George C. Scott referred to the show as a "meat parade" almost fifty years ago and nothing has changed.
The Oscars get so many things wrong that it's more fun to talk about the various fuckups than the movies themselves.
Forrest Gump beats
Pulp Fiction. James Caan, Al Pacino, and Robert Duvall knock each other off in
The Godfather (no pun intended) and leave the way open for
Art fucking Carney as an old man traveling across the country with his cat. Alfred Hitchcock never won Best Director.
Brokeback Mountain loses to
Crash.
Return of the King wins Best Editing as part of the apologetic sweep, even though the places where massive scenes were cut to keep the running time under 4 hours are painfully obvious.
The Greatest Show on Earth beats
High Noon and
The Quiet Man for Best Picture. The list is endless.
Our alleged movie critic is pissing his pants over what's basically an industry award show that reads the cultural pulse of the nation about as accurately as fatso would be trying to find his way in the woods by the North Star.
EDIT: I have my years confused. The Corleone brothers weren't beat by Art Carney, but by Joel Grey in
Cabaret, which is at least defensible (although who watches
Cabaret these days?). Art Carney won for
Harry and Tonto in 1975, when he beat Albert Finney for
Murder on the Orient Express, Dustin Hoffman for
Lenny, Jack Nicholson for
Chinatown, and Al Pacino for
The Godfather Part II (which is where I got my wires crossed). So Carney's win is still a ridiculous goof.