The Oscars have come, gone, and like the peace of God surpasseth all human understanding for another year. I don't care, neither do you but just in case you need something to curmudgeon over here's some bile-starters.
1) I have no idea if Bret McKenzie is Man Or Muppet, but he's an Oscar laureate for Best Original Song. Congratulations! (Weta's sublime work on Rise of The Planet of The Apes went down before Hugo's close to clean sweep of the technical awards. But that's an honourable loss - even if you think Scorsese's vaguely kiddie-friendly valentine to the movies was a perfect storm of style over substance, what style it was.)
2) Meryl Streep won for a typically mannered (and over-rated) impersonation of Margaret Thatcher in the crapulous The Iron Lady. Gary Oldman didn't, for delivering a performance in Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy that, among much else, recalled the days when he could pass innocent scenery without gnawing it. Thus has been made an irrefutable case for euthanizing the entire acting branch of the Academy.
3) Any leftover hemlock should be applied to the voting writers who thought any skill whatsoever was applied to the screenplays of The Descendants (Yes, I'd sit on George Clooney's face too. Mostly to stop him making films.) and Midnight in Paris (Thirty minutes of story padded out with an hour of another Woody Allen analogue being a pretentious, self-absorbed prick).
4) Is it a cause for concern that the only catergory in which I've seen all the nominees (and enjoyed them all) was Best Animated Feature? Bugger the mania for gratuitous overuse of crappy 3-D, and over-charging for the privilege. Going to movies would be more fun if everything was animated. Discuss.
5) I don't care what anyone was wearing. No opinion whatsoever on Rooney Mara owning the red carpet in white Givenchy gown and deco-dominatrix 'do. Not even a little bit.
