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The constant fight over the two approaches is silly and pointless. The Academy’s choices are, for the most part, decent, at least with respect to the Best Picture nominees. Yeah, the easier movie tends to win over more challenging pieces, but since the Best Picture expansion the majority of the most-lauded movies of the year have gotten into the lineup. And they have found room for popular fare such as Gravity, Avatar, Inception, and American Sniper.

It really doesn’t need to be more complicated than that, and the point of any awards is not to appease everybody. These are the Academy’s awards - Hollywood’s reflection on itself. All criticism that departs from the notion that they should reward what you want (or what the critic or fanboy wants) fundamentally misunderstands that it’s not meant to be about that. It is their club. It’s no different than the MVP votes in MLB, or the Pulitzer or Nobel Prizes. What’s so wrong with that?

What Happened to Boyhood?

The other major story that will mark the 2014 awards will be the collapse of Boyhood. After starting the season strong, winning the overwhelming majority of critics’ awards across the country, the Critics’ Choice, and the Golden Globe for Best Picture, Boyhood walked away with a single Oscar - for Best Supporting Actress - on Sunday. What happened?

There are many possible theories. One is that Boyhood peaked too early - it had the dreaded front-runner status thrust upon it in the summer, and this made Academy members look elsewhere. Perhaps, but The Hurt Locker and The Artist were the frontrunners since the summer too, and they went all the way in almost clean sweeps.

Another somewhat related theory is that the Academy does not like to be “told” what to vote for, and thus rejected the critical embrace of Boyhood. Again, perhaps, but last year they certainly were “told” to vote for 12 Years A Slave with the “It’s Time” campaign, and they went for it.

Yet a third theory is that the race was close - both movies could have won easily. As I said before Oscar Sunday, I’m dubious as to how close the race was.

Recall that last year, people were nervous about the 12 Years of Slave vs. Gravity Best Picture race. How could Gravity win so many technical awards and the DGA and PGA and not Best Picture, people asked? But, by Oscar night, most of us were pretty confident that there was no way Gravity - a sci-fi flick - could triumph over the important feeling movie. This year, I admit I was less certain - but I was still fairly sure that Birdman would triumph. The statistics behind it were overwhelming. Birdman won a total of 10 prizes from the 11 guilds it was eligible for. Boyhood won a SAG award for Patricia Arquette and the Editing guild. And that it could not convert that into a second Oscar win tells me the race wasn’t really that close.

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