Bourland spoke to us from his sister's house in Austin about the brilliance of "Starman," why Roger Ebert rules, and what drives a man to such lengths.

Was this a hobby or an obsession?

It started as a hobby, and at some point I just realized: If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it well. I feel pretty good about how it turned out. If somebody can do better, then go ahead and spend about nine or 10 years doing it.

What was your method for ordering such a massive list?

I strived to find a consensus between what fans, critics and the movie industry thought — I attempted to synthesize all those opinions. There are people who will look at my list and see their favorite movie is No. 784. I want people to understand that I haven't judged these films. It's not a personal Brad Bourland list. This is what Brad Bourland believes the number has proven to be, and that includes hundreds and hundreds of hours reading critiques from professional film critics, trying to understand how they saw things the way they did, what they're looking for, what they're hoping not to see, and so on.

Who is the best movie critic you've come across?

Roger Ebert is the greatest. I cannot tell you how fair Roger Ebert is. He excels at fairness. There are other critics just as schooled in filmmaking, but their critiques are not taken quite as seriously because they're not even trying to be fair. They've got it in for this director, or they don’t like anything this actor does, and so on.

Which film is the most underrated?

"Being John Malkovich" [No. 502]. It's different and brilliant. It's probably the best acting John Cusack ever did.

Did you agonize over placing, for example, No. 7501, "Lord of the Flies," above No. 7502, "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit"?

Somewhere between 2,500 to 3,500 it becomes somewhat subjective, but I kept applying the same exact rule that helped me put the first 3,000 together, and I think it worked. As long as I stuck to my method, I stayed on track. If it's an important movie, you can bet I listened to what 200 people had to say about it. In the end, I had to make the decision, but it was with lots of input from people who know movies. If a film's in the top 500, I've probably seen it 10 times because I wanted to be sure.

What's your favorite film on the list?

John Carpenter's "Starman" [No. 1,057] from 1984 is probably the film closest to my heart. There's an internal logic to "Starman" that is undeniable. I have watched that movie about 20 times over the years, and every single thing that Jeff Bridges' character, an alien trying to be human, does in that movie — whatever he says, whatever facial expressions he makes, whatever gestures he makes — he has been shown that action before. There's nothing he does out of left field. It's a brilliant piece of scriptwriting. They also have music passages for him, the lady he's in love with, and a third set of notes that go together for them. It's an old device, but it worked well. Carpenter put it together perfectly. I wish I could put it higher on the list, but I can't justify it.

How many of these films have you seen?

Fortunately in the last five years I've had the opportunity to see probably 6,000 to 7,000 of them. I would like to see them all. Unfortunately, some of the foreign ones, like the Australian and old British movies, are hard to see in America.

When you started this project, the Internet wasn't as prevalent as it is today. Has the Internet made your list redundant?

That is possible. But I still think my list is useful, especially to those who are looking for obscure movies — it's got a lot of those. I'd be the first person to tell you that the order is really not that important. What is most important is that the right movies are on this list. IMDb's been around before I got started, and they've got a great catalog of just about everything in the world. Generally, though, my ratings are more accurate than IMDb, for one reason: IMDb is really, really heavy on teenagers and testosterone.

Are you a list maker? Did you ever make lists as a child?

I've never made one in my life. This is it. I have an analytical mind, I guess, and it served this project.

Was there ever a point you felt like giving up?

About a thousand times. There were at least four or five times I thought to myself, "This is insane, why would anybody do this?" But I just kept going. I was going to ride it until it was done. I lost the entire project in 2003 and had to start over again. There were times it was like a ball and chain, but 90 percent of the time I couldn't wait to work on it the next day.

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"Soo: Revenge for a Twisted Fate," a South Korean crime movie, gives us lots and lots of blood, but spares us the cannibalism. However, even without the devouring of human hearts, "Soo" is a film of sometimes shocking brutality. Legs are driven over by Hyundai Sonatas and ears are ripped off with a kind of abruptness that recalls Lee Marvin's ass-kicking rampage in John Boorman's "Point Blank" (the two films are also similar thematically). There's also a scene where a man's throat is cut, not deeply enough to kill him, but just enough to look painful as all hell while he staggers around bleeding. The violence just happens here. There's no need for Japanese director Yoichi Sai ("Kamui Gaiden") to dwell on any of it, because there will always be more later on.

Tae-soo (Ji Jin-hee) is a freelance criminal obsessed with finding his long-lost twin brother, Tae-jin. As the two brothers are crossing the street for what should be a tearful reunion, Tae-jin is shot through the head by an assassin from a nearby rooftop. Tae-soo takes his brother's corpse, puts it on ice in his bathtub for a few days, and then secretly buries it when it starts to go bad. After going through Tae-jin's apartment, Tae-soo assumes his brother's identity as a potentially corrupt homicide detective. This is an interesting idea that's never given enough time to breath here as "Soo" (both the movie and its title character) are more concerned with revenge than the concept of stepping into a dead man's shoes.

When Tae-soo finds the combine responsible for putting the hit on his brother, he storms their headquarters in a gory conclusion that feels like what would happen if the ending of "Taxi Driver" went on for 15 extra minutes of carnage. Korea must have really strict gun control laws because gunplay is held to a minimum, but lots of hatchet men (some of whom actually carry hatchets) are stabbed with all manner of sharp objects. In addition to the usual sharkskin suit-wearing thugs, Tae-soo is plagued by creepy knife-wielding kids for good measure.

While "Soo" delivers revenge by the bucketful, the abruptness of its violence keeps the movie from building any kind of suspense and makes its storytelling somewhat confusing. Although I hate to advocate the remaking of Asian crime movies by American directors, "Soo" is an imperfect but interesting film that could provide strong source material for any future Scorseses or Tarantinos (or even the current ones).

Both more flawed and more interesting than "Soo" is "Righteous Ties," a uniquely Korean hybrid of earnest gangster melodrama and absurdist prison comedy that surprisingly works better as the latter than the former. Chi-sung (Jeong Jae-yeong) is the right hand man and leg stabber for mob boss Kim Yong-hee. You can't call him a leg breaker because Chi-sung really does stab guys in the leg. "We stab him seven times in the leg," Chi-sung explains. "We let him live, but with a bad leg."

During a botched errand of thigh stabbing, Chi-sung is arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. His fellow inmates include an old communist, a serial killer, some assorted oddballs and a gangland badass who was thought to have been hanged but still lives due to a stay of execution. After Chi-sung is thrown into solitary confinement for laying waste to a mob of tattooed thugs with his tae kwon do kicks, his reputation as a top "slasher" grows through cellblock gossip. "I heard he took care of a dozen men in the subway at Mokpo," one convict says. "I didn't know they had subways in Mokpo," a disbelieving cellmate replies.

It's during this section of the film that "Righteous Ties" veers away from Mafia movie shtick and almost becomes the South Korean equivalent to Jim Jarmusch's "Down by Law." Scenes of Chi-sung reluctantly passing messages in solitary between the old commie and the psycho killer are actually, I shit you not, really funny. "What is this? Starbucks?" Chi-sung quips as the two prisoners on either side of his cell urge him to relay their innermost thoughts. By the time the tough hitman is reduced to being a chatty old hen, I was thinking that this is a movie that everyone has to see.

Unfortunately, extreme sentimentality rises up and almost chokes the life out of the movie. Chi-sung's parents are killed by one of his stabbing victims. His boss not only does nothing about it but orders Chi-Sung's death in order to close a business deal. On top of that, Chi-Sung's best friend, Joo-joong (Jung Joon-ho), is now the right hand man and must choose between loyalty to his boss or his best friend. This is pretty emotional stuff for a movie that also gives us cartoonish scenes of convicts piling up against a concrete prison wall in an escape attempt that's as ridiculous as it sounds. There are some pretty good laughs as the film heads into its third act, but the absurdist impulses that work battle it out with teary-eyed montages that don't for the remainder of its runtime.

Of course, if director Jin Jang ("Murder Take One") had pulled off this balancing act between heavy drama and odd comedy, "Righteous Ties" would be greatly influencing cinema on both sides of the Pacific even as we speak. Adding to the film's strange mix, "Righteous Ties" begins with a quote from Robert Frost's "Lodged" superimposed over a shot of a jet fighter streaking across the clear blue sky. "Rain to the wind said, 'You push and I'll pelt,'" the quotation reads. Although one of the characters says this before heading into the movie's climactic fight scene, it seems to say more about the film's own dichotomy than anything in it.

"Righteous Ties" and "Soo" originally came out in 2006 and 2007 respectively, but are just now being released on DVD by Virgil Films with English box art for the United States market. Although neither film quite lives up to its full potential, the fact that these things even have potential will make me keep an eye on this distributor's Korean releases. In the meantime, there's plenty of weird. They just sent me a screener for a Korean historical epic called "Once Upon a Time in a Battlefield." According the film's Wikipedia entry, it's a comedy about a 7th-century battle where the main hero "is forced to kill his family in fear of something worse to happen to them."

Not because she's not talented, but because she's an overweight African-American girl in Hollywood. I think we all know the odds there. E! Online mentioned that Sidibe is already working on a Showtime drama starring Laura Linney, but if anyone's wondering when her next big movie role is, I think you're going to be waiting for a long time.

People are attacking Stern for his comments, but they're not bringing up the elephant in the room -- the truth. Normally, when a woman is nominated for best lead actress for her film debut, she's stepping over offers left and right.

Now, it's possible that Sidibe is working on her television show and so hasn't been able to commit to another project yet ... but let's be honest, I think that's doubtful.

She's had to dodge questions about future movies on countless television shows.

Sidibe's only project listed on IMDb is another independent film, like "Precious" was, and based on the description it sounds a little like typecasting. In comparison, the traditionally pretty Carey Mulligan, also nominated for her film "An Education" this year, is dating Shia LaBeouf and starring in the "Wall Street" sequel coming out this spring.

Rather than rail against Stern, why don't producers prove him wrong and hire the girl?

Because there simply aren't roles for her, that's why.

It's become a sad tradition that African-American Academy Award winners tend to fade out of sight once they win. Yes, there are exceptions (Denzel Washington comes to mind), but think of all the stars who received a nomination or award and then never made it back to the red carpet.

Halle Berry hasn't been able to match her "Monster's Ball" acclaim. Jennifer Hudson settled for small roles in "Sex and the City" and "The Secret Life of Bees." Forrest Whitaker turned in a revelatory performance in "The Last King of Scotland" and then did a guest spot on "ER."

It's not uncommon for people to go into professional paralysis after receiving such a high honor. All of the people I just listed took a few steps back in their careers after the Oscars, but Sidibe's career doesn't seem to be going anywhere at all.

This is because on top of being a minority actress in Hollywood, she's also overweight. Like it or not, nobody's tripping over themselves to write movies for overweight African-American girls.

I give Howard Stern credit for at least pointing out that it's ridiculous to have a bunch of celebrities who weigh 8 pounds stand onstage at the Oscars and say Sidibe has a long, A-list career ahead of her.

I'd still like to see Hollywood prove him wrong.

We sat in the garden and talked of many things -- life, music, movies, family. Personally, I think this first conversation between an actor and filmmaker is the most important one. Nothing creative need come out of this first meeting -- for nothing is more important than both actor and director getting a mutual sense of comfort and understanding about some basic philosophical things. If the air is muddy early -- if a basic air of unease permeates things from the beginning -- it will never get better.

When our talk finally turned to the script, Andy did something I'll never forget. Rather than getting into a long talk about the character of Vince, he stood up and said he'd thought of something that Vince might do at the end of the movie, when the whole family is exploding in confessions about their secret lives. I watched and waited ... and then Andy twirled around in pain, agony and exhaustion and sat down on the ground holding his head, defeated and incongruously (and literally) floored. The gesture was perfect -- both humorous and genuinely pained. In a sense, we never needed to discuss much about Vince again -- this is the kind of  thing that lets you know an actor truly "gets it." The gesture survives -- it's in the movie and it works wonderfully well.

Before the day was over, we'd made another kind of connection. Both of us are, essentially, entrepreneurial in spirit; I have never thought of myself as working "for" anyone (to my own detriment at times, but still, that's who I am) and have always looked at every movie as a sort of start-up business, one that with a few good breaks will turn into the long-awaited cash cow that all entrepreneurs dream of.

And Andy is not just an actor. He's a producer, a filmmaker, a musician and a supporter of anything in those fields he believes in. My feeling was that, between us, we were sitting with most of the firepower we needed, if it was harnessed correctly. So without much thought about it beforehand, I simply proposed that he and I become partners -- co-producers -- on the movie. Together we would find a way to mount it -- cast it, finance it, the whole thing. Remember, we had nothing but a script, a director and an actor. But the actor was so right for the script ... and the director came cheap.

First stop would be letting some of the better companies know that Andy was attached to a new project -- a script that we both thought would be regarded not as an "art film" but as a highly accessible family comedy. Our lives would be considerably easier if Sony, say, or Fox Searchlight jumped on board and helped pull the movie together.

I believe we went out to Sony, Fox Searchlight and Paramount Vantage. All three passed. Now, while this isn't unusual at all -- what's truly unusual is when they want to do something -- it still always chips away at a little bit of your heart. It's like somebody turning down your kid for something your kid wants to do. (Like maybe he wants in on the wrestling team but is too wimpy? I don't know -- you know the feeling I'm getting at.)

To put what a "pass" truly means into perspective, let me jump ahead about three years to just a couple of months ago. I'm sitting down with an executive at a production company on the Warner Bros. lot. "City Island" is by now a finished film, which she likes. In fact, the executive tells me, she read it back when it was submitted to Paramount Vantage, where she was then an executive. She thought it was terrific back then and knew it would make a good movie.

I couldn't help but ask: "Then why did you guys pass on it?"

She shook her head, threw her hands up and said words to the effect of: "Changes in executive structure ... in-house priorities changing ... company wanting to go in a different direction ..." Et cetera. In other words, it had little if anything to do with my script and star. And this is probably the truth -- that most things don't happen in Hollywood simply because the white noise of the business creates its own chaos and confusion and it's easier to simply ... pass.

I suggested that we send it out to some actors for other roles and start building up the cast. Andy agreed and we brought in Sheila Jaffe, who had cast my previous films, to start helping us with a list of names and some ideas as to availabilities. One of Andy's best traits emerged here -- that of being completely behind the material and willing to reach into his phone book if necessary to get the script out to actors he knew. It's a little hard for me to remember all the names now, but two of the early submissions we made were to Michelle Pfeiffer (for the role of his wife) and Justin Timberlake for the role of his son. Timberlake knew Andy and got back -- via his manager -- fairly quickly to say that he liked the script but was about to begin an endless tour and so couldn't commit. Fine. A nice pass, but a pass nonetheless.

The real surprise, though, was Michelle Pfeiffer. I think she was our very first stop and her CAA agent called to say that she liked it. It wasn't exactly a "yes" -- more of a "Wait and see ... she's reading other things ... liked the script and likes Andy." (The two had worked together once before.)

And then, after a few weeks of nothing, she passed as well.

And then, in what seemed like a flash, two different actors suddenly expressed interest, which led to a third actor expressing interest. Marcia Gay Harden read it and liked the role of the wife. Chloë Sevigny read it and liked it (for the role of Molly, Vince’s muse and acting class partner). And Marcia Gay Harden's agent also represented a young actor named Steven Strait, who wanted to meet me about the role of Vince's older son.

I met Marcia Gay Harden at the Four Seasons Hotel in L.A., where she was getting ready to do a slew of promotions for a very good movie she did with Richard Gere called "Hoax" (concerning the author Clifford Irving, who wrote a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes). It must have been mid-morning on a weekend, because the dining room/salon was eerily empty -- she walked in looking around a little perplexed, as if everyone had been evacuated for some reason.

We introduced ourselves, I told her how much I liked her work, she said nice things about the script. And then an interesting thing happened: She began to interview me. Or so it seemed. Rather than let the meeting be about me checking her out for the role (which it never really was to begin with), she made sure -- with grace and skill -- that the shoe was on the other foot; was I a clear-headed, together enough filmmaker for her to be willing to work with -- that seemed to be the guiding vibe of the first part of our conversation. I love when actors take situations in their own hands and so I was more entranced by the shift than thrown by it. After awhile we seemed to relax into everyday stuff. I remember talking with her about her kids, my son, where she lived in New York, etc. She was at once frank, funny and just self-protective enough to send you a clear message: She didn't go where she wasn't comfortable. No way.

Fortunately, she was comfortable enough to allow us to go ahead and use her name to help get the movie up and going. She was excited, I was delighted.

Next I met Steven Strait. Since the Four Seasons had been good luck for me with MGH, I suggested it as a possible meeting spot. The time was early evening on a Saturday. This time the place was jammed. Loud. Oppressive. As showbizzy and uptight and see-and-be-seen, if-you're-nobody-then-piss off, as you could imagine. I instantly regretted the choice -- this young actor whom I'd never met would no doubt think I was yet another glad-handing, West Hollywood-cruising, scene-making, showbiz-addicted wannabe. Indeed, I remember thinking to myself, maybe I really was all of those things and it was time to face who I'd become.

Fortunately Steven -- young in years, aged in wisdom and serenity -- didn't seem to care one way or the other. He is such a commanding presence -- not just because of his super-handsomeness, but because of his aforementioned calm, his sweet and accepting nature -- that the role reversal here was similar to my meeting with Marcia but for different reasons. People looked at us, wondering who the middle-aged shlub was, lucky enough to be sitting and hanging out with the young handsome actor who was in that caveman movie. I'm sure most of them thought I was a publicist of some sort. Or, more likely, a journalist in search of a raggy little interview ...

Next was Chloë Sevigny. I bet you think I met her at the Four Seasons. Well, no. She was in L.A., doing publicity for "Big Love" and they'd put her at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset. So we met there. This time, Andy Garcia accompanied me and I remember sitting out in the pretty, smog-choked patio garden talking with her about the role of Molly. She liked the script and liked the other cast we had.

There was one thing about Chloë that I remember thinking was a just a bit ... well, let's not say strange, since we are talking about the costar of Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" and so strange is perhaps to be expected. I remember thinking, though, that there was a slight tinge of puzzlement, of not quite seeming to know why we were so interested in her for the movie. She was demure about her abilities -- charmingly so and incorrectly, I think -- and didn't delve deeply into the script or role. Things stayed pleasant and on the surface. It didn't bother me and at the time I put it down to actor insecurity -- actors really do come in all shapes and sizes and not everyone has the personal command of Marcia Gay Harden, or the cool charm of Andy Garcia.

So we had four great actors attached to our script. It was early fall, 2007. We'd been at work on the project, Andy and I, for almost a year. Not a bad place to have gotten to. Alas, still not one red cent toward production seemed to be in view.

If the Oscars actually meant anything of consequence, last night's verdict would be tragic. But they don't, haven't ever, and this is example 753 (approximately, your results may vary) of why.

In essence: The one year the academy awards the plucky underdog "indie," it is the wrong "indie," in the wrong year.

But should we expect anything more? The Oscars are, as ever, a shabby high school popularity contest and a new, soon-to-be-forgotten head of student council has just been elected: Long live the King of the World. He wuz robbed by Tracy Flick.

 Erik Nelson is the director of the Harlan Ellison documentary "Dreams With Sharp Teeth," and the producer of Werner Herzog's Oscar-nominated "Encounters at the End of the World," along with other films and TV programs. 

"The Hurt Locker": Far superior to "The Deer Hunter"

It was a terrible program, but I'm happy about the awards. Politically speaking, supporting "The Hurt Locker" certainly beats the support given to an atrocity like "The Deer Hunter" or even the recognition given to "Hearts and Minds" that should have gone to "Winter Soldier" two years earlier or "In the Year of the Pig" six years earlier. The clear boost given to serious and relatively independent work over studio fluff is a decided improvement over the usual Academy taste.

Jonathan Rosenbaum is the longtime film critic for the Chicago Reader and the author of "Essential Cinema," "Movies as Politics," "Discovering Orson Welles" and other books.

 Indie film's coffin is lined with shiny Oscars

Last night's Oscars were so dull and out of step with the present that I could barely keep my eyes open. It took me back to my youth, when I could never stay awake watching them.

The opening number felt like a high school spoof of the Spirit Awards. Shouldn't a celebration of art and entertainment aim to contextualize all that is great about this Dream Factory? OK, if they can't figure out how to do that, I would be fine with several hours of crass puns like the song-and-dance intro promised -- but no. We get four hours of dullness instead. The fun of the show becomes critiquing all the mistakes.

There should be a semiotics class devoted to the moment when Kathryn Bigelow won best director. First Barbra Streisand hogged the spotlight by not announcing Bigelow's name but instead taking the moment for herself to announce that history had been made. And then the show's directors had the gall to play "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar" in the background?! I guess they wanted to show they had balls. She so deserved it, they knew she would win, and they come up with something "cute" and antiquated to comment on it? I may be an old white straight guy, but the show gave my group a bad name.

Most of all, the Oscars felt like a nightmare. 2010 will be remembered as the year the indie film infrastructure truly collapsed, yet -- again! -- indies took every possible award for which they were viable. The lack of a support structure or financial model for the majority of these films will be what prevents subsequent sweeps in the years ahead. Since the indie way produces superior creative work, you'd think Hollywood would make it a priority to find a way to keep indie films alive. Whether it be fair acquisition fees, accounting to encourage sustainable-equity investment, producer overhead deals, or just trust in their collaborators, it would be nice if something was left of the old ways to give hope for indie film's future. Instead, I can't help but suspect the Powers That Be must resign themselves to the fact that if they want studios to win Oscars again, they have to kill off indies completely. I think I heard the hammer hitting the nail of indie's coffin last night. Here's hoping I am not buried in it.

Ted Hope is the producer or executive producer of many films, including "Adventureland," "Friends With Money," "American Splendor" and "In the Bedroom." He blogs at Truly Free Film, where an earlier version of this post first appeared.

The Oscars' identity crisis

The show seemed incredibly misguided. They had an impressive opening production number from hosting pro Neil Patrick Harris ... and then didn't have him host. They tried pandering to a younger demographic by getting Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Miley Cyrus and Amanda Seyfried to show up ... and recite the same canned patter as presenters twice their age. They mounted a tribute to horror films ... filled with movies that stretch the definition of "horror," and with virtually no acknowledgment of the accomplished horror films of 2009. They rushed through the best song nominees without performances ... but made time for wholly mismatched dance numbers to the nominated scores. I spent the whole ceremony baffled by the producers' choices.

Josh Bell is an editor at Las Vegas Weekly.

The gawdy spectacle turns out to be ... discerning?

There was a kind of pseudo nightclub atmosphere, but the attempt at intimacy never works. Everyone's just a little too stiff. And the whole thing is undone by the eclecticism of trying to please so many different constituencies. But the willingness to give so many awards to "The Hurt Locker" made up for a lot. Not just best picture and director but also best sound and screenplay, almost bafflingly discerning. And I did love the merging of actual screenplays with the scenes described.

Molly Haskell is an author and critic. Her books include "From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies," "Frankly My Dear: 'Gone With the Wind' Revisited" and the memoir "Love and Other Infectious Diseases."

"Avatar" is a phenomenon, not a work of art

I’ve had a strong personal and critical affinity for Kathryn Bigelow since "Near Dark." Her kinetic, abstract and lyrical style of action filmmaking is something to behold.

I saw the second public performance at Toronto about 18 months ago, and I thought it was an intelligent, gripping, extraordinarily vivid style of filmmaking. I hope it encourages people to look at Bigelow's earlier work (and finally get good DVD transfers of "Near Dark," "Blue Steel" and "Strange Days.")

"Avatar" is a phenomenon, but it’s seriously flawed and problematic as a work of movie art, and it didn’t deserve to win the best director or best film prize. I have serious problems with it winning for best cinematography. Don’t get me wrong, I think Mauro Fiore is a very talented cinematographer who’s very good at capturing motion and activity. But so much of the visual design is a production of computer graphics, animation art and other hybrid technology, it’s a bit of a stretch to give the award for that.

The most appalling part, though, was the manner by which Roger Corman and Gordon Willis got seriously shortchanged, their contributions not properly acknowledged. Corman is a significant artist, a talented filmmaker in his own right, who is largely responsible for the careers of such varied and imposing directors as Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, Ron Howard, Jonathan Kaplan and John Sayles (those are the ones who immediately come to mind).

Willis shot Coppola’s "Godfather" trilogy and Woody Allen’s major artistic breakthroughs, "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan." It just seems wrong on so many levels to downplay their historical and cultural accomplishments, and not give them a chance to be heard or really even seen.

As happy as I was, to a point, about the awards, there was very little excitement or drama in the presentation; it had no real structure or identity, beginning, again, as a kind of ersatz Vegas dinner show and going downward. The writing was largely bloodless and stale; the television direction was also very uninspired. I was struck by how little energy was present.

Patrick Z. McGavin is a freelance critic and blogger.

But enough! Basta! Even the most ardent, Bazin-quoting, Buñuel-loving film snob has to admit there's one undeniable, if slightly morbid, reason to stop worrying and love the Oscars: "In Memoriam," the annual tribute to the movie giants who have passed away over the previous year. "In Memoriam" is the mother of all greatest-hits montages, a four-minute lesson in film history. As golden moments from our collective movie memory fill the screen of the Kodak Theatre, it's like stepping into the final scene of Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso," where the censored clips from classic movie romances wash across the hero's eyes in a tidal wave of nostalgia. Unrepentant sentimentality suddenly feels appropriate. Exuberant expressions of gratitude cut any lingering traces of sarcasm or snark like a machete. "Wasn't Alec Guinness an actor of uncommon grace and versatility?" you might reflect. "Was Richard Widmark not the most badass villain who ever graced the silver screen?" Film nerd-dom reigns.

This year's segment should continue the trend. Over the past 12 months, we lost the sublime Eric Rohmer, the effortlessly intelligent Natasha Richardson and legendary film composer Maurice Jarre. We saw the passing of teen movie maverick John Hughes, "On the Waterfront" screenwriter Budd Schulberg and actress Jennifer Jones, who received a staggering four consecutive best-actress nominations in the 1940s, and won for "The Song of Bernadette." The thought of Sunday's tribute is enough to give any movie lover a case of premature nostalgia, remembering the event before it has even occurred.

The cinema's remarkable power as a vessel for nostalgia is precisely what gives "In Memoriam" its emotional charge. The medium has an unparalleled capacity to capture an artist's creative spirit in its prime, preserving its essence for posterity. As critic Philip Lopate once observed in an essay on the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, "perhaps there is something in the very nature of film, whose images live or die by projected beams of light, that courts the invisible, the otherwordly." Dreyer was no fan of montages, believing that a certain spiritual and aesthetic stillness was integral to the movie camera's mission, but he might have made an exception for "In Memoriam." Its crystalline images and smooth dissolves echo the Great Dane's efforts "to record the motions of the soul."

Or maybe "In Memoriam" is just an elegant way to give whoever's hosting the Oscars a bathroom break before throwing to a Doritos commercial. Whatever the reason for its inclusion in the Academy Awards, it's a welcome reassurance that, warts and all, they remain a wonderful celebration of the movies. As the segment's last image fades to black, we may find our critical synapses reigniting: "Why did they devote 30 seconds to George Harrison but only three to Akira Kurosawa? Did they really leave out Brad Renfro and Robert Goulet?" But even then, caught in the most dyspeptic throes of Oscar angst, we are as inextricably tied to this annual ritual as Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar were to their yearly trips to Brokeback Mountain. "You are too much for me, Oscar," we yell at the TV every year. "I wish I knew how to quit you." "In Memoriam" reminds us why we never do.