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Need a nap? Check out an Oscar nominee

One critic laments the self-important films that the Academy celebrates, and thinks that "High School Musical 3" got snubbed.
/ Source: msnbc.com contributor

My body does this stupid thing where it wakes me up at 5 a.m. every day whether I’m on board for it or not, as though I’m some dairy farmer who needs to hook up the cows to the milking robot. I’ve adapted to this physical deformity pretty well. It’s peaceful and dark and quiet in my home, I make tea, I have toast with butter and Nutella. It’s not so bad being a morning person against your will.

Except on Oscar nomination morning, when you’re a film critic.

Then, suddenly, everyone is pinging you on iChat for your insta-opinion. The first invasion of my privacy took place while I was licking melted butter off my just-finished toast plate: “WHAT’S UP WITH NOTHING FOR ‘GRAN TORINO’?!! caps-screamed a friend in another state.

But they don’t care about my special me-time. Or have any personal stake in Clint Eastwood’s hurt Oscar feelings. Or remember the most important aspect of my writing-about-films career: I think the Oscars are a waste of time aside from the show itself, which is always excellently hubris-engorged and gruesomely fun to watch. So having a conversation about it, before I’m fully awake, or at all, ever, is not what I’m down for.

But here? I’m getting paid to care. That makes it way more interesting for me. So here are my expert opinions:

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2. My mom wants “Australia” to win best picture. That it’s not nominated isn’t something she cares to discuss. She’ll settle for it receiving its one nomination for costume design. That’s because when I took her to see it in the second week of release — after it had been cut to one matinee screening per day — she really, really, REALLY loved the part where Hugh Jackman shows up in that beautiful white tux and sweeps Nicole Kidman off her feet. She literally wet her pants when that happened. I should also let you know that my mom had a stroke a while back, lives in a nursing home and sometimes just wets her pants.

3. My current spouse and I are seemingly completely alone in our shared belief that “Frost/Nixon” is a puppet show.  We also think “The Visitor” is the kind of movie NPR should be interrupting every five minutes to badger you into donating to a pledge drive, and that “Doubt” was great in the tradition of “King Kong vs. Godzilla” until Viola Davis pops in for a visit to turn the whole thing upside down and make it a serious, troubling film for five entire minutes.

4. The Kate Winslet nomination for “The Reader” is some sort of elaborate prank being played on her by Ricky Gervais, right? In fact, extending this line of thought, I’m now convinced that every nomination for the feel-sowwy-for-this-misunderstood-Nazi-lady movie is a joke being played on every person who sees it. And I know it’s got nothing to do with Gervais. It’s all Harvey Weinstein bulldozing his product on through. It’s this year’s “Chocolat,” a terrible movie no one will admit to liking when these awards are a distant memory. The day after the show. On a somewhat related note, I hope that Marisa Tomei isn’t being pranked. I want people to be nicer to her.

5. “High School Musical 3: Senior Year?” “Midnight Meat Train?” “Beverly Hills Chihuahua?” “Sex and The City?” ALL SNUBBED!

6. If I were a voting member of the Academy, I’d have voted for Michelle Williams for “Wendy and Lucy” and every single person in “Synecdoche, New York.” But I’m not. I’m not even a member of a film critic’s group. I’m barely a film critic if you get right down to it. My credentials are about as classy as the way I will lick melted butter off plates when no one’s looking. But given the crop, I’ll pull for the following people: Mickey Rourke (see above), Heath Ledger (even though “The Dark Knight” was robbed in all other areas), Melissa Leo (because you can take a bathroom break when someone you’ve never heard of wins) and Viola Davis (because of that thing where sometimes they actually deserve it).

7. The best original song of any movie this year was that non-Paul McCartney number over the closing credits of “Role Models.” Stupid Academy.

And that’s about it, really. My major beef has to do with the intrusion of faux-fancy movies into my consciousness, busting up my Merry-Christmas-having December (that’s when they all open in Los Angeles) and trying to teach me lessons about life. Because guess what, Hollywood phonies? I ALREADY KNOW ABOUT LIFE! And then it’s another two whole months of people obsessing about it.

Meanwhile, movies released in January and February are really where it’s at, entertainment-wise. Already this new year I’ve seen skinny college girls haunted by angry miscarriage ghost-twins in “The Unborn,” naked people being impaled on pick-axes in “My Bloody Valentine 3D,” pugs cavorting about wearing little exercise outfits in “Hotel For Dogs” and Renee Zellweger pretending to love Harry Connick, Jr. Aside from the adorable “Hotel for Dogs,” those are three pretty rad horror movies.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to watch another sensitive Nazi film instead? Oh, yes, for Winslet. Sorry.

I have to go take a nap now.

Dave White is the film critic for Movies.com. Find him at www.imdavewhite.com