Now that Oscar season is over, so is the battle for my favorite filmic facepalm, and it belongs to generally competent New York Times movie reviewer and easy target* A.O. Scott. In his piece bemoaning the influence of the Oscars on Hollywood, he wrote:

“Releasing ambitious, serious films into theaters has become a brutal blood sport.”

It isn’t that outlandish on its face, because it’s the kind of thing we’re used to hearing at this point, but maybe we should question why we’re used to hearing it, because it really is very silly.