So, the Oscar nominations are out, and I've decided that if Bill Murray wins for best actor, my faith in humanity will be restored, which is saying quite a bit, given the egregious behavior of SGS this week (and it's only Tuesday!). I will admit that out of the five films proffering actors for this category, I've only seen Pirates of the Caribbean, but we all know that the award for best actor isn't about the best single performance of the year, it's about the Academy realizing that a current nominee wasn't adequately rewarded for past good performances. Yes, this means that Bill Murray has been slighted by the Academy in the past (Rushmore anyone?). As for Depp's performance, he's a fine actor and deserves to win something at some point in his career, but for Pirates of the Caribbean? The whole film attempted (dumbly) to stand the genre of pirate films on its head and Depp's swishy interpretation was part of that, but turning the hero-pirate into someone of questionable sexual orientation seems, well, predictable and trite, especially when all of the other parts were cliché-perfect. If you think about it, Depp was also cliché-perfect, only his brand of cliché belonged in another film. Does he really deserve an award for that? In conclusion, going from one end the pirate-masculinity continuum to the other end, isn't original, it's boring. One piece of genius in the film though, was the garish hat that Orlando Bloom sported at the very end. Seeing as he is a member of the lower class attempting to look upper class, that hat, which made me gag, was perfect. Couldn't someone give an award to the hat? There must be a props award out there somewhere. I know that I sound like an academic reading too much into a dumb film. Then again, I am an academic and I enjoy reading too much into small things, it prevents me from actually living. -Zh.