THE LISTS: My 5 Favorite Oscar Wins

I could go on about how this Oscar season has been a treacherous road from the start, or some other jargon you've heard dozens of times before and will likely hear dozens of times again. However, I felt applied towards a list for this occasion, and one that strays on the much more optimistic side of things. I've been watching the Academy Awards since March 24th, 2002, when the biggest award I remember was "Shrek" winning Best Animated Feature. Of course, the young mind will only remember that which is acquainted well with it, but since then I have had plenty of significant Oscar moments based on the phenomenon of who won.

In picking out five, I felt inclined to strip away the facade of what was most overwhelmingly deserving. As such, Heath Ledger's Best Supporting Actor win for his knife-edge performance in "The Dark Knight" didn't make the cut, because I didn't feel the moment. Everyone knew it was going to win, but to the point where nobody really cared as much as they should have when it happened. To me, this list always had to be about the passion I felt for the winners, sometimes at that moment, and others massively in retrospect. This night marks ten years in the game, however inadvertently, and I doubt a win will surface that disrupts one of these, but I remain optimistic that it will.

OSCAR 2011 PREDICTIONS: Original Score

The Academy bias going on this year is simply overwhelming. I wouldn't believe you if you handed me the list of nominees, unassociated with the Oscars, and told me the choices were made by more than just one person. There's simply no diversity going on here anymore. It's to be expected that they would hand two nominations to John Williams for work that honestly isn't that emotion drumming. And of course they're going to hand nods to "The Artist" and "Hugo". It's perfunctory at this point to hand as many nominations to the films at the head of the race. I'm just glad that something as low key as "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" managed to actually make it in.

But I was honestly surprised not to see Alexandre Desplat not here for his expansively emotional work on "Deathly Hallows: Part 2". The film grabbed a couple of nominations this year, or at least enough for the Academy to consider it a sufficient sendoff. Score seemed like an automatic in, or I at least expected Desplat to get in for something. Maybe "Ides of March", since that had quite a prolific anthem to it. One wishes some edge made its way into proceedings with "Hanna" or "Dragon Tattoo", but not so. The voting bodies aren't ones for things that stretch the boundaries of music. They're more interested in dutiful towing of the line.