10. The Dark Knight Gets Crapped On

The Dark Knight for Best Picture. Heath Ledger for Best Actor. It was supposed to be cut and dry. So when they announced the nominees and neither were the case, it was like when they used to put stickers in bags of chips and you got one of the duds that didn’t have one; you were cheated out your natural sense of closure. I know Heath Ledger won for Best Supporting Actor and his placement in that category is determined by his amount of screen time but we’re not talking about the Academy’s rules. We’re talking about about what I want.

9. Star Wars Gets No Love

The original Star Wars in 1977 lost Best Picture to Annie Hall; Empire and Jedi weren’t even nominated. But those movies would go on to become the yardstick by which we measure pop culture. So who is laughing now? Actually, in light of another three Star Wars movies, the joke’s on us. But if George Lucas really wants a statuette, I’m sure he can afford to mine the gold himself.

8. The Best Isn’t Good Enough for Rocky

The original Rocky won best picture for 1976. Director John G. Avildsen won Best Director. But Sylvester Stallone was passed over for Best Actor, and would not be nominated again either as actor, writer, or director for any of the rest of the series. They say it’s lonely at the top but I can’t imagine how it must feel for such genius to go unrecognized as is capable of drama as intense as Apollo Creed VS Ivan Drago.

7. Thelma & Louise… 2?

Back in 1991, both Geena Dave and Susan Sarandon were nominated for Best Actress for co-starring in Thelma and Louise. The general consensus was they cancelled each other out, and indeed neither actress won. The only fair thing to do here is obviously to get to work on a sequel and give these actresses another shot.

6. Scorsese Screwed

Martin Scorsese lost as Best Director five times: Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, and The Aviator. It’s not just that he lost five times, but that he lost for those five movies. He finally won for The Departed in 2006, but that was such a boring-ass year for movies that receiving a token award then was like getting a flea market Braveman action figure for Christmas when what you really wanted was the Batman Crime Alley playset.

5. Scarface VS Frank Lucas Gangster Face-Off

I still love hip hop but as a younger man, I took it to cartoonish lengths. In the early-to-mid 90s, I was a white youth going to school wearing a Public Enemy cap and Malcolm X shirt. Naturally, I was madd passionate about it when the Malcolm X movie was so good. It was a real rip-off for me on Oscar night when Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman beat Denzel Washington as Malcolm X for Best Actor. But now, having since discovered Scarface and The Godfather, I don’t mind quite as much.

4. Gone With the Wind wins Best Picture instead of The Wizard of Oz

I wasn’t even born yet in 1939 and even I felt the sting of it when Gone With The Wind was awarded the statuette. Wait a minute, were they handing out Oscar statuettes yet in 1939 or were they still handing out plaques? Either way, when Charlie Chaplin and Paul Newman opened the envelope at the Kodak Theatre and read the result for Best Picture, neither could hide his disgust and disappointment. Both would go on to retire from the movie business in protest. Many years later, Andy Warhol would revisit this incident as the subject matter for his film Terms of Endearment.

3. Y2K Misses Computers but Hits Movie-Goers

1999 was one of the best movie years ever. Fight Club, Magnolia, The Sixth Sense, Being John Malkovich, The Matrix, The Blair Witch Project, even The God Damned Jar Jar Binks Show AKA Star Wars Part One just for the event of it; all of these movies were released in the same year and American Beauty is what they shower with awards? Suburbia is depressing, alienating, and unfulfilling. What a newsflash! And how telling that for all of the people who saw this movie, eleven years later Stouffville is not getting any smaller.

2. Crash Gets Burned

Crash was a big winner for 2006 but it means nothing because Ludacris was not nominated for anything. When Ludacris let all of those Mexicans out of the back of the van, it’s as though the whole movie was leading up to that moment. It’s all anyone could talk about for 20 whole minutes on the ride home (yes, I was traveling by myself on public transit but that’s not the point. Neither is the looks I was getting from fellow subway passengers) did he fully redeem himself or just demonstrate that there’s hope for him yet? Ludacris deserved a Best Supporting Actor award. And then can you imagine if Terrence Howard had won Best Actor for Hustle & Flow the same year? That would have been gangsta.

1. Jim Varney is Continually Denied the Respect He Richly Deserves

Where is Jim Varney’s Honorary Award for a lifetime of commitment to the art of cinema? Ernest P. Worrell is surely one of the great movie franchises, and a character adored by all people around the world. With ten films, a television series, and countless guest appearances, Ernest has left an indelible impression on pop culture. And Jim Varney was also the voice of Slinkey Dog in BOTH Toy Story movies. With the third Toy Story arriving in theatres this year, now is a perfect time to honor a legend of show business, Mr. Jim Varney.

Now get your damn tux cleaned! It still smells like sweat from that wedding last year.