Burn After Reading

I get up at 5:25 am on the second Tuesday of every February to watch the Academy Awards nominations live on television. What started out as an assignment for the Loyola Marymount newspaper has now turned into a lifelong tradition. I'm a movie buff, an Oscar fanatic and overall cinema fiend.

This year is different. Not for lack of quality films. Not because Mickey and Sean and Kate and Leo weren't just amazing in their roles in 2008. But because we've all been too busy to give a rat's ass about movies this year. The economy tanked, we elected the first black president, vetoed gay marriage and lost a bazillion jobs. I'm sorry if I've been neglecting the popcorn and Red Vines, Hollywood. Things have been tough all over.

A recent article in The Economist titled "And The Loser Is..." highlights the viewer statistics of the Super Bowl and American Idol versus the Oscars. It's sad to me that 32 million people watched the Oscars last year and yet the Super Bowl saw 96 million people. And even more people watch every episode of American Idol. What is the world coming to?

I think The Economist has a strong point: "Within Hollywood, of course, the Academy Awards still matter a great deal. Prestige and acclaim are hard currency in the film business, in many ways more valuable than money. The danger is that Hollywood’s taste in its own products is becoming as removed from public opinion as its political views are outside the American mainstream. What viewers will see on Sunday night is an industry talking to itself."

Hollywood doesn't care about what you want to watch as much as you don't have the time to get to a movie theater. But tonight still matters to the big studios and somewhere deep down inside, it matters to me too.