Well, not West Ham, that’s for sure. In the blockbuster at White Hart Lane yesterday those poor Hammers managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 2-nil, and they fucked it up. And I could almost feel sorry for them, if I wasn’t so amazingly, deliriously, almost tragically happy about it. It felt like a win, (it felt like a wi–in, etc) as Spurs somehow, after the most awful display for 80 minutes, managed to score a fluke, out-of-nothing goal and then secure the draw (though it soooooooo felt like a win) with the last kick of the game. Harry Kane. Whoever wrote that script certainly wins an Oscar for that. Just as the Oscar for ‘most blinded by bitterness’ goes to Sam Allardyce for his consistent and emotional failure to judge that Alex Song tripping up Harry, then diving on his back to make sure he went over, might have been a righteous penalty.

In the other Oscars, the American ones that went on all bloody night, fewer surprises. Except for the nature of the films up for awards. Because the main movies in the final counting were really the poor relations of the global movie world.

The Imitation Game, Grand Budapest Hotel, Selma, Birdman, Theory of Everything, Boyhood and Whiplash, together, globally, grossed $293 million. American Sniper grossed $312 million all by itself. A true blockbuster. Deservedly winning an Oscar. For sound editing. It did sound pretty good, I must say. Those bullets, fucking thousands of them, sounded almost like real bullets. I think.

In 2010 the Best Picture nominees had grossed $4.7 BILLION. This year’s lot; less than 0.7 bil.

So the Oscars, having always been a vehicle to promote movies to the masses, have now become more ‘inclusive’ of non-blockbusters to the extent that there is a great divide between what a bunch of movie-snob culture tarts in Hollywood reckon are ‘great movies’ and what the general public actually go and see. Which is, it has to be said, mainly franchises of comic book crap and anything involving lots of guns. The separation of ‘good’ movies and popular movies. The main difference being that I go and see good movies and all of America goes to see popular ones, except for a few dudes in New York who are into art-house, mainly because they’re pretentious bastards like me.

I saw The Theory of Everything last night. Great film. Eddie Redmayne was brilliant as Stephen Hawking. But best actor? Not sure about that. Playing a character who is tragically denied movement and much in the way of outward emotion or any kind of subtlety is not so much acting as impersonating. Which young Eddie did wonderfully. Sadly very few will go and see it.

Now if they’d put a few guns on the wheelchair…

Very happy Monday (West Ham fans should take the day off)

A xxxx