Awarding entertainment

Two hours is a long time in my book.

If I needed to, I could write about two stories. If I wanted to, I could make a trip to St. Louis. If I paced myself, I could run about 10 miles, but I might get bored.

I sometimes have a short attention span. I know, I know — hard to believe. Case in point, I walked away from writing this column right after that sentence.

I don't normally volunteer to or suggest spending two hours sitting in the same chair with no book, no pen, no paper, staring at a screen in a movie theater. But I've done just that three times in the past two weeks.

Two were films with multiple nominations from the countless awards shows. The third was a new release, therefore technically not qualified for this round of statues. Each was different. Each was entertaining. When it boils down to it, that's really all a movie needs to be: entertaining.

Not in the world of awards, though.

To be nominated and definitely to get on stage for an acceptance speech, critics and movie aficionados dissect and analyze a film. They look at color scheme, settings, directing, acting, dialogue, costume, lighting. What they don't look at is whether we liked it or not.

I watched the Academy Awards last year and could easily count on one hand how many films I had seen. I still haven't seen all of the nominated films — or anywhere close to a majority — and according to ticket sales, a lot of other people have skipped them, too, which begs the question: How relevant are these nominations?

Especially considering a few awards overlap. Movie B won best motion picture, but from which award show? Who took home a winged figure for best leading actress and who walked away with a little gold man for a leading lady role? It gets confusing and, honestly, what does it matter?

A movie can be flippant and shallow or dark and disturbing or light and fluffy, funny or serious, filmed with one camera or dozens, just as long as it's entertaining.

Of all the things I could do with two hours, if I was entertained, I could watch a movie.