I've Reached That Point

Every year Most years Some years, I reach a point with the Oscars when I finally decide I've done all that I can do, and I just accept that a few movies will remain unseen. Note: This does not mean that I am done watching nominated films, but it does mean that I am done going to great lengths to watch nominated films. Only short lengths from here on out.

Some years, I have been known to carry on to the bitter end. And I mean bitter: years such as 2004 that had me watching both Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Spider-Man 2 on DVD during Oscar weekend because they were multiple nominees. (That's right, multiple: HP for Score and Visual Effects, and S-M for Sound 1, Sound 2, and Visual Effects - which it won! Good thing I watched it. I fell asleep sort of near the end of Azkaban, though.) (The other Visual Effects nominee that year, if you care, was I, Robot, which is an underrated film in my opinion.)

Then there was 2000. I lived in L.A. but had somehow missed seeing a bunch of nominees, probably because of a terrible work schedule of like entirely evenings and weekends, meaning I was desperately either attending random 11:30 a.m.s at the Sunset 5 before rushing to a closing shift, or driving to all sorts of random far-flung theaters on my days off, wherever had the nominees I needed. I remember that in the last few days before Oscar, I still needed to see both Cast Away (Actor-Tom Hanks, Sound) and Requiem for a Dream (Actress-Ellen Burstyn), and I found them both playing at some Orange County megaplex. Off I went. It was only like a half hour drive, and I was never afraid of hitting the freeways; no one in L.A. is.

I ask you to imagine, if you will, the experience of spending roughly six hours of your day driving, then sitting in a dark theater alone with your thoughts and Cast Away for 143 minutes, then having only a brief pause before you plunge into Requiem for a Dream, then walking outside into the night which was day when you left it, and finally driving home.

I do a lot for the Oscars. Yay, Oscars! But at some point, I am done with my extreme behavior. (There are those who would argue that posting multiple blog entries about the Oscars actually qualifies as extreme behavior. Those people will lose to me in the Oscar pool.) This year my extremes ended last night, when I looked at my Netflix envelope that I knew held Coco Before Chanel, nominated for Costumes, and I thought about how I needed to watch it last night and mail it back today to have a chance of getting another disc -- Harry Potter and the Whatever We're On Now, for Cinematography -- before the ceremony. But Brian and I had to watch this week's Lost from the night before. Sorry, Coco, and sorry Oscars -- I will have to miss a few.

I will watch Coco, before Sunday. And I will see Un Prophete, which opens tomorrow at the theater AROUND THE CORNER, either tomorrow or Saturday. I might even finish watching the Documentary Short China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province online, which I found there, all legitmately on You Tube. But what I won't do is spend an evening with either Harry Potter or Coraline. As far as I'm concerned, two spaces just opened up in my (very full) Netflix queue.

So excited about the Oscars! We're so close. Who's going to win? Is the show going to have all sorts of 'tween-focused Twilight garbage, god forbid? Have you seen the photo of the nominees from their luncheon on the Academy's web site, tagged like a Facebook photo?

Until tomorrow, Oscar-lovin' friends. I am going to drink a beer tonight at a special $3 frenzy hootenanny. Coco may just have to wait another little while.