And the Oscar goes to....

a movie nobody saw. "The Hurt Locker" continues the tradition of "No Country for old men" and "Slumdog Millionare" (which I walked out of). It's not really the film's fault it's the award process. Woody Allen spoofed awards when he said, "Best Fascist Dictator...Adolf Hitler." I remember two things from my days in the ad world. Pitch to the judges bias for originality, cleverness and even cuteness. And spend big on entry costs. Exhibit A is the Apple "1984" commercial, lauded ad infinitum for it's unique, marvelous message. But my question was, "Why are we applauding a company that only has 1% of the computer market?" So we have a best picture that has done $16million at the box office beating out one that is on its way to $1 billion. Who needs awards but the ego-saturated crowd. I got into trouble at an agency that gloried in their dubious awards by saying they were a feather in our crap. But even though Ira Gershwin said that "the movies that we love may only be a passing fancy" I confess that I love the movies, the smaller the better. I liked "Me and Orson Welles", "Young Victoria", "An Education" even the new "The Ghost Writer". To paraphrase Norma Desmond it's not just that the pictures got small but so did the moviegoers. A guy in London told me once there was no good writing in films anymore, Chinatown was it. I said I'll give you two great scripts: "All about Eve" and "Double Indemnity". He said, "never heard of them".