There is nothing quite as insufferable as awards season in Los Angeles. The Oscars, the Golden Globes, SAG, the Grammys, Sundance, the Independent Spirit (plus international programs like the Goyas and BAFTA are getting some playtime in the US-centric awards circuit), and countless other small "honors" are ranking and rating the entertainment industry. These events may be advertised and featured in various media outlets and the internet around the world, but since Los Angeles is the home of Hollywood, Angelenos are saturated and then drowned in a pool of endless billboards and radio announcements, television and magazine ads, and the local newscasters become talking heads for award show producers. And what does the public get? A big spectacle that is meant to sell and entertain and which ends up only mildly entertaining anyone. At the end of the day, everyone is jockeying for their piece of the pie and their key to the enchanted castle so they can dress up in expensive rags and baubles, drink Cristal, make millions and fuck supermodels.

Having been a resident of LA-LA land for over a decade, I should be accustomed to this bombardment. I live in the hive so why not expect a lot of buzzing. But the world is going to shit. Our country is in a seemingly endless war with lives being lost every day.  The access to and price of healthcare is a crime. The financial support of education and the Arts is at an all time low. The US government doesn't give a single thought to the average American (and by average I mean the size of one's bank account) because it is too busy stuffing the pockets of all the "good ole rich boys". The Vice president and his cabinet are shielding their own fat rears with the hide of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. These things make it hard not to be a bit bitter in the face of the Academy Awards getting so much ink in the LA Times.

Then again, when confronted with the alternatives... when poor Britney Spears/Lindsay Lohan/Nicole Richie/name-here-some-vapid-wasting-my-life-and-good-fortune-celebrity is in and out of rehab or being pulled over for a DUI, or the daily reports on the fall and fall of Anna Nicole Smith and her much sought after estate, or the start of another election year (Go democracy!), I guess a little light albeit boring fluff from an awards show will be moderately amusing.

The most recent distraction was the Oscars. And the one film that merged breathtaking filmmaking and art with the horrors of war and fascism, the Guillermo del Toro masterpiece, El Laberinto del Fauno, should have taken home everything.