The Nominations are In

Oscar nominations were announced yesterday morning, and so I now have that very silly sense of happiness about myself, having seen, appreciated, and championed most of the movies on the list. It doesn't make any sense that I should feel vindicated, but I do. As if I have anything to do with the making of these movies. Let alone the selection of the nominees, voting or results.

Oscar votes should be tallied using preferential voting, not winner-take-all. (Or maybe the Condorcet Method, which ranks nominees in relation to each other in a similar way.) This way, you get to vote first for Hellen Mirren in "The Queen," but you'd rather Kate Winslett win over Judi Dench if it comes to a runoff. You assign a ranking, ordering the nominees by number. The issue, of course, becomes that you end up with 100,000 voters (or however many there are) and maybe 75,000 sets of ordered numbers, but it gives you a clearer idea of who people actually want to win.

I don't pay too much attention to the winners, really. After all, I know how the voting works--it doesn't always happen like they say it does. Some years ago I sat down with a well-respected voter and her ballot and we checked things, seemingly at random, off the list. "Did you see that?" she would say. "Oh, so-and-so was in that?"

However, with Ellen Degeneres hosting, it should prove to be a fabulous party. You go girl.