At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's getting harder for me to feign interest in the Academy Awards every year. The Oscars feel increasingly irrelevant to me. Every awards show and its cousin are being televised and new ones are invented every year. Sundance has played out and buzz about the movies we will theoretically be lauding this time next year has already started.

Particularly aggravating is the studio practice of releasing Oscar fodder in two theaters on December 31 so that they will qualify. When half the films on reviewers' "best of" lists and on the Academy nominee roster are titles the Average American has had no opportunity to see, the Average American can be forgiven for losing interest in the outcome.

I used to get righteously indignant when films I loved were neglected by the Academy, but vote Democrat long enough and you learn to separate the concepts of "winning" and "quality". Besides, this is the organization that awarded Kramer vs Kramer over Apocalypse Now; and, starting a 20-year-old tradition which may finally play itself out this year, Ordinary People over Raging Bull. It's enough to make you nervous when something you do like wins.

Now that I've gotten that all off my chest, I confess I am not immune from the urge to handicap the race. An Academy Award win accurately reflects greatness about as accurately as a Presidential win reflects competence. However, there is something interesting about what the nominees and eventual winners say about culture and the politics of artistry. Kramer vs Kramer is so vastly inferior a film to Apocalypse Now it might as well be a different art form. But a look at that win tells you an awful lot about where America's head was at in 1979; a year in which, interestingly enough, my own parents divorced, and people were still crossing the street to avoid talking to Vietnam vets.

The Academy has covered all its bases in the nominees for Best Actor this year. You have the powerful role in a small indie film nominee — Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson. You have the amazing actor channeling a significant historical figure nominee — Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. You have the popular actor in the triumphing over extreme adversity whilst tugging upon the heartstrings like a jazz bass nominee — Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness. You have the Leonardo DiCaprio in a Leonardo DiCaprio role nominee — Leonardo Dicaprio in The Departed, or wait, no, it's for Blood Diamond. In that case, it's the Leonardo DiCaprio in a funny accent role, otherwise known as the Meryl Streep nomination. Finally, you have the nomination for the old guy who's probably going to die soon so they better hurry up and do something so history doesn't remember them as the people who never gave a real award to legend (otherwise known as the Henry Fonda Award) — Peter O'Toole in Venus.

Who Should Win: Either Ryan Gosling or Forest Whitaker would not be embarrassing choices. Whitaker has the edge for finding something human in one of history's most fearsome Evil Doers, a feat which makes his character that much more terrifying. Actually giving the award to Peter O'Toole, as opposed to just nominating him for it, would only emphasize how ludicrous it is that he's never received anything but an honorary Oscar. Not only is Blood Diamond not Leonardo DiCaprio's best role, it's not even his best role this year. And why did he get nominated instead of Djimon Hounsou? As for Will Smith, I don't even know what to say. If the story had been about a single mom instead of a single dad, it would have been right at home on Lifetime. On the other hand, it's the kind of story that Hollywood loves, the pull 'em up by your bootstraps triumph over adversity as God is my witness I will never go hungry again tale.