Oscar Nominations

I'm filing this under news, although it's been over 6 hours since the noms were announced. Apparently some people out there disagree with the choices, there's been some pretty hardline blogs about the place.



Of course AMPAS is a sham, anyway. The very idea that art can compared and ranked is farcical. Different people will always have different opinions, and just because the Oscars are voted by a large group of people doesn't mean their taste is better or broader it just means that the films they choose were more to their tastes than others. And the bigger the Group the stranger the choices might be - imagine a Best Picture line-up that included Hancock and the latest Indiana Jones - they're in the top 5 grossing films of 2008 so votes with their feet have given us these. I have never come to the end of a year and found myself agreeing with any one person about what qualifies as the best of cinema, and there is no reason to expect that a groupthink of 4000 industry insiders will agree with me.

What upsets me the most is not the anger thrown towards the Academy for failing to agree with the blogosphere by vitriol against the films that were nominated, as if it were somehow the fault of the individuals who made these films that others were excluded. It is therefor the opinion of runs_like_a_gay that we shoul celebrate the success of those nominated, not whinge about those that haven't. To the 160 people (give or take the producers of The Reader)who suddenly got automatic invites to the ceremony I salute you. (With apologies for the really crappy format - the idea's better than the execution, but if you double click you can read it properly)