and the Wifey Goes to…

The Academy Awards are tonight. While the closest thing I have to a red carpet fashion show is getting the family dressed and out of the house on time to go to church, that doesn't mean that I can't have my own version of the Oscars – The Wifey.

Nominations are made by the Academy (aka "me") of movies I saw with the wife during 2010. The categories are created at my whim and winners are picked by a blue-ribbon panel consisting of me. No CPA firm was responsible for tabulating the votes. (Although isn't that a great moment at any awards show? Poindexter, Milhouse and Velma come out in ill-fitting tuxedos and evening gowns to represent their firm only to be greeted by a smattering of applause by the seat fillers in the audience. The only worse moment comes when some Urkel-looking dude reads the rules for the awards).

The wife and I have gone to quite a few movies in the last year ($5 movie night on Tuesdays has turned into a great weekly date night for us). So, without further ado, the 2011 Wifeys.

Category: Best Movie I Think I Understood But Not Sure I Can Explain to Anybody

• Inception…Was it a dream or not a dream? How did that little Juno girl get so smart? Why didn't they go back for Morpheus?
• Salt…Is Angelina Jolie a spy? Or is she just on a quest to find another kid to adopt?
• Valentine's Day…How can a movie with so many big name stars stink that much?
• And The Wifey goes to…Inception. The wife slept through a lot of it, so she didn't like it that much, but I thought it was great..I think.

Category: Best Comedy
There are no nominees here because comedies were terrible this year. Maybe Date Night was decent, but that was about it. With the exception of a few funny scenes in a couple of other movies, comedies in 2010 stunk "like a used diaper filled with Indian food" (Anchorman...now that was a funny movie).
Category: Best Looking Actress in Any Role

• Scarlett Johansson, Iron Man 2 – What was that Black Widow suit made out of anyway?
• Jennifer Aniston, Bounty Hunter – An otherwise unwatchable movie made slightly watchable by Aniston.
• Diane Lane, Secretariat – They tried to make her plain looking in this movie and could not do it.
• And the Wifey goes to…The wife.  The prettiest girl in the theater is always sitting next to me.  (How pathetic was that bit  of sucking up?)

Category: Worst Movie I Didn't See

• Little Fockers – Proof that legendary actors (DeNiro, Hoffman, Streisand) will do anything for a paycheck.
• Devil – We aren't getting pulled into movies anymore just because that announcer guy says "from the mind that brought you Sixth Sense".
• Anything by Nic Cage – Dude, I know you've got tax problems but you need to slow down. A disaster at a water treatment plant doesn't spew out as much crap as you do these days.
• And The Wifey goes to…Devil. Did the cast of Signs just decide that they would all either suck or go insane within ten years?

Category: Best Movie

• Inception – I think it was a modern classic. Unless I missed the point, in which case I can go back to not liking Leo DiCaprio.
• The Social Network – A movie about a jerk who got rich because people wanted to see how fat and ugly people from their high school had become. When does the Twitter dude get his movie?
• Secretariat – If you know how a movie ends and it still holds you and fascinates you (like Apollo 13) then that is a great movie.
• True Grit – Not too many great westerns these days, but this is the best one since 3:10 to Yuma. It's not only a great western, but a terrific movie, too.
• And the Wifey goes to…Inception. It was a creative story that was extremely well told and will be remembered long after Black Swan, The King's Speech and Hot Tub Time Machine have been forgotten (no, I didn't see any of those).

I'll let you know if we see anything good on our Tuesday date nights. By the way, right now the movie of the year is Unknown (Liam Neeson is a bad a$$).