IT'S THE OSCARS!

The Oscars, which used to be called, in classier days, The Academy Awards, are on tonight.

I HATE the name "Oscars." For one thing, the name "Oscar" came about decades and decades ago, it is said, from a girl saying that the statue looked like her Uncle Oscar. Wow! THAT'S classing it up! Also, UNITED 93, the BEST PICTURE of the year, was not nominated as such, while a perfectly fine little film (but NOT of best picture quality) called LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE was.

I liked SUNSHINE just fine--but for best freakin' picture? Nope. This is, I believe, part of some sort of anti-anti-small comedy backlash, started last year when some persons (I read it in EW) decided to trumpet THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN as the film that should have been up for Best Picture but wasn't.

Yes, you read that right: THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN as the best film of the year!

What were these people smoking? Had someone put something in the water supply out there? Was there a chemical spill in the neighborhood? Had aliens abducted them and rewired their after brains after they were done with the requisite rectal probes?

Because while VIRGIN is pretty funny, I would say it was about, oh, the THIRTIETH best picture of last year, if not the fourtieth. Wait--make it the fiftieth.

I used to be a big fan of the Academy Awards, but I don't even know if I'll watch them tonight--too many montages, too many off-color jokes that make me cringe, and way, way too many useless and self-serving political statements made by people that do not have college degrees or real world experience in anything but making movies, most of which are bad. And hell, I'm saying this and I'm not even a Republican! I'm an Independent (and fiercely proud of it!) So when Michael Moore gets up there shooting his biased and low class mouth off, or Richard Gere starts crying over the Dalai Lama, or Sean Penn mentions the war in Iraq, it makes me want to jam an ice pick into my skull to end the pain. I don't see what any of that has to do with the awarding of little bald golden statues, or the making of good films, or of anything other them wanting their names in the paper as often as possible the next morning.

And the musical numbers! Ahhh--please kill me, just kill me now! Why the Academy keeps picking unlistenable songs and staging them on "Oscar Night" is beyond mine or anyone else's reason. For a prime example of this, go back to the film ROCK STAR. At the end of the picture, there's a moving and terrific song called "Colorful." I swear, it knocked the socks off any of the songs actually nominated the year ROCK STAR was released, And the next year, too. And the year after that.

Instead, we get weird Dylan songs, and amelodic rap songs, and I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

There's only one reason I might watch: Ellen DeGeneres. I know she's going to be great. She's got a gift for it, as anyone who saw her Emmy hosting knows.

Alright, I'll probably watch. But expect a few words afterwards! And not all of them are likely to be complimentray....read it at your own risk.

Oh--and watch THE DESCENT. It's the best, most intelligent, scariest, and well-done suspense/horror film of the year. You'll never go spelunking again (if you did in the first place).

And if presenters keep making "Jack" (Nicholson) jokes from stage (after which they show the rotundity himself smirking from the audience), I'm liable to pull the ice pick from my skull and jam it right back in again in. People! Stop this! I can't take it any more!!