Or a lack there of? CNN sends emails of news alerts, they don’t send out a lot of them, only when something big is happening such as a death, a crash, etc. I got one this morning about the Oscars:

The musical “Dreamgirls” led today?s Academy Awards contenders with eight nominations, but was shut out in the best picture category for which it had been considered a potential front-runner.

This is breaking news?
And once again I’m out of step with the Academy because I haven’t seen any of the movies nominated for best picture:

The nominees for best picture are “The Departed,” “Babel,” “Letters From Iwo Jima,” “Little Miss Sunshine” and “The Queen.”

Or best director:

The nominees for best director are Scorsese (“The Departed”), Eastwood (“Letters From Iwo Jima”), Stephen Frears (“The Queen”), Greengrass (“United 93”) and Gonzalez Inarritu (“Babel”).

Or any of the performances that were nominated for best actor or supporting actor and actress:

The nominees for best actor are Forest Whitaker (“The Last King of Scotland”), Leonardo DiCaprio (“Blood Diamond”), Ryan Gosling (“Half Nelson”), Peter O’Toole (“Venus”) and Will Smith (“The Pursuit of Happyness”).

The nominees for best supporting actor are Murphy (“Dreamgirls”), Arkin (“Little Miss Sunshine”), Jackie Earle Haley (“Little Children”), Djimon Hounsou (“Blood Diamond”) and Wahlberg (“The Departed”).

The nominees for best supporting actress are Hudson (“Dreamgirls”), Adriana Barraza (“Babel”), Blanchett (“Notes on a Scandal”), Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel”).

But surprisingly, I did see one performance that was nominated for best actress, I saw Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada.” She was very good but I’m not sure if her performance was Oscar worthy:

The nominees for best actress are Helen Mirren (“The Queen”), Judi Dench (“Notes on a Scandal”), Penelope Cruz (“Volver”), Meryl Streep (“The Devil Wears Prada”) and Kate Winslet (“Little Children”). Streep’s nomination is her 14th; she’s won two Oscars.

So, maybe I’m out of touch and should give these movies a second chance. If the Academy thought they were worthy of nomination for best picture, maybe they would be worth spending $20 (for the ticket, soda and popcorn) and two hours of my life. Then I look at the synopsis for each of the movies and I realize that there was a reason I didn’t see them when they were originally released, I didn’t want to spend my time or money on them. I’m just not interested. I guess I won’t be watching the ceremony again this year.