The Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle are two films up for many Academy Awards: WoWS with five nominations, Hustle with ten. They’ve been widely perceived as “rival” films, and at the time of their release back in December, there was strong social media pressure to take sides and defend one against the other.

I had no qualms about picking sides: I was on any side that opposed The Wolf of Wall Street. If the rivalry had been Scary Movie 5 vs. The Wolf of Wall Street, I’d have picked Scary Movie 5.

WoWS is a film that follows the old Cecil B. DeMille rule of shooting biblical epics: you spend nine-tenths of the film wallowing in the goofy big-budget spectacle of Hollywood stars and extras rolling around fleshily in campy Babylonian orgies, knowing you’ll get credit for your high-mindedness for the final tenth of the film, when God shows up to rebuke the sins of the people and destroy the large, tacky sets. Audiences leave the theaters both titillated and proud of their piety. And that’s the sweet spot where the big box-office bucks and Academy Awards are.