It’s almost cliche to complain about the Academy Awards these days. Year after year, there’s always one or two — maybe even more — gargantuan snubs that seem to get the so-called “know-it-alls” fuming. This year, however, there are at least three legitimate snubs that come to mind: Leonardo DiCaprio, Quentin Tarantino, and Rian Johnson.

Once again, DiCaprio will have to wait for his Oscar moment. That’s right folks; despite a spectacular performance as plantation owner Calvin J. Candie in “Django Unchained,” DiCaprio will have to watch the Academy Awards from his Malibu home (or wherever he lives). And I’m not exaggerating when I say DiCaprio’s performance was spectacular; in fact, that is only an understatement. Just look to the scene where he slams his hand on the dinner table, legitimately cutting it open, and then proceeds to wipe his blood on Kerry Washington’s face. You can’t make this up, guys.

With that, I pose one question to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: what does my boy, Leo, have to do to win an Oscar? The man has churned out brilliant performance after brilliant performance, yet he only has three nominations to show for it, and not a single trophy to boot. I’m not saying DiCaprio deserves an Oscar for every single one of his performances, but the vendetta against DiCaprio needs to be dropped.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is good ole’ Quentin Tarantino. The man has had his fair share of Oscar nominations, no doubt about it; but what is baffling is the fact that he was not nominated for Best Director this year. I could rave about “Django Unchained” all day, but instead, here’s a fun fact: Tarantino – the man, the myth, the legend – has never won the Oscar for Best Director. A man with a repertoire like his deserves a nod, and this year I was almost certain he would win the award for Best Director. Alas, he doesn’t even get a nomination. At least “Django Unchained” is up for Best Picture, right?

The last snub of the year goes to a man that isn’t as celebrated as DiCaprio and Tarantino: Rian Johnson. Johnson isn’t a household name, and understandably so. His 2012 film, “Looper,” was his first major motion picture, and what a first it was. The movie brought something new to the table and took a challenging premise and ran with it. Here are now, however, and Johnson is not getting the credit he deserves. Come Oscar night, I was foreseeing Johnson’s name being called as a nominee for Best Writing-Original Screenplay. Instead, we’ll see five other names and no Rian Johnson.

I must say, however, the Academy did an exceptional job with the rest of the nominations. The nominees for Best Picture were expected and Christoph Waltz getting a nomination for Best Supporting Actor is certainly a plus. However, if you told me “The Dark Knight Rises” would not be one of the 10 Best Picture nominees in July I would have called you crazy. I originally believed it would be the first superhero movie to be nominated, but after multiple viewings, I was the one that was crazy. But that’s a topic for another Sunday.

So, now that my Oscar rant is over, I can go back to living my life while the other experts continue to whine and complain about how “Skyfall” was screwed out of an Oscar. The Oscars aren’t the be-all, end-all of whether a movie is good or not. You are the one who decides what the best movie of the year is, not the Academy. Simply put, the Oscars just don’t matter. If they did, guys like DiCaprio and Tarantino would be bathing in trophies. If they did, Michael Jordan would have won an Oscar for “Space Jam.”