Chicago Tribune entertainment guy Mark Caro has written one of those “Oscar season sure is a long, arduous and costly process” articles. The quote I supplied is nothing new (I’ve expressed it repeatedly since HE began ten years ago) but it’s the only one in the piece with any esprit de corps.

My full quote: “Oscar-fixated journalism has been discredited to some extent because of the pathetic, consensus-driven taste of the Academy members when it comes to handing out Best Picture Oscars (The Artist, The King’s Speech, Argo). But award season is what movie lovers live for. Without award-season, the market for adult-appealing, review-dependent films would be much less vibrant. Award season, or the celebration of any and all films that aspire to do more than resort to CG-driven comic-book/superhero plots, is the only thing keeping good movies alive. Award season motivates the lowballers running the corporate-owned distributors to fund or release two or three high-aspiration films a year, and that’s something.”

Strategy’s Cynthia Swartz says that “award seasons give you an opportunity to create a certain kind of noise” but that “you have to balance that with how crowded the marketplace is and whether you think you’ll survive in that marketplace.” Okay. And Movie City News’ David Poland says that the studios’ strategy “is make money on the movie first and win awards second.” Uh-huh.