Awards are essentially meaningless, like almost everything else in life.

Last year, as you might recall, I covered the Oscar telecast. I’ve been asked if I plan to do the same tonight, and the answer is probably not. I’m underwhelmed by a lot of this year’s nominees and don’t think it’d be much fun to write about them, though a last-minute change of mind is possible. (A last-minute change of mind is always possible, unless it’s about something like voting Republican.)

Also blasé about tonight’s ceremony: the normally excitable Robert Osborne, the reigning queen of Turner Classic Movies and a professional Oscar historian, who recently told The Chicago Sun-Times: “We forget that the importance of the Oscars is to award artistic achievement. I’m not sure it is anymore.” I’m with Osborne on two things — that the Best Supporting Actress push for Kate Winslet in The Reader was ridiculous (she ended up being nominated in the Best Actress category and is widely expected to win; I’d rather see Melissa Leo take it for Frozen River), and that it would be great if Frank Langella won Best Actor for Frost/Nixon.

Langella isn’t thought to stand a chance in the year of Milk and The Wrestler, but he’s my sentimental favorite because Oscars, as we all know, are often awarded not to the winning performance, but for a performance previously overlooked by the Academy. In my opinion, Langella deserved to win last year for Starting Out in the Evening, but his work in that film wasn’t recognized with a nomination. Honestly, I’m still shocked by that — how dare the Academy disrespect Count Dracula! Hopefully he makes the rounds at the after-parties tonight and bites all their necks.