I don’t care.I didn’t see the movies, and no matter how much the mainstream press trumpets this forgettable event, I’m not taking the bait.As for watching so I can tweet, that’s so 2012. Why tweet when no one is paying attention to what you’re tweeting? The “second screen” is for suckers. Television is still the main medium. Will be for a long time gone.The official theme for this year’s Oscars is “heroes”. Once upon a time, movie stars were heroes, people we looked up to, tried to emulate. Now they’re all self-satisfied pricks we denigrate, except for those few who transition to television and do real work.Kind of like Kevin Spacey, hanging it out there in Netflix’s House of Cards, which is more dangerous than American Hustle and more truthful. Oh, I like Jennifer Lawrence – who doesn’t? – and Christian Bale did a masterful job, but where’s the deeper meaning?Entertainment. Made to play around the world. Dumbed down so far beyond comprehension that even Americans are flummoxed. Come on, Liam Neeson plays an action hero, Seth Rogen a superhero, and we’re supposed to believe they’re not doing it for the check?Credibility. That’s what’s key in the 21st century. The 10-percenters – the agents and managers who take a cut from performers – keep telling us there’s no cost in selling out, but the truth is we’re all looking for something to believe in. Some films provide this, but mostly they’re just a tsunami of tripe, which we can miss without penalty, just like this awards show itself.Come on, Ellen DeGeneres is so busy trying to get you to like her that you can’t. And who needs a sycophantic joke-teller when the only thing that plays is danger?That’s what MTV got right, with its VMAs: the awards don’t matter; the water cooler moments do.And what will we all be talking about Monday morning?How long the show was, how we went to bed before the final awards, how they keep having production numbers when they expired decades ago, just like movie musicals.As for who wins, it means nothing to anybody but the victor. Quick: name last year’s Best Actor! Never mind. Best Original Screenplay...There’s no way to solve this problem of the incredible disappearing award show. Because it would require the Academy to look in the mirror. To see that the nominated films no longer reflect the culture. Come on, you want us to watch robots, then you nominate Nebraska, which, despite being in black and white and featuring aged Bruce Dern, was just not that good? Are you really gonna give him an Oscar for being old?Once upon a time I lived for the Academy Awards.When Francis Ford Coppola was testing limits. When Dustin Hoffman embodied American angst. When everybody was shooting for the zenith and movies captured the zeitgeist.But now...Films are just endless fodder for the small screen. Something you watch to kill time when your life gets too boring. The “must-sees” are miniscule.Why should the show be worth watching when the films are not?So, it’s time the people behind the Oscars bring in a host we all want to see. MTV gives us Kevin Hart. The Academy gives us Ellen, who last captured the public’s imagination when she came out – a brave act, no doubt, but ... in the nineties.And stop loading all the good awards in the last few minutes. It’s like watching a Scorsese picture, bloated with a bad storyline but, hey, it’s produced well, so we should all care, huh?And it’s time to admit that we care more about the Emmys than the Oscars.Once upon a time, baseball was the National Pastime.But football stole that moniker, because it was faster and more dangerous.TV is the new movies. Story is still king.But there’s no story at the Oscars, so the ceremony is instantly forgotten.Next.
Bob Lefsetz: Sure, we all watch the Academy Awards. But they’ll vanish faster than you can finish your coffee at the water cooler in the morning