We, as college students, need an escape, just a few hours to forget our problems and not worry about the numerous pressures in life.

For those that are willing to enjoy it, shows like the Academy Awards can provide that.

Sure the whole event is Hollywood simply congratulating themselves, sure at three and a half hours long it goes on forever, and sure most speeches consist of actors thanking family members and agents that we don’t know or care about, but it still can be lots of fun.

When you get down to it, everyone has a favorite actor or singer and there is joy in seeing those people dressed in their best. Joys in seeing those people excitingly ramble through an acceptance speech.

In the way they dress and carry themselves we get to see our favorite people in the strange unreal situation that is the Oscars.

We get to see their personality expressed through their words and movements, whether it’s Anne Hathaway’s dress and her dramatic best supporting actress speech or Ben Affleck’s beard and his rushed, mile-a-minute speech for Best Picture.

You can watch Adele’s weepy speech or Quentin Tarantino’s barely controlled excitement and say to yourself “this is all an act just phony people being phony” or you decide to not worry about it and enjoy watching another person’s dream come true.

The glitz and glamour may be a facade. Speeches are rehearsed. That really doesn’t change the fact that for many, winning one of these awards really means a dream fulfilled.

Every time the announcer said, “This is his/her first Oscar,” it was a moment for that person.

It’s easy to watch that and be happy for that person and why not?

Being jaded and serious all the time is no fun.

If you’re watching the Oscars why not enjoy it?

Seth Macfarlane did a great job. His love of old time Hollywood showed in each joke and song.

He found the right balance between celebrating movies and lightly poking fun at them.

The Oscars is also a great way to be exposed to movies that you may not have heard of.

People in general stick to what they like.

If you like action movies, you watch an action movie.

If you like anime, you watch an anime.

The same film gets nominated again and again so after watching enough clips from a film it may start to look interesting.

It’s a way of getting exposed to movies outside of your wheelhouse and that’s a good thing.

The length is a problem though. Macfarlane even made several jokes about how long the show goes.

Here in Bakersfield the show went from 5:30 to 9:00.

People don’t have time for that. They badly need to shorten the show at least to two hours.