Loading ...2nd Annual Oscar Cram
For the second year in a row, I’ve completed my Oscar Cram. That is when the hype about Oscar night has gotten to a critical mass and the actual date has gotten so near that in a panic I try to see at least some of the many nominees that I’ve missed.
As some of you may know, I’ve run a DVD website for many years called dvdmon.com. After reviewing numerous DVD’s myself and even getting a team of reviewers to write for me, eventually the interest petered out on my part and the reviewers. The only reviewer who I’ve stayed in touch with, and who still writes a review here and there for me is Mark Pfeiffer, who is also a real live movie reviewer in his day job. I don’t claim to know 1/10th as much as Mark does about films, or write nearly as eloquently as he does, and while having a baby does cut into most potential movie-watching, it’s nice to get out and see a bunch of what are supposed to be films that excel in some area or another.
Most of the movies that were the big nominees this year came out in the last few months of 2005, and since my daughter was born at the end of August, I really didn’t have the opportunity or motivation to see movies until pretty recently.
This year’s picks were Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck, and TransAmerica. In general I was not very impressed, at least not nearly as much as I was last year. Last year I saw Hotel Rwanda, Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, and Sideways, all of which I thought were really great. The main standout this year for me was Brokeback Mountain. Capote was interesting and well done, and so was Good Night and Good Luck, but they just didn’t have a huge lasting impression.
All of these films except for TransAmerica were pretty heavy, with a good dose of tragedy. That’s one reason I picked TransAmerica as the last one. I could have picked Munich or Match Point, but I wanted to end the evening with something not completely heavy. TransAmerica was relatively light, although of course the characters are dealing with fairly heavy issues. While this lightness was welcome in some ways, in others it just felt forced – like they were trying to hard to poke fun of transgendered people and even at religion. I’m a big fan of Falicity Huffman from Sports Night, but was this performance worthy of an Oscar? I’m not sure. Unfortunately I haven’t seem any of the other movies nominated for best Actress.
I have seen 3 of the four movies nominated for best Actor, and hopefully will be able to rent the fourth this week. So far it’s a bit of a toss-up. I think all three (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Heath Ledger, and David Strathairn) did excellent jobs.
Looking over all of the nominations, I again feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of great film. And these nominees are only scratching the surface of what came out last year. There are plenty of great movies that didn’t get nominated simply because only so many can get nominated in each category. And while I’d love to quit my job and just watch movies as a full-time profession, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon! As many great movies that I know I’m missing year in and year out, I know it’s really impossible to stay on top of all of them. There’s in fact a dark side to those who really do try to do this, witnessed by the people portrayed in Cinemania. Still, I’ve often fanticized about being a full-time movie critic. Then again, they don’t usually get to pick which movies they see and which they don’t, so they are forced to waste their time on a fair chunk of junk in order to get to see the gems alongside them…