night as a pre-teenybopper, I had almost no interest in sports other than the basics that needed to be known to be allowed to live in Massachusetts. Now I watch a lot of sports but have almost no interest in movies (I'm sure the fact that sports bars are more popular than adult beverage-serving movie theaters is at least a small factor in this shift).

I haven't set foot inside a theater to watch a Hollywood film since sometime in 2004. It had been maybe three years since I'd seen my last movie before that. It has been over a decade since I last watched movies with any regularity. So almost everyone I see at the Oscars is Paris Hilton to me. I say this not to cast aspersions on their talent -- I'm sure many of them are very talented and their movies are just fine. But I only know who they are because they are famous. To me, they are famous for being famous.

I am pretty certain I have watched a movie in which Brad Pitt starred at least once. I vaguely recall some film where he gets hit by a car in some dramatic fashion very early on. But that's about all I could tell you. To me, Brad Pitt is Angelina Jolie's boyfriend, Jennifer Aniston's homewrecker, some guy who appears on magazine covers and gets chased around by camera-wielding paparazzi. I can identify him with no character and would have to strain to name a movie he's been in that was released more than a year ago.

The only part of the Oscars that doesn't seem completely bizarre to me is the "In Memoriam" montage. I've actually heard of all the dead people and watched their movies. But unless my tastes undergo another shift, I suppose in about ten years I won't even care about that part.

View all comments (4) | Leave a comment

Ruth Houston| 2.23.09 @ 1:29PM

Who’s your favorite? Angie or Jen? Ever wonder why some women side with Jennifer Aniston and others side with Angelina Jolie? To find out 14 things each woman’s fans have in common, visit http://infidelitynewsandviews.blogspot.com/

whiterb| 2.23.09 @ 1:35PM

You still pay for these movies. One way or another they end up on cable and you pay for them. That's why these two bit jerks are rolling in money. Time for ala carte cable, just pay for stations you wanna watch and support.

MattSwartz| 2.24.09 @ 12:07AM

The complete blackout of The Wrestler exposes how lame the US film establishment is. That movie will be watched three decades from now when the Penn movie is forgotten.

The Italians saw this and gave it their highest international film honor. I hate to say that european cultural taste has bested that of america, but that is the way it looks.

Paul E. More| 2.24.09 @ 2:03AM

I completely agree with the demand for a la carte cable choice. Conservatives should demand this and get it.

One reason is that it will defund the Left, which depends on forcing families to buy the most expensive cable packages to get a handful of maybe quasi-decent channels.

By allowing consumers to choose the channels and only the channels they want, the Left wing channels would die on the vine, unwatched and unpaid for.

BTW, Canada has cable channel choice already. It is perfectly within the technology to do it. I notice that outside of Brent Bozell there is nobody on the Right pushing for this.

How would you like MSNBC to go out of business because next to no households would order it?!