My Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations

First of all, how cool is that hat? I want one. Maybe I should buy one and use it as the yearly trophy for my Oscar competition. Tempting . . .



Anyway--the Oscars. That yearly self-congratulatory time for cinema. It's as if I said I'd start having a ceremony once a year where I gave awards to myself for the coolest things I did all year. Sure, the first few years would seem rather strange, but after I'd been at it for thirty or forty years, it would turn into a Venerable Institution. I might even be able to sell TV broadcasting rights. (Note to self: look into this.)



That said, I love me some Oscars. I don't really know why. I just enjoy watching them and grousing about how this year wasn't nearly as good as ten years ago, or how the hosts aren't as good as Billy Crystal. (Anne Hathaway has one thing guaranteed this year--she'll look better than Billy). In any case, the nominations went out this morning. What are my thoughts?



Well, I don't get to see as many of the Oscar nominations before Oscar night as I'd like to. I've seen the following nominees:



Inception
Toy Story 3
True Grit
How to Train Your Dragon
Day & Night
Tangled
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter 7.1
Iron Man 2
I'd imagine many of you have seen more of the films than I have. I'm also reasonably certain quite a few of the films I haven't seen will earn the majority of the awards. So I don't really feel like I can opine on who "should" win, since in order to do that, I feel like I should have seen all the nominees in each category. And that's what I want to talk about.

12 nominations for The King's Speech? 10 for True Grit? I suppose I'm just disappointed in the trend these days to have a few films end up gobbling up so many nominations. I'd like to see the love spread around a little. I'm sure Social Network, King's and Grit are all very deserving. I loved True Grit, myself. But can you honestly tell me that there aren't other movies out there just as deserving in some of these categories?

I hate how the Oscars seems to turn into a popularity contest. (But not TOO popular, mind you--otherwise they'll be accused of selling out). Ideally, I wish everyone involved in the nominations would watch all the films, then nominate the ones they personally liked the most. In actuality, movies have Oscar campaigns, with PR people trying to jostle for best exposure. Blech.

And yet I keep returning year after year. Maybe I'm just mentally deranged. (Don't comment on that, please.) In any case, bring on the Oscars. And somebody buy me that hat. I'll post pictures if you do. :-)