With the Oscars in the offing and Avatar undeservedly in the list, Asylum gives us the top 5 science fiction movies screwed at the Oscars.

For those blown away by Avatar’s special effects and incredibly effective use of 3-D, granted it should win scads of technical awards.  But best picture?  Not even close.  Funnily enough, the best movie of last year is a sci-fi flick that the studio couldn’t even be bothered to put up for consideration:  Moon — a phenomenal movie that is about character, and is carried by spectacular performance by Sam Rockwell.  (If you’ve seen it, you know why I say performances, plural.)

Rockwell and the lead actor from District 9, Sharlto Copley, easily gave us the best work for an actor of the year…where are they?  Copley alone manages to give us a man who is utterly bereft of likability — an insensitive bureaucrat — at the beginning of the movie, and make us not just care about him, but like him by the end.

Avatar was pretty…and not much more than that.