Some Thoughts on the Awards Season

For those of you who couldn't care less, and I know you're out there, now is what the media has loving deemed the "awards season" for Hollywood. All the various guilds and groups and consortiums and committees are handing out honors and prizes like so much candy on Halloween. Actors, directors, writers and perhaps even foley artists are the toasts of the town for a couple of months. And on occasion, on a rare occasion, everyone gets it right.

This past weekend saw the Hollywood Foreign Press association dole out the Golden Globe awards. They didn't make any insanely egregious errors (I have no problem with Nip/Tuck winning best TV drama) and they even made a few excellent calls, such as Jason Bateman winning for Best actor in a TV comedy. But most people tend to think that the GG's are a poor man's Oscar, the second prize in the pie eating contest, or just a huge laughing stock.

The big guns, as we all know, now shoot out at the end of February. They used to hand out the Oscars at the end of March, but the three month campaigns were getting to be too much for anyone to handle or want to pay attention to. Nominations are announced this year on January 25th and then the studios have almost a month to convince Academy voters that their movie really wasn't so much shit put onto celluloid.

Now, heaven forefend anyone think that I am not a rabid fan of the Oscars. I ensconce myself in front of the television from the moment everyone starts arriving on the red carpet to the final strains of the orchestra playing everyone out of the Kodak Theatre. I try to see all the movies that are nominated and engage in long and sometimes angry discussions with people over the various categories. I won't watch ten minutes of the Golden Globes, but I won't miss ten seconds of the Oscars.

However, as I've grown up and some might even say matured, the Oscars, the SAG awards, the New York Film Critics Circle awards, they've lost a bit of their oomph, a smidgen of their pizazz. Perhaps it's the fact that world has become a darker place in recent years, and even the gold lamee of Nicole Kidman's Dior can't make the sun shine all the time. Or perhaps it's realization that just like the elections for student council president, it's all a popularity contest with the cool kids winning all the great awards and sitting up front while the nerds have to wait for the brush off Documentary categories and watch from the nosebleed seats. Or perhaps I don't care anymore because I've realized that while I love movies and to some extent the entire society that is Hollywood, it really has no real baring on my life and I can still enjoy the spectacle of the season without making it the central focus of my life.

All that being said and understood who the hell gave Leonardo DiCaprio the Golden Globe over Johnny Depp? I mean seriously, c'mon!