And The Award For Worst Oscar® goes to...

It's 1942 and Orson Welles becomes the youngest director ever to win an Oscar® , taking the podium to rapturous applause after revolutionising his craft in Citizen Kane. Nearly 20 years later, Alfred Hitchcock finally receives his best director dues for Psycho, in compensation for being passed over five times previously. Leap forward another 30 years, and could that be Kevin Costner sitting glumly by as Martin Scorsese strides up to accept the golden statuette for GoodFellas? If only it could.

Perhaps there is an alternative reality where all this happened. Unfortunately, in our mundane slice of the multiverse, Orson Welles only bagged half an Oscar® for the script to Citizen Kane and Hitchcock never got that Best Director award. Even worse, Kevin Costner did.

You have to wonder why Hollywood is so exercised about winning an Oscar® when the history of Academy Awards turns up one travesty after another, as mediocrity, mendacity and the middlebrow repeatedly triumph. Who wants to live in a world where Driving Miss Daisy's take on the black American experience is judged more telling than Do The Right Thing? Why did we have the misbegotten luck to end up in the reality where the now largely forgotten Kramer Vs Kramer (ooh, divorce, controversial!) beat Apocalypse Now for Best Picture? Worse, Dennis Hopper didn't even win the award for Best Use Of The Word 'Man' In A Supporting Role.