Todays' topic is : It's the Oscarz...zzzzzzzzzz

It's now a day or so later and I don't even know who's nominated for the Oscars. That is, I have made no effort to look up the list and decide my favourites. Thing is, I know. Because the Oscars is the perfect example of a consensus of opinion formed by an elite abiding by strict social rules. The same films are trotted out year after year, the same actors. Okay, they don't have the same names but they are just as interchangeable as Animal House is with Porky's, or Jean Claude Van Damme is with Steven Seagal.

Oscar winning films are a genre just as much as any other genre. So, let me guess. Judi Dench has a nomination, Felicity Huffman has one, Phillip Seymour Hoffman has one as does Heath Ledger and David Strathairn. Brokeback Mountain will win several. Steven Speilberg will leave empty handed. My point is that the Oscars are pretty boring, and apart from some broad social and political drifts (for example, the past few years have seen the Academy bare its liberal teeth by awarding a few more slightly political and anti-Bush films. Brokeback is an example of this. Yeah, it's a gay movie, but it's not so Queer). But even that's always been the case. People in the arts tend to be a little more open minded. But they are also elitist and simplistic. Dame Judi is a great actress, but I think many people in the Academy (and many people throughout Britain and America) mistake her for the Queen, and she only has to briefly consider getting out of bed to get a nomination. Films about issues tend to get lots of noms and awards, but rarely do films which deal with difficult and complex issues in a difficult and complex way ever get the nod. Therefore, for example, Traffic was an Oscar Film whereas Requiem for Dream was not. The Godfather was laden with awards but Goodfellas won one. ONE! Actors like DeNiro hardly ever win, because his characters (at least in the time when he acted rather than pulled faces) possess ambiguity.

It's a cliche that you only have to play impaired or disabled to get a nomination. Well, it's true. One the one hand, every actor you ever hear about says that playing light comedy is the most difficult thing of all, yet light comedians never win. There seems to be a belief that sitting in a wheelchair and gurning is great acting. It doesn't seem that Sandra Bullock has to live with ditzy lawyers for a month in order to produce a better performance, yet hanging out with cripples and in mental hospitals seems to be derigeur for Oscar winners. Perhaps a more accurate definition of what they do is copying and not acting. In fact they should include a New Category "Best Impersonation of a Mental Case or Cripple".

The Oscars is yet another example of how perceived wisdom can take hold of even the most independent minded people. It spreads like a virus and nobody wants to break ranks and be seen as different. Goodfella is a great example of how perceived wisdom can just be wrong. How was it not the best film ahead of Dances with Wolves? How did Ray Liotta not even get nominated? How did it lose in Directing, adaptation, editing, art direction? In the same year how did Cyrano de Bergerac - the definitive screen version of the play - lose out to Reise der Hoffnung, which was a pretty good film itself but nowhere near CdB?

Don't get me wrong, I will be watching the Oscars. But it will be a bit like always watching the Cup Final even though it is most often a cagy 0-0.