Oscar? Never heard of him

Somewhere amidst balancing the many facets of my life -- work, blogging, married life, voting (...blogging at work, martial relations while voting... oh, and squirrels) -- I've managed to miss just about all of this year's Oscar-nominated films.

I did catch Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (best animated feature) and Crash (best film, best director). One I saw because my wife and I were babysitting our friends' four year old daughter and thought it would be an age-appropriate choice -- and the other because, well, I really dig that crazy claymation dog. (Child upon returning home after the matinee: "Mommy... what's a 'honky'?")

But other than those, I have a big-ass Oscar blind-spot this year. Which makes it kind of hard to do an Oscar-related post.

But maybe not impossible. Ignorance is behind many very unfortunate things this world: racial intolerance, homophobia, my lack of a writing job with the The Daily Show. But it's also behind two other occasionally amusing (though also unfortunate) things: Canadian politics and my imagination. So, I thought, why not combine the two and come up with some alternate Canadian politics plot summaries for Oscar films?

Fortunately for you, all I came up with was this:

The Corpse Bride: After a series of failed marriages, an aging political party dies... or does she? Her would-be suitors aren't quite sure. Slapstick hilarity ensues as they all jockey for position to be first on the scene if she's got a pulse... but without committing in case she doesn't, lest they be whisked away to the Land of the Dead. Cameo performances by Nick Nolte and Gavin MacLeod as the voices of feuding ex-husbands, Jean and Paul.

Why not, indeed. And the award goes to... somebody other than me.

And apart from that dud, there was nothing else in the cinematopolitical vault. Mercer has already done the Brokeback Martin thing. And a variation starring Scott Brison was a bit too cheap, even for me (which is the same reason why I opted not to touch Cinderella Man).

March of the Penguins vaguely reminded me of the Quebec sovereignty movement -- something about the incessant squawking and stunningly persistent devotion to a fragile cause (oh yeah, and because Jacques Parizeau has always reminded me of a certain Batman villain). But I'm not quite ready to have my blogue angrily quoted in the National Assembly, so j'ose pas.

And titles like Pride and Prejudice and Walk the Line held obvious potential for something Emerson-esque, but that's a film we've all seen a few too many times.

I thought about throwing together a few more Bollywood subtitle films. But after my first six and a very disturbing seventh, my therapist says I need to lay off those for a while. Like curry, too much can cause gastric distress.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there will be no more from me on this Oscar night. Well, not here, anyway -- I'm sure I'll have my Oscar party guests in stitches. Well, it's just me and the wife, but she thinks I'm pretty funny, or at least pretends to. (Glad I insisted on the obscure 'love, honour and patronize' variation on the traditional wedding vows.)

So, go on and watch the big show. It's hosted by Jon Stewart. His stuff will be funnier than anything I could have come up with anyway. And he had to shell out for the tux, so it's the least you could do.

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