OMG! The Academy Awards are on this weekend! Are you as excited as I am? Then you're not excited at all.

The way I see it, all these hyped award ceremonies like the Emmys, the Grammys and the Oscars are just for showing off. By gathering a bunch of stars under one roof, they can show the world that America is the capital of show-business. Personally, I'm aware of this fact without all this garniture. In fact, it would not even bother me, if they wouldn't represent the biggest achievement in their particular line of the entertainment industry.

Winning an Oscar is one of the easiest things to do. As this website illustrates, you just have to play one of these characters in a movie that has an intellectual, heart-warming tone and a message. Plus, you need to pair up with a good director and a good script writer (they don't have to be great, good is enough), and you're good to go.

A couple of decades passed and people realised that the Academy Awards are not representing the biggest talents and the best movies; furthermore, there are a lot of other things you can watch on Sunday night now, so viewers started to wave goodbye to the ceremony a couple of years ago.

This lead the big thinkers behind the curtain into making some major changes. Hugh Jackman managed to get a couple of viewers back last year, so they wanted him to lead the ceremony again. He is not dumb, so he rejected the offer. Seriously, how can someone think it would be as interesting as last year's with the same guy dancing, singing and jumping around on stage. He did a fine job last year, we need to move on. That's it. The choice of Sacha Baron Cohen was understandable; he would've turned it into a huge scandal, just like he did with Eminem at the Grammys. In the end, they changed their mind because the sketch he wanted to do about Avatar freaked the directors out, even though Cameron would've been ok with it. I mean why do you want him to host if you don't let him do the thing why you've chosen him to lead in the first place. It's just illogical. Another alternative, Robert Downey Jr, showed more intelligence and vision from the organizers; unfortunately, he did not accept the invitation. Then came Ben Stiller as a candidate. That would've been mediocre, because he can always make a fool of himself, but everyone is tired of him by now. He did not want to do it either. What I don't understand is why their next choice wasn't Adam Sandler if they wanted someone with that type of humor. Anyhow, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin will be the captains of the sinking boat this Sunday night. The decision makers decided to pull out an old trick, because the multiple hosts idea was last exercised in the Chevy Chase era. I'd say this was a good decision because Alec Baldwin happens to be one of my favorite actors, but they definitely won't draw more viewers before their television. They do not possess, even together, as much fame as Downey does on his own. Also, they're old, which is not appealing to too many teenagers.

To compensate the hosts' age, they tried to draw the attention of youngsters by adding such names to the list of presenters as Kristen Stewart, Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron. This is an evident, but good business move.

So much about stars. The show's outline and the number of nominees have also changed this year. They raised the number of nominees for best movie from 5 to 10. Yes, they're that desparate. I really don't understand what difference it makes. I would not even nominate 5 out of the 10 they did, and the fact that 500 Days of Summer did not make it into the top 10 while Up did, tells everything about the Oscars. Here comes the point where I fell out of my chair from laughing. They told the stars to save the thank you segment for later. After they received the statue, they go backstage to record a thank you movie, which they'll put on the official website. Who the heck wants to see that? Those that the person is thanking? If you want to take down a painting from the wall because it bothers everyone and it's just using up space, take it down and throw it out. Don't put it in another room.

Of course, the most important thing in an award like this is the liability of the judges. If they become influenced, the whole ceremony has no meaning anymore. The problem is that it has already happened this year. A producer of The Hurt Locker sent emails to voters asking them to side with his movie instead of Avatar. I agree with him, but this is unprofessional. The voters should know better than to choose Avatar anyway. The Hurt Locker took the best picture prize on all other ceremonies, so why should the AA be an exception? The Hurt Locker is also more likely to win because of the new tendency to appreciate low-budget and independent movies. Last year, Slumdog Millionaire won as a result of this tendency, since the AA was accused of not letting independent movies be recognized. This is sad, as it should've won anyway, since it's a better film than the other contestants were.

Just as a last thought, I'd like to share my biggest problem with the ceremony. Why do they only nominate movies that come out during the previous winter or autumn for the best movie award? This year, the oldest film is Up, which came out around July. How about Star Trek? If Avatar can be nominated based on its looks, why can't Star Trek, which, besides its eyepopping looks, had a much better storyline, script and cast than Avatar? This is why most of the good movies come out just before the Oscars and the audience is overwhelmed by them. Not to mention that, in other countries, people cannot enjoy the AA the same way Americans do, since the majority of the nominated movies do not even reach the cinemas before the ceremonies.

To stop my flow of thoughts before this posts gets even longer than this, let me just summarize the main points. The Oscars are always surrounded by a lot of controversy and scandal. The organizers are having a harder time than ever before. In addition to the usual debates, this year brought up several new issues with changes that will either raise the number of viewers or make it fall. Which one it is going to be, we'll find out on Sunday.