You know what REALLY grinds my gears?

Taking a cue from Peter Griffin of Family Guy, I have to bring up something that really DOES grind my gears.  The Oscars... well, not so much the Oscars as the movies that participate in categories including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor and Actress.  You know what I'm talking about.  For some reason, Hollywood decided that it was more important to pander to the voters of the Academy Awards rather than give the consumer his/her due.  What am I talking about?

For some reason, movies that think they have a shot at Best Picture try to get the premiere out right before the cut-off date for nomiations.  What does this mean?  Tons of pompous, arrogant, and oftentimes intellectually unstimulating films will take a huge proverbial 'dump' of their premieres in December.  What does that leave us?  Nothing!

We actually haven't seen those movies BEFORE the Oscars; they usually don't get released into a wider audience until a month or two later.  In the meantime, we're hearing how great so-and-so was in film X, while some schmuck was just riveting, that our lives are incomplete if we haven't seen the performance of a generation.  That's all fine and dandy if you're in New York, L.A., or London.  When you're in Nowheresville, Stuck-in-the-middle-of-the-USA, all we get from the reviews is that we're obviously not intelligent enough to understand the movie, and that's what makes it so great.  Really?  Is that it?

And is that why we're typically left with crappola for the first 3 months of the year, so the riff-raff can be cleaned out of the storage space in Hollywood from January through to March?  From mixed reviews about Watchmen, it's too early to say if March will be a terrible movie month this year.  

Then it seems like we have to squeeze every action film into the space of two months, from Memorial Day to Fourth of July.  Which leaves many of us broke because we have to spend 10 bucks for each one (and that's not including IMAX, which is currently $12.50 around here).  Pretty soon, matinee prices will be phased out.  And because movie theaters see none of the ticket money, they'll jack up prices of popcorn, drinks, and Junior Mints... mmm, Junior Mints.  A explosion of mint and chocolate, and there's only one thing that can compete with mint and chocolate - peanut butter and chocolate!  Yeah, I'm not bitter about not having my peanut butter...

So what can we do to make Hollywood change their ways and put out quality movies throughout the year?  As an individual, not much will change.  As a collective movement, we can do great things.  Now who could lead us?

Eh, probably not him.  I'm thinking more along the lines of this:

That's more like it!  Tomorrow is Future Purchase post.  Can't wait to let you in on what may soon have a place in my heart... and my collection.  Later!