Dear Academy of Motion Pictures, aka Oscars, aka People who Suck,

I don't even begin to know where to begin raining down my fury. Your nominees were announced yestereday morning. All I could think as I sat and watched was, "they really just don't care if people watch or not."

I'm all for being snooty and superior just for the sake of it, but it doesn't serve ABC very well when you don't nominate a single bank-breaking movie in a major category. And no, Supporting Actor does not count as a major category. In fact, it's usually the first or second award given out. So no credit for including Heath and Robert Downey, Jr. for you.

It hurts to see The Dark Knight overlooked for both direction and picture, but I can't honestly say I'm surprised. It's a genre film, and they don't fair well with people who only like to witness the Holocaust tragedies over and over again in their Best Pictures.

To be fair, I admit to being a little underwhelmed when I finally saw The Dark Knight, but it was very late in its theatrical run, so I decided I was just hyped too much by what I was reading. And since I haven't actually seen any of the movies that did get nominated for Best Picture, I guess I can't really be too upset about that. In fact, I'll probably enjoy that arrangement more eventually, since I'll spend the Saturday before the ceremony watching all the Best Picture nominees in a bladder-bursting marathon at my local AMC.

Still, I can't forgive you for deciding that the ceremony need not be watched by the ignorant masses. I like that you have taste, and would honestly prefer you maintain it. But, throwing Wall-E or The Dark Knight or something with some cha-ching at the box office probably would have helped with the Nielsens. Especially with ratings sagging across the board, and for your yearly gathering every year since Titanic. So, you didn't have to let it win, but giving a big-money movie a major nod somewhere could have helped tremendously.

So, just to be straight, not angry with your selections in general, since I've seen maybe four movies this year and I knew House Bunny was never going to make it. Just mad you've sabotaged yourselves again with the general public and decided to eventually give up and move to E! where I'll be forced to watch Kim Kardashian (aka Huge Ass, aka that other bitch famous for making a sex tape) interview Meryl Streep on the finer points of shimmying. For shame, Academy. I'd like to thank you not.

Whinily,

Patrick James