Movie Awards

It is time again for the annual Academy Awards. You know, the show where they hand out the Oscars for all those different movie award categories.

This year, however, I’m not watching. And it isn’t just because they aren’t allowing the songs nominated for Best Original Song to be performed, although I do think that is a bit ridiculous on their part. They wouldn’t refuse to show clips of the movies nominated for Best Picture, would they? So why not let people sing the songs? Besides, this year, there are just two nominated songs. One of them features the Muppets, or at least a Muppet, from the movie The Muppets, and that would probably be a good ratings draw, I would think. But anyway, what do I know.

No, the reason I won’t be watching this year is the same reason that I haven’t watched for the last few years, and that is that I really don’t see the point. It has just become a bunch of movie people handing out awards to each other and saying, “Look how good we are!” And on top of that, they don’t even give awards to the popular movies, but rather just those movies that a few people think are “good”.

My question is this: If those movies are so good, why aren’t they making millions of dollars each at the box office? They may be good for a few people who think they know what movies should be about. But they aren’t considered good by the people who pay money to see movies. If I were making movies, I would rather have a movie that was popular with a lot of people than one that was liked by juts a few people. But that is just me, I guess.

So my reason for watching is that I just don’t care. Yes, I have heard of most of the movies that are nominated, as well as most of the actors who are nominated. But mainly I have heard of them when their movies get mentioned as possible Oscar candidates. Which usually means that I won’t bother seeing them in the first place. So there.

Instead of all that fluff that will be on TV on Sunday, here are the Burnsland Movie Awards. And we don’t even have all those actors who seem so stiff when reading from a teleprompter. The only requirement for this year’s BMAs is that the movie was released theatrically in 2011. And the only person who gets to vote is me. That is pretty fair, don’t you think? There are only two categories - Best Picture and Best Original Score. Because those are the two things that I care about the most.

Best Picture

I thought there would be several movies that I would like this past year. I was really looking forward to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Captain America, and neither of those disappointed me. Cars 2 was good, just like the original Cars. I was a bit skeptical about The Muppets, but it turned out to be better than I thought it might be, which was good, too.

But what ended up getting my vote for Best Picture was (drumroll)…..Thor. I hadn’t been all that interested in seeing Thor, and we didn’t even go to the theater to see it. We did watch it through Netflix, and it turned out to be one of the few that I want to buy after seeing it. A great story, well acted, with great visuals. And you really do care about what is going to happen at the end, and afterward, whenever they get around to making a sequel. Chris Hemsworth was perfect as Thor, and Anthony Hopkins shines in everything he does, making him just right as Odin. Good stuff.

Best Original Score

I like movie scores. Not the CDs of songs halfway related to the movies, but the actual orchestral scores. I didn’t do the BMA awards for 2010, but the winner for that year would have been Tron: Legacy by Daft Punk, if you were curious. But now on to the actual award.

I have several favorite composers, and they were all on top of their games this past year. Hans Zimmer hit home runs with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, taking themes from the original scores to new levels in these sequels. Michael Giacchino had a great spy motif score for Cars 2. John Williams wrote a wonderful score for War Horse.

But here again, the surprise winner was (another drumroll)…. Patrick Doyle for Thor. I must admit that I was not familiar with Patrick Doyle before this. He has written scores for several movies, but the only one I have seen was the 1993 version of Much Ado About Nothing with Kenneth Branagh, who just happened to be the director of Thor. This score has just the right balance of intensity and emotion that was necessary to go along with the different elements of the story. Needless to say, it has been played often on my iPod.

So there you have it - the first annual Burnsland Movie Awards. Feel free to disagree and start your own movie awards, too. Because everyone has his own opinions. These just happen to be mine.