Sidebar With Agnes Fliff

Facts on the Academy Awards

How are Oscar nominees chosen?

Since an award can give a film a huge box office boost or vault an artist to the A-List overnight, plenty of bartering among studio moguls goes on beforehand. Naturally, the Powers That Be are eager to squelch young visionaries who might upset the system. Which is exactly why my 2002 gonzo documentary Pat Morita's Coolidge Ass was overlooked. It was a three-hour slow camera pan of a birthmark on Morita's right buttock that looked freakishly like Calvin Coolidge. At least it did if you were a little drunk. And believe me, you needed to be drunk to film Morita's sad pockmarked booty, day after day. A class of fourth-graders read the narration, undercut with a soundtrack of Viking death chants. It was groundbreaking stuff. If Sofia Coppola had slapped her name on it, the Academy members would have evacuated in their Christian Dior diapers.

How has the awards ceremony changed over the years?

The only reason Sofia Coppola gets accolades thrown her way is because her old man's got juice. Lost in Translation was totally a ripoff of my early work, The Unbearable Moistness of Borgnine. Also, I came up with the idea of a talking baby shilling for Quizno's. Except my baby had Tourette's syndrome. But whenever I try to collect my royalties in free subs, the jerk manager at Quizno's chases me down the street waving a sawed-off mop handle. He's probably Francis Ford's nephew and will end up directing Spiderman 3. Meanwhile, I can't even get financing for my next project, The Webbed Feet of Anson Williams. God, I hate the politics of Hollywood.

How can someone get tickets for the Academy Awards show?

Do what I do. Let Haley Joel Osment feel you up, and he puts your name in at Will Call.