It's that time of year again, when quite probably the most predictable awards ceremony in any creative outlet takes place. This Sunday, Billy Crystal will host the 84th Annual Academy Awards with The Artist expected to clean up in most categories.
Last year folk will recall that David Fincher's brilliant, borderline masterpiece, The Social Network was beaten by the nice, but ultimately undeserving The King's Speech. It became very boring very quickly, and further evidence of the quintessential Academy member materialised. A recent study from The Los Angeles Times said that 86 percent of the Academy body is over the age of 50, 77 percent are male, and 94 percent are white. What does that tell you, you may ask? Well, when you consider the likes of Drive, Warrior, and more crucially Shame were more or less completely shut out of the nominations it tells you that they are quite probably a bunch of old farts who vote for broad, mainstream films that would rather self-destruct than potentially offend a viewer. That's beyond annoying given the credibility this ceremony has, and the knock on effects in terms of box-office. Everyone wants to win an Oscar, and everyone wants to be nominated. Michael Fassbender must be asking himself what exactly he can do? Ditto Ryan Gosling and everyone involved with Warrior who isn't Nick Notle.
The Artist will undoubtedly clean up on Sunday, with a couple of gongs going to The Descendants - and deservedly so. Clooney is great in it and should win, but he was better in Up in the Air a few years ago and really should've won for that one. With no Eddie Murphy or Ricky Gervais involved, I'm banking on this year's ceremony being an absolute bore-fest.