It’s time for another edition of Oscar the Grouch and a look at this year’s Best Picture nominees:

Munich.  This is the only one I haven’t seen, and I don’t want to.  But I always liked the song lyric from M’s “Pop Music” which goes “New York London Paris Munich everybody talk about pop music.” Which is a very meaningful line to me, because I’d rather talk about pop music than another attempt by Spielberg to be all serious and political.

Capote.  Hey! You know what’s a really gripping and worthwhile book?  In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.  Hey!  You know what’s a real snoozefest of a movie?  Capote, about Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood.  How did they screw that up?  Sure, I like Seymour Hoffman’s performance--and then there’s Catherine Keener.  I’d like to put a bumper sticker on my car that says I’M KEEN FOR CATHERINE KEENER. And people would come up to me and ask “Is Catherine Keener running for office?” And I’d just smile enigmatically.  And then that would be yet another person who makes a mental note never to talk to me.

Good Night, and Good Luck.  This movie brought me to tears: a poor, well-meaning senator being torn to pieces by a bunch of bullies in the press.  The “black and white” in which the movie was filmed mirrored the “black and white” I felt in my heart as Joe McCarthy was pummeled and stomped on by the progenitors of people like Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Larry King. Reporters are a bunch of sinister Star Chamber cabal evil types.  What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

Crash.  This searing look at racism in society taught me that you can be best friends with your underpaid housekeeper, that racist cops can act heroically at times, and that even people who don’t think they’re racist can get scared and shoot black people.  That’s...deep.  I’d say something funny about it, but McSweeneys took care of that for me.

Brokeback Mountain.  This was a good movie, but director Ang Lee’s last film, The Hulk, was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.  It’s difficult to go between extremes like that.  I wish directors could simply recognize they’re about to make a bad movie and then a good movie, so they can combine them into one movie in order to make the whole experience a bit less jolting.

For example, wouldn’t it have been possible for Jack to turn into the Hulk whenever he felt a little funny around Ennis?

JACK:  It ain’t nobody’s business but our....our.....ARRRRGGGHHH!

Ennis: Jack, you’ve transformed into a big green metaphor for our repressed sexuality and hence our wasted, squandered, tragic lives!

JACK: HULK BORED BY SYMBOLISM.  HULK SMASH.

(Army eventually gangs up on Jack and blows him to bits with a missile.  Ennis goes to Jack’s parents’ house to collect the remains.)

JACK’S FATHER: You’ve come here to what?

ENNIS: Collect the remains, sir.  Jack’s last wish was to be buried up on Hulkback Mountain.

JACK’S FATHER: Well, suit yourself.  He’s out back.

(Ennis walks outside and stops short--there’s five gigantic dump trucks on the back lawn.)

JACK’S FATHER: See, we cremated him while he was still in Hulk form.  Good luck getting all those ashes up your dumb mountain, mumbly boy.

See? It automatically makes both movies better.  I’m tearing up here.