Newsflash: People don’t give a shit about the Oscars

Or at least the results don’t particularly impact on their viewing decisions. According to a survey on that beacon of fine journalistic integrity, that bastion of quality writing (and complete heap of crap, losing relevence by the minute) the New Zealand Herald, we really don’t give a shit about the Oscars, with only around 26% saying they have some bearing on their movie watching decisions.

(I don’t want this to be about the Herald, but just how bad are they? Really bad. They appear to only hire new graduates – and from what I’ve picked up, journalism pays worse than street sweeping, so very few Smart Folk move into the area, which is why you can name so few journalists. Those few you can name have been in the game for a long time, work extremely hard to do a good job, and make a living by keeping irons in several fires. All the kids though, will probably be in the game for the short haul at best, and are little more than grist for the mill.)

Given that the Oscars are little more than another opportunity for the movie making industry to kiss the back of its own neck, where do people find out about which movies to watch and which to avoid?

Well, mostly our friends. Right?

I know I wouldn’t have heard anything about the upcoming Will Smith comedy Hancock if a friend hadn’t mentioned it. (Not yet, anyway, but of course once the buzz really started to pick up, sure.)

And depending on your interests, you might not have heard about the new Iron Man movie until I mentioned it 5 words ago, but it looks very exciting, with Robert Downey Jr as the titular lead.

(Hur hur, I said tit.)

Of course it’s not fair to say that we only hear about stuff from friends, because where di they hear about ‘upcoming movie fun’ from? Well, maybe another friend. But track it back far enough (which might not be very far) and what do you find? Almost certainly a highly skilled marketing person, carefully cultivating and shepherding the ‘buzz’. I wonder if those self-same marketing folk feel a sharp stabbing pain when all their hard work turns to naught once we discover what a POS their shiny new movie is. I hope so.

Stab stab. (Dear Jumper, thanks very much for costing me $15.50, please die.) Stab stab.

It’s too bad you didn’t listen to me about Michael Clayton, it’s George Clooney’s best movie in years.

Now check out the Iron Man trailer. It looks like a good fun superhero (in a manner of speaking) boy-movie to me.

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