If you don't live in Los Angeles or New York and don't follow the film business in detail, you probably have a slightly skewed impression of how the Oscar winners are selected. Maybe you imagine that Academy members -- actors, writers, technicians -- watch all the big movies in theaters, weigh one against another, and then cast their ballots. But that's not the case at all. By and large, Academy members are an older crowd, viewing movies in the comfort of their homes thanks to "for your consideration" screeners -- tapes or DVDs send out by the studios, sometimes in advance of their initial theatrical release.

And the MPAA wants put a stop to that. Despite all the complaints from critics groups, producers, and members, I think it's a necessary step toward returning film to its rightful place: the big screen.

As a move to tackle Internet piracy, the Motion Picture Association of America president Jack Valenti announced that screeners could not be sent out this year. Critics organizations argued that because they have so many films to cover, home screeners can be a huge bonus -- both for second viewings and for playing catch-up. Indie producers complained that smaller films -- Pollock, Iris, Boys Don't Cry -- benefited greatly from these screeners in the past. Without the marketing budget of the big studios -- which includes the ability to keep their movies in theaters for a longer time -- a company like Focus Features (Lost in Translation) or Fine Line (American Splendor) needs the relatively inexpensive cost that home screeners provides their Oscar campaigns. Meanwhile Academy members, some of them unable to easily attend screenings because of poor health, screamed that busy holiday schedules (not to mention if they're working on projects themselves) demand screeners to help them make informed Oscar choices.

Valenti has said that piracy from these promotional freebies actually constitutes a very small percentage of the Internet thievery going on in the world, but added "this is a top priority and we're going to fight it on every front, great and small." But because of this admission, the three protesting groups -- the film critics, the producers, the voters -- feel even more that this is a needless slight against them.

I hear their complaints. But I have to disagree on all three fronts. Ultimately, great movies aren't about the awards or the best-of-the-year lists. They're supposed to be about crafting great movies. How did that get lost in translation?

Let's start with the grumblings from the critics groups. I have the utmost respect for intelligent film critics who want to do their best work while enduring a sometimes bruising schedule of trying to sprint from screening room to screening room to see three films a day. But the professional critic knows that's what he signed up for. Frankly, until I heard these complaints by the Hollywood Foreign Press and others, I had no idea that critics even got screeners. Aren't critics supposed to be judging work as it was intended to be seen -- on a screen?

Of course, critics have their own lives aside from their jobs, like everyone else, but screeners seem more like a luxury than an invaluable tool. And the complaint that these people need tapes before selecting their all-important Top Tens is silly. It's a subjective, profoundly unscientific process when compiling that list -- that's why it's so damn much fun. As someone who's been doing it since I was 16, I've always judged my bests on memory, resonant feeling, and impulse. I refuse to believe I'm alone in basing these decisions on personal instinct.

And let's not forget that some writers like Pauline Kael famously never saw a movie a second time before penning a review. She trusted her first judgment, and that was that. Seeing a film on tape after seeing it in a theater doesn't guarantee a "truer" evaluation of the work. It will merely be a different experience. If critics are supposed to be telling us what the best films are, shouldn't they be relying on their first impressions in a theater? That's what the general public does -- we don't get a second shot at it very often.

Then comes the protest of indie producers.

Before the screeners debate arose, this was already going to be a very different Oscar season. With nominations and the actual ceremony pushed up a month, the hope was to limit what had become a very contentious, election-like campaigning season. (Seriously, here in Los Angeles, it was almost getting to the level of attack-ad tactics to promote nominated movies.) But that announcement was made far in advance of the Oscar season, which starts roughly at the beginning of fall. In contrast, the decision on screeners was just at the end of September, radically readjusting strategies and hurting small films' chances significantly. Anybody who missed great movies like Swimming Pool or Dirty Pretty Things or Capturing the Friedmans over the summer just may be out of luck -- and so will their distributors. And, as those indie folks will argue, if you have limited time to get to the movies, would you rather check out The Last Samurai, the latest bigscreen epic from Ed Zwick, or are you gonna try out that subtitled film in the arthouse theater with the uncomfortable seats? Don't these little companies need all the help they can get to level the playing field?

These people have a point. (It's very much in keeping with the MPAA that smaller films basically get the shaft.) And, let's be honest, smaller films need award recognition more than those big prestige pictures. If you hear that some flick like Lost in Translation has all these great reviews and seven Oscar nominations, well, maybe you're more inclined to check it out. The Oscars are the stamp of approval people on the fence require before they try out artier, riskier, smaller fare.

But, in the long run, I remain unconvinced that these often superior independent films are better served by home screeners. And the greatest example I can think of to prove my point is About Schmidt. I hardly know anyone who liked the film who saw it on tape. ("It was too slow" was a common gripe.) Conversely, almost everyone I've talked to who saw it in a theater loved it. Why is that? Is it a different movie from one venue to another? In theory, no -- but, in reality, yes. Alexander Payne's travelogue of a retired loser might feel like a small-screen affair. Not much happens, and it's not like there are huge battle scenes or dynamic special effects to oooooh over. But Payne's deliberate pacing requires the patience of the theater experience. Sitting in a theater with good sound and sharp projection, you get wrapped up in the movie's resigned air. Payne does normalcy better than just about any American filmmaker, and the big screen helps infuse that aura over the storyline. On TV, it's not the same. Boxed up and shrunken down, About Schmidt might appear to be doddling and slow. Nothing seems to be happening because its subtle powers have been stripped away.

You would think that About Schmidt is the type of indie film that gains immensely from home screeners. But it only got two nominations, both of which were probably influenced more by Jack Nicholson's and Kathy Bates' name appeal than by anything else. For all the Hilary Swanks indie companies successfully push through, there are the untold cinematographers, composers, and other artists on low-budget films who get marginalized because their work is seen primarily on the tube with a so-so dubbed copy.

Which brings me to Academy members themselves -- a disparate group, to be sure. I don't want to seem unsympathetic to older voters who may have difficulty getting around and who see almost everything from home, so let me make my point clear. Anyone who bitches about how the Oscars often seem to go to stodgier titles will point to this large voting bloc. But I don't feel that movies like Driving Miss Daisy win awards because "old coots" liked them -- I think it's because they simply play better on TV. While they often are less risky in their subject matter as well, these movies' agreeable nature makes for an easy transition from film to television. (A more recent phenomenon, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, falls into the same category. The whole thing is shot like a sunny sitcom.) And so while it may seem ageist of me to suggest, if a substantial portion of your voters see movies only on TV -- which isn't their intended medium -- do these individuals have the best qualifications to determine the best pictures?

But my real disdain is for certain able-bodied members, the people who think getting their screeners is a birthright. Granted, serious voters might use these tapes to watch films that got very limited theatrical runs, and that sort of commitment is to be saluted. I just don't think that's too often the case. Instead, these screeners end up in the hands of my non-Academy friends who have borrowed them from their Academy member boss or whomever. My buddies aren't watching them to vote; they can't anyway. Academy members give them away as gifts, and often they don't watch them in the first place. These Very Important People abuse the luxury, treat it like a status item, and then cry foul when Valenti suggests that they don't really need them. If they want to see the movies so bad, hey, they can use their Academy card to see them in any theater for free. And if they're too afraid of the general public, there's always the private screening rooms that are booked for award movies during the Oscar campaign. So what's the problem?

Recently, I took my girlfriend to see Manhattan, a film she had never seen, at one of our local rundown revival theaters. Now, you can easily rent the movie on DVD, and a big TV might even give you some sense of Gordon Willis' amazing black-and-white camerawork and Woody Allen's widescreen compositions of his beloved city. But instead we saw it among fans. The print wasn't perfect. And the theater does have a touch of a funky odor to it. But my girlfriend loved the movie all the same. Films are experiences shared with others in front of a large screen. Jack Valenti may be trying to combat piracy -- or, if you're more of a paranoid, trying to do away with the small films come Oscar time -- but his announcement had a great residual benefit that isn't even being discussed. While he should be chastised for changing the rules in the middle of the game, if he ends up restoring the notion of motion pictures as an artform seen in a theater than maybe his meddling will have had true merit.