The home-viewing options, although imperfect, are vast, and nothing could be easier than staying at home and watching Netflix at 8:00 or whatever other time might make my life simpler. Of course, Netflix is actually pretty lame, but in my life convenience now trumps quality, so instead of watching a movie I actually want to see like 12 Years a Slave, I end up binge-watching a TV show like New Girl. Such is the world that we, or at least, I, live in.

At any rate, Rachelle and I reached deep and mustered together enough will to go and see American Hustle at the theatre. This movie, directed by the successful but widely-despised-by-actors, David O. Russell, has been receiving all sorts of praise and is already a favourite to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

I liked the movie fine but was far from swept away. It’s a professionally crafted Hollywood film that features some big actors doing big acting in appealing wardrobe. Everybody is good, especially Amy Adams’ cleavage and Christian Bale’s hairpiece, but it’s one of those movies that actually looks better than it is.

The truth, I think, is that the movie was kind of incoherent, like a series of improvisations by talented actors that had later been stitched together by a director. It was as if Russell wasn’t thinking about how character and story fit together, but how each, individual scene would come across on it’s own. All the primary components of a film were showcased, without a film actually being composed from them, if that makes any sense.

Still, it was a pleasing enough experience, and in that regard it reminded me of Argo. Watching it, you felt like you were getting your money’s worth, that middlebrow Hollywood was functioning exactly as middlebrow Hollywood was supposed to function. The idea in Hollywood is to give the audience what they’re looking for, not to startle or elevate them, and movies like Argo and American Hustle are perfect examples of this—well made products where performance, the visible effort of performance, will always trump content. Regardless, the movie didn’t ask too much of us, and it didn’t give us too much either, but it was attractive and distracting, and on a cold, winter’s evening, well, that’s exactly what we want.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Wow.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Fucking wow.

@TOPDOGMAYOR:  Don’t think that guy will be finishing the race. What a shame. : (

@TOPDOGMAYOR: It breaks your heart when an athlete is injured like that.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Toronto salutes Boston, city of Bravery, Brawn, Brains and Beans and Lettuce.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: We are all Boston Beans today.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Fucking hate terrorists.

@TOPDOGMAOR: White or brown terrorists? Send in your votes!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Should decide this once and for all on the football grid, like men!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Who is your favourite football player? Free parking spot to person who submits best answer.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Authorities saying bomb was made from Crock Pot full of nails and BBs.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Like my Crock Pots to be full of chili. LOL.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Can’t believe they canceled Bruins-Pens game. Must be very serious situation.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Toronto, you are safe, I am at the helm.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Probably won’t go to Florida this week, but if I do, contact: councillor_dford@toronto.ca in case of emerg.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: So many heroes. Like that guy in the cowboy hat.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Free lifetime parking spot in Toronto for guy in cowboy hat!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: He is a cowboy, on a steel horse he rides! Guns N’ Roses, man, Guns N’ Roses.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Suspects in bombing ID’d!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Wouldn’t want to be wearing white ball cap in Beantown today!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Hope Ben Afflect makes movie about this. Argo ruled!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Now donning Red Sox baseball cap in honour of victims. Suggest you do the same.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Send poison in the mail to this Mayor, expect a world of trouble.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Elvis impersonator terrorists, I am watching you.

@TOPDODMAYOR: Some cop killed in wild shootout at Harvard!!!

@ TOPDOGMAYOR: Evil doers carjack classy Mercedes and knock-off 7-11!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: It’s like a Tarrantino flick. Completely fucking awesome.

@TOPDOFMAYOR: Heart goes out to family of fallen hero.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Hope guy with cowboy hat gets involved and kicks ass!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Really like to see Uma Thurman character involved, too.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Not a movie, but feels like movie.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: HUGE FUCKING SHOOT-OUT IN BEAN TOWN!!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: One Borat guy now dead, looking for other!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: All of Boston shut down! Fucking love Boston!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Love to be mayor of Boston. Got big, brass balls!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Dead guy was athlete. Shame when athlete dies young, even if terrorist athlete.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: @Dougford Can’t delete last Tweet. WTF???

@TOPDOGMAYOR: MAYOR FORD DOES NOT CONDONE TERRORISM IN ANY FORM, EVEN BY ATHLETES.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Other Borat now hiding in boat. On land. What a moron!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Interesting. Boston seems to be doing fine without mass transit. Must be saving a shitload.

@TOPDOGMAYOR: No vowels in the Borat names. Weird. How do you say them??

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Little Borat captured!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Great day for Boston, great day for freedom!!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: Bet they riot in streets in celebration! Love to be there!! Go Boston!!!

@TOPDOGMAYOR: USA!!USA!!!USA!!!

That’s an awful lot.

Obviously, this has nothing much to do with the quality of the films and everything to do with the marketing of the films. In order to feel invested and fully participatory in the event, we, as audience, go out to see as many nominees as possible– even if the movie happens to be Lincoln. It’s kind of like Black Friday for movies, only without discounts. What’s particularly funny about this cynical display is that one of the prime motivators for the audience in seeing the movies is to simply confirm  that we have MUCH better taste than the Academy. In fact, we will later Live-Tweet about what a horrible, self-congratulatory and vulgar spectacle it all is. But of course, we end up paying them for the privilege of doing so, rendering the ironies so plentiful that it actually gets tiring to think about them.

No matter, this year, the movie that most people are expecting to win for Best Picture is Argo. The film, for those of you who haven’t seen it, is based on the rescue of six US diplomats during the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979.

Personally, I think that the movie is fine and little more. The one thing that really stood out for me was the opening, a graphic novel kind of prologue in which the historical background for the movie was efficiently and elegantly set. I’d give them an award for that, but for the rest?

Meh.

But Argo probably will win.

Here’s why:

First off, the Academy has always favoured the historical, and this one is appealingly set in an era that all Academy members can vividly recall (they’re at the center of history!)– so for them the movie is kind of like flipping through an old high school yearbook. It’s a story told through the experience of white people, about the vulnerability of white people isolated by impenetrable dark-skinned people, getting rescued by white people.

In short, Argo champions idealized versions of the audience that’s watching the film.  This is a relatively typical Oscar construct though and should be considered practically boilerplate. Where Argo really scores with Academy voters is in embedding Hollywood into the core of the story.

In Argo, for this whole scheme to work, the CIA has to recruit Hollywood to make a fake film, one that will serve as cover so that the hostages can be rescued. Suddenly, people working in Hollywood get to see themselves in a kind of romantic, even noble light. Competent, funny and successful, they have brash, cynical exteriors, but pure hearts. Working in secrecy behind the scenes and out-smarting everyone they meet with impressive sangfroid, they’re the coolest people in the room—the work they’re doing important, rather than self-serving and shallow. And this speaks directly to the Academy voter, allowing them to imagine themselves  in the best possible light, so yes, if I had to bet, I would bet on Argo for Best Picture.