Posted 6:46 PM by Gene

The Golden Globes are on tonight. Quick! Here's a question: Who won an Academy Award® last year? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh.... Like so many other public events, the Oscars® have become a bloated self-justifying activity without meaning. Surely they've never been about excellence, but now they're about a bunch of pigmy moguls pushing arthouse bores before a dazed membership in the hopes of justifying more crass behavior. The steady decline in the ratings attests to the Oscars'® (and the movie industry's) irrelevance. Heck, even the head of AMPAS has sneered at Hollywood's "product." Hard to believe, but for 1939 there were TEN best-picture nominees. By rights, the movie-ad-blurb copywriters and the Hollywood flacks at USA Okay notwithstanding, there should be TWO. And even their excellence would not be reflected in satisfied audiences -- why should Hollywood satisfy an audience? -- but in the machinations of blurbmeisters trying to jaw as many adjectives above the names above the arthouse titles as they can for higher salaries and the chance to sleep (figuratively) with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Guys, you're not fooling anybody. You certainly haven't fooled Peter Bart, who's as much a pompous jackass as you.