Every year there are the same complaints about the Oscars and how out of touch they are with, well, reality. I haven't seen any of the five Best Picture nominees, and to be honest, I don't really want to see them. I do want to see The Wrestler, because I'm a Mickey Rourke fan. But it's hard to say with any authority that one work of art is better than another, although obviously Pineapple Express is far superior to the Love Guru. If I were voting, these would have been my five Best Picture nominees, with the winner in bold:

WALL-E
The Dark Knight
In Bruges
Iron Man
Pineapple Express

I mean, I don't know how you pick the best movie or whatever, but I go with whichever movie had the biggest impact on me, and that was WALL-E. Also, the best Robert Downey Jr. performance of 2008 was the lead role in Iron Man. Honestly, without him, the movie doesn't work nearly as well. And I was not impressed by his work in Tropic Thunder. See, if he was really playing an Australian playing a black guy, you know what? He'd be more believable as a black guy. Instead, he plays it like an Australian who's never met a black guy, which makes no sense if his character is so 'method'. The best performance of Tropic Thunder was Jay Baruchel, who was terrific as the 'redshirt' who not only survives, but is the catalyst for getting the other actors out of the crisis alive.

Pineapple Express was funnier, anyway.