The Academy is out of touch with the general movie-watching public

The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) must have a sign hanging outside their door: "No wizards, witches, puppets, mutants, bridesmaids, drivers, or samurais allowed!" Because these are the films they nominated for the Best Picture Oscar this year:

• The Artist
• The Descendants
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
• Hugo
• Midnight in Paris
• The Help
• Moneyball
• War Horse
• The Tree of Life

Not only are these nine films not in the general movie-going top 10, according to the box office numbers for 2011:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 - $381,011,219
2. Transformers: Dark of the Moon - $352,390,543
3. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 - $281,287,133
4. The Hangover Part II - $254,464,305
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - $241,071,802
6. Fast Five - $209,837,675
7. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - $207,533,800
8. Cars 2 - $191,452,396
9. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - $185,538,618
10. Thor - $181,030,624

But they are also not in the general movie-critic's top 10. This is what RottenTomatoes currently has each of those nine films rated at (if you don't know, these percentages are based on the number of "approved" critics who gave the film a positive review):

• The Artist - 97%
• The Descendants - 90%
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - 46%
• Hugo - 94%
• Midnight in Paris - 93%
• The Help - 76%
• Moneyball - 95%
• War Horse - 76%
• The Tree of Life - 84%

And lastly, and most importantly *wink*, this is what I thought about those nine films:

• The Artist - See-it - 10th best film of the year
• The Descendants - See-it - 15th best film of the year
• Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Skip-it - outside the top 50
• Hugo - See-it - outside the top 50
• Midnight in Paris - Rent-it - 16th best film of the year
• The Help - Rent-it - outside the top 50
• Moneyball - See-it - 3rd best film of the year
• War Horse - Skip-it - outside the top 50
• The Tree of Life - Rent-it - 33rd best film of the year

IMHO, these are the films I thought were the 10 best of 2011, and the films the Academy should've nominated:

1. Drive
2. Source Code
3. Moneyball 
4. X-Men: First Class
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 
6. Bridesmaids 
7. 13 Assassins
8. The Muppets
9. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
10. The Artist 

So c'mon AMPAS, is this really how it is going to be? Is that what we, the movie-watching public has to look forward to each year? Because I couldn't care less who wins. I have no rooting interest. And no horse in the race. If you really want the tagline "Oscar-winning" to mean something to the next generation of movie-goers, you're going to have to connect with them. And posting your "no wizards, witches, puppets, mutants, bridesmaids, drivers, or samurais" nominations is not the way.