Oscars: the grouch
Sunday, March 07, 2010 By Garvan Grant The Oscars ceremony, the most important awards event in the arts world, takes place tonight in Los Angeles.
The awards will recognise the outstanding contributions that Hollywood-based men and women have made in transforming an obscure type of entertainment into a highly lucrative art form.
There are few other types of art producers willing to risk as much money as Hollywood filmmakers in trying to get their important messages across to the ticket-buying public.
This is why it is important to recognise their achievements every year with such a big ceremony and such a long and wide red carpet.
The Oscars encourages journalists to write articles in which they invent their own amusing award categories. These attempts at satire are apparently designed to derail the Hollywood machine and stop Meryl Streep appearing in any more films.
Grossest Film Ever Made: this is probably the most important category at the Oscars, as it recognises that great films need great budgets.
All films nominated in this category must have been directed by James Cameron.
This year’s nominees include Titanic, a film so expensive to make that its budget could probably have built a really big oceangoing liner called the Titanic; Terminator VI, in which a Hollywood mogul invents a robot that can make profitable films without using any people; and Avatar, which looks nice but no one really knows what it’s about.
The favourite is Avatar, as it proves that you don’t need a good story, good characters or good actors to make successful art.
The Meryl Streep Best Actress Award: this is always a close-run thing, though this year will be tighter than usual, with Meryl Streep herself again winning all five nominations. It is possible, though, that the Academy will give it to someone different this year, as Streep has won it every year since 1907.
Best Non-Actor Award: one of the nice things about the Oscars is that it isn’t just about rewarding overpaid professionals for their work. It is also about recognising those people who have to struggle through without any discernible talent.
The two front-runners among this year’s nominees are Matt Damon, who plays a white rugby ball in Invictus, and Sandra Bullock ,who plays herself in Miss Uncongeniality III.
Best War to Make Films About: this is always a hotly-contested award, with several major conflicts competing to win the hearts and minds of Academy voters.
There was a time when World War II, which was a really great war in anyone’s book, would have easily scooped the award, but then Vietnam, which went on for years and in which loads of people died, became a great box-office draw.
However, more recently, the Gulf War and the Iraq War have dominated proceedings, as there is so much great material to draw on if you want to make a money spinning film. Unfortunately, Afghanistan has been a bit of a letdown for Hollywood’s film-makers so far, but it is hoped that the tragic affair will eventually contribute to some quality films.
Best Way of Coming Up with New Films Award: it is estimated that there are only about 60 original plot lines left to be used in Hollywood films, which is why this category is so important for the industry.
This year’s nominees include remakes of Hollywood films made in the last 12 months, films based on popular cereals and films centred on Quentin Tarantino’s dreams. The favourite in this year’s category is films without plots at all, but with lots of expensive special effects.
Best Idea for a Film for Next Year:
the predicted winners of this award are James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow for their joint project called Friends: The Movie.
Loosely based on the TV show of the same name, George Clooney and Meryl Streep will play the lead roles in this 3-D epic about the Great Pandora War of 2154 which will be written by one of Quentin Tarantino’s psychoanalysts.
The film is basically a romantic comedy in which Streep plays a weird-looking alien called Streep, who is great fun and can sing Abba songs. She hates but then falls in love with a suave, good-looking Clooney, who plays a tough American soldier, who turns out to have a big heart and a conscience.
They fall in love and move into a house with Cameron, Bigelow, Tarantino and lots of other Hollywood stars. Unfortunately, at the end of the film, the house floats away into space and none of them are ever seen again.
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