Comparing movies is inherently a flawed exercise, especially when the films are as diverse as, say, Little Miss Sunshine, The Departed and Letters from Iwo Jima, three of this year's Best Picture candidates. It's all clearly an argument not worth having, other than for generating an extra few hundred million at the box office and giving Hollywood a chance to stand around and slap each other's backs for a few hours.

The real annoyance though is that the Oscars treat themselves so seriously, while constantly moving further and further away from any kind of credibility.

Martin Scorsese was genuinely touched by picking up his first directing award but it simply represents another horrible break in logic that the awards, trying to remedy the situation, actually create.

While it seems wrong that Scorsese had never previously won an award for directing, he was in fine company - Robert Altman, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles also went unrecognised. Fans of cinema 100 years hence will watch Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas and still be wowed by them; it's unlikely The Departed will stand the test of time so well. That it appears on Scorsese's CV as his Oscar winner will eventually seem like a backhanded compliment.

What's especially galling is that the creator of some of cinema's most iconic moments has been rewarded for his remake of a superior film. While The Departed featured fine performances and was unquestionably entertaining, Andrew Lau's original, Infernal Affairs, crackled with a tension that Scorsese never comes close to equalling. Even more disturbing is the fact that the spectacular elevator denouement is almost shot-for-shot the same as the Hong Kong version.

But originality has never been high on Oscar's priorities. The Academy has long had a weakness for performances depicting real people - but what was a trickle has become a deluge. The last three Best Leading Actor accolades have gone to representations of Idi Amin, Truman Capote and Ray Charles respectively, while five of the last seven Best Leading Actress awards have gone to portrayals of real people.

Creating an impressive original character from scratch is a far more imposing task than creating one that has the reassuring leg-up of the audience's prior knowledge. As chilling as Forest Whitaker was as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, we know before he even appears on screen that he's a charismatic, genocidal maniac. We've seen the newspapers.

Cate Blanchett got her Best Supporting Actress nod in 2004 for perfecting Katharine Hepburn's nasal voice and having similar cheek bones but her performance would have seemed overly theatrical and showy had she not been portraying a larger-thanlife icon. The line between acting and impersonating is becoming non-existent in Hollywood.

All of which is not to be blas� and dismiss the many outstanding performances based on real people that have graced cinemas. But the cult of celebrity may drive this Academy trend on further still. When Dakota Fanning goes method and shaves her head for that Oscar-winning portrayal of Britney Spears in 2023, the audience will add nuance to her performance by remembering that the Sun said Britney was in "emotional turmoil" as she brandished those clippers. Equally, depictions of political figures often get to piggyback on history's gravitas, rather than create their own. The Oscar race is being handicapped against those depicting entirely fictional characters.

But the Academy just rolls on, giving a cursory and calculated occasional nod to something fresh but mainly carving their immutable rules deeper in stone with every passing year - flashy roles win gongs, especially if based on real people. If you're a woman make sure to have a crying scene and disguise your beauty in some way. The sound awards always go to loud action films, unless there's a musical nominated.

Period pieces always win Costume Design and Art Direction. If you're a veteran ignored for too long, your turn will come. Meryl Streep must be nominated, and so forth. All as depressingly formulaic as your standard Hollywood blockbuster.