The Oscars - No country for old grumps ...

IT’S Oscars weekend. The red carpets are being rolled out. The dresses will be let in — or out. Victory speeches are burning holes in the pockets of the hopeful nominees and gallons of champagne are on ice.

The frantic marketing departments of the various film studios don’t have long to wait to see if their lobbying has paid dividends and if their “project” will get the reward they insist it deserves.

It is hard not to be cynical about an event which so often honours the most dreadful tosh. Titanic got 11 Oscars, including best picture, in 1997.

It’s hard not to be sniffy about an event that is so obviously commercial but suggests that it is a consistory of peers deciding which film — or film-makers — deserves the industry’s highest artistic accolade.

However, even the briefest reference to the Oscars back catalogue will reassure all but the most sceptical that the process has considerable merit — check out the list of winners in 1962. That wonderful list of achievement will confirm that the golden statuettes do stand for something more than a ploy to put bums on seats.