> If you don't care enough about what gets what, seriously, don't bother. It's not a civic duty to watch the show, nor will you be culturally uneducated if you do not force yourself to take it all in. The Academy Awards are about peer recognition in Hollywood. That's it. If you're the kind of person that loves movies and/or cares about the art and craft of filmmaking and/or cares about the winners, then go for it. Otherwise there's no reason to bother.
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> As I write this, I'm having deja vu. I think this was discussed before, either here or in the Site Journal, last year or the year before. I vaguely remember someone saying that you SHOULDN'T watch the Oscars if you care about the art and craft of filmmaking, because the Oscars rarely reward the best films. I think that's a good point but overly cynical...except in the case of this year.

I confess that whenever I enter in any Oscar guessing, I always enter the ones that I think are going to win, no the ones that deserve to win. They are not always the same thing, for various reasons. I think I discovered this the year that Sean Penn got knocked back for Best Actor in Dead Man Walking.

But I don't have a problem with that.