Plus Some of Them Slim Down Using Laxatives

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released their list of contenders for the 2008 Academy Awards. While I normally take interest in the Oscars, somehow this year I find that interest severely lacking. Maybe it's that I just don't watch many movies (I'm thinking I could count them on one hand for 2008, including rentals). Whatever the case, I'm just not caring.

It doesn't help that the show itself has been painful to watch the last few times I've tried. Overblown musical numbers, unfunny banter, weepy acceptance speeches...yikes. If not for the dead reel, I can't really think of anything that would encourage me to tune in this time. I think that's really saying something - the only reason I would consider watching your multi-million dollar extravaganza is to find out who died last year. Not exactly a glowing advertisement.

Maybe my problem (other than my distaste for boring speeches) is that ever since Janet Jackson displayed her Tito on national television, the allure of "live" television has been all but destroyed. We know that whatever is going on is being delayed and censored now, so the whole anything-could-happen aspect of it is gone. It's just going to be boring speeches, and if anything good does happen unexpectedly, we'd have to watch it later on the internet anyway.

You know, I actually think that's it. When I look down deep into my soul (okay, it's not that deep), I realize that all these years I've watched the show on the off chance that someone who gets an upset stomach when they're nervous and may have partaken of one pre-show party cheese puff despite their lactose intolerance might accidentally squeak out a bit of embarrassing flatulence during a nervous laugh, a squeak that is just loud enough to get picked up by the microphone. I wonder, now that I think about it, if they even would bother censoring such a thing. After all, it's not technically obscene or anything, right? So that squeak might be allowed through onto national television, a tiny trumpet between the list of thanks that would make the whole thing worth while.

Huh. Maybe I'll end up watching after all.