As if it's not bad enough that Bruce Springsteen wasn't nominated for his moving original song in The Wrestler, now the Academy has turned the normal performance numbers into a medley.

Nikki Finke is reporting that Peter Gabriel has refused to play the show because he was only offered 65 seconds to perform "Down to Earth" from WALL-E. If the Academy wanted to shave the running time off the show, maybe they should do so at the expense of all those montages and just keep the tribute to those who have passed away. If they planned on giving these musicians just over a minute to play, then maybe they should just the cut the music segment entirely.

There's no question that Springsteen would have done exactly what Gabriel is doing. This is such an insult to the musicians involved.

The Oscars are out of touch. It's that simple. Trying to make the show quicker and different for You Tube-sized attention spans is not going to work. For starters, if two very deserving accomplishments had been recognized properly, Springsteen and The Dark Knight, then the show would be much more naturally more interesting. Instead, we have The Reader, a borderline offensive movie about a Nazi and a teenage boy who have sex, and two songs from Slumdog Millionaire. If the main reason the Oscars exist is for Hollywood to give itself a pat on the back, then how could Knight possibly be ignored? Plus, Springsteen would have totally owned the Kodak Theatre. Need proof? Look no further than this:

Yes, I know, "The Wrestler" is a very different song than "Mary's Place," but the point is that the guy is an icon. Way to go, Academy.