The Academy Awards are over for another year. What a joke! The one bright spot was Neil Patrick Harris and he’s still getting pummelled across Social Media. Quite frankly, at 87, Oscar is showing his age. It’s like going to visit your aunt at the Seniors’ Centre and discovering it’s Crafts Night. Suddenly, you’re up to your ass in hideous homemade crap, and you’ve got to figure out something nice to say. This year’s Academy Awards were as big a disappointment as they have been for the last decade, but then Oscar has always been a bit dotty. (Remember: Ben Affleck has gotten the statue — twice!) Here are just a few of the Academy’s major malfunctions.
Actors/Actresses
Richard Burton, Montgomery Clift, Leonardo Dicaprio and Edward Norton have never won an Oscar.
Greta Garbo, Ava Gardner, Sigourney Weaver and Annette Bening haven’t, either.
Peter O’Toole — who played Lawrence of Arabia, Henry II (twice) Mr. Chips and Maurice Russell — wasn’t good enough to get an Oscar, and neither is Glenn Close, Dangerous Liaisons and Fatal Attraction, notwithstanding.
Alan Rickman, Isabella Rossellini and Donald Sutherland have never even been nominated!
Films
Crash beat out Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture in 2005
Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky won over Taxi Driver in 1976
In 1955, Marty wiped the floor with East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, probably because neither of them was even nominated.
And, in what can only be called the biggest WTF moment in cinematic history, How Green Was My Valley beat Citizen Kane for Best Picture in 1941.
Directors
Stanley Kubrick never won an Oscar, and, so far, neither has Ridley Scott.
However, for my money, the thing that Oscar and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science will never live down is screwing Alfred Hitchcock over for 40 years. Yeah, they gave him the Irving G Thalberg Memorial in 1968 — but big deal — it isn’t actually an Oscar. Hitchcock knew it, too. His entire acceptance speech was “Thank you…very much indeed.” and then he walked out. Well played, Alfred. Well played!
WD Fyfe 
O
Oscar’s are a waste of time. I stopped watching the Oscars many years ago. The only one that they don’t have a category for is the person that sweep the floors. Of all the Award shows that one has really deteriorated in a big way, even their ratings have gone down.
I love your description of what the Oscars have become: “It’s like going to visit your aunt at the Seniors’ Centre and discovering it’s Crafts Night. Suddenly, you’re up to your ass in hideous homemade crap, and you’ve got to figure out something nice to say.” That’s probably why I don’t watch the Oscars anymore. I get creeped out by what my future holds.