oscars

The Colorado Rockies nearly knocked themselves cold into a terrible season with the their first play in the field during a meaningless spring training game. The price for that disaster being averted is having to live through 3 1/2 hours of James Franco being James Franco.

With Carmelo Anthony all but gone attention in Denver can finally turn to where it belongs, the Colorado Rockies. Meanwhile, our trek through Oscar-nominated movies continues.

The Oscar nominations gave way too much love to The King's Speech, not enough love to Black Swan and plenty of love to The Social Network, but being the rather anti-social computer-geek type, it just sort of shrugged and said it didn't care about stupid awards.

Avatar not winning Best Picture is a dream come true, but like dreams, the accompanying joy is a fleeting, misty feeling that has nearly dissipated. The Hurt Locker was a historic and flawless, but was it really the Best Picture? What is the definition of a Best Picture anyway?

What might turn out to be the final year of five Best Picture nominees was one of the best arguments for expanding the field. Two quality box office successes -- WALL-E and The Dark Knight were left off the list while the field was made up of movies that earned their nominations based on expectations (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, (Frost/Nixon) or marketing (The Reader) rather than critical reputation (Slumdog Millionaire, Milk). Ten nominees might have changed the winner.