The Oscar's Show

Ok, here's how I do the Oscar's thing. I walk through the den from time to time while the red carpet show is on and ask Pam how it's going. She gives me the highlights. Then I come downstairs on my way to the fridge for a snack later and sometimes stop for a few minutes to watch an acceptance speech. Then, the next morning I read all about it on the Internet, watching selected clips of highlights if I find myself interested.

I'm not anti-Hollywood. I enjoy good movies, always have. This year, Pam and I saw four of the best picture nominees and will probably catch a couple more of them soon. But a team of black ops interrogators from Guantanamo Bay couldn't force me to watch the Academy Awards show. Three and a half hours of self-congratulatory claptrap and left wing advocacy is as close to hell as Earth gets.

However, watching the highlights, I did learn a few things...

1. Lady Gaga can actually sing. Who knew? 

2. To judge from their responses to Patricia Arquette's speech, J-Lo and Merrill Streep are apparently vastly underpaid.

3. Neil Patrick Harris has been spending some time at the gym, and isn't at all concerned with preserving his dignity.

4. In order for a movie to win an award at the Oscars, it's essential that nobody has actually bought a ticket to see it.

5. An essential part of every acceptance speech is the obligatory pitch for a cause, to include, but not be limited to...equal pay for women, immigration, the environment, racial injustice, and gay rights.

But what I really learned from this year's festivities is what I already knew. When presented with films about such weighty matters as, A. The war in Iraq and America's deadliest warrior, B. The brave Enigma code breaker, C. A Martin Luther King biopic, and D. The story of famed physicist and thinker Stephen Hawking...the Academy gives the award to a movie about...Hollywood.

They just can't help themselves.