Checking In With One Week To Go

As of 1:30 pm on Sunday (Feb 23) one week before the Oscars, here's where I am: 

I have four more categories to complete. 
* Live Action Shorts
* International Feature Film 
* Documentary Feature Film 
* Visual Effects 

I have completed: 
Documentary Shorts, Animated Shorts, Animated Feature
Lead Actress, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress  
Directing, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay
Cinematography, Editing, Production Design 
Makeup & Hairstyling, Costume Design 
Sound, Original Song, Original Score
and Best Picture 

So far I have mixed feelings about a lot of the categories, but especially the Acting awards, because there is such egregious category fraud going on in the Supporting races, and it's all but a foregone conclusion that the fraudulent will win. It's so annoying. 

The Documentary Features (I have one left) and Documentary Shorts, as in so many years, are amazing, and devastating. 

Speaking of brutal things, I do still think The Brutalist will win stuff. Will it win all the stuff?  Will it triumph over buzz-a-licious Anora?  Can The Substance sneak in and win a few things -- and will it definitely win for Actress (Demi Moore) and  Makeup?  Will Wicked get a slew of well-deserved visual and technical awards or will the wealth be spread around?  Could we have a blessedly Emilia Perez-free evening?  How amazing would that be. A step toward making up for the EEAAO year we recently suffered through. 

And will we ever know why there are so many monkeys? 

By the way, I launched myself on an additional project during this year's Oscar viewing. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is nominated for Visual Effects. Now, the last few Apes reboots have also been so nominated, but I wasn't able to be a completist in those years, and in my non-completist years it's often been a few rogue Makeup, Song, or Visual Effects nominees that are the ones lacking and I have not watched any of the reboot series. This year, I knew I'd be a completist, which would entail watching Kingdom...Apes, and so I decided a few weeks ago to watch all of the Planet of the Apes movies -- all of them.  Starting with a re-watch of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes that I saw in my childhood. And that has been my side quest, in between watching this year's nominated flicks.  During the past months I have re-watched or watched all five of the original series (some are far worse than others) and am now catching up on the modern ones, and will end with Kingdom...  thus completing both my Apes side quest and my Oscar-nominated 2024 films main quest later this week, if all goes according to plan and the world doesn't, like, collapse in the next few days or anything. 

So, coming up this week will be: 
Four more completed categories
Best Picture (which is done, but have to save that category post for last) 
Perhaps a ranking of all the nominated films
Perhaps another edition of Who Wore It Better? 

Enjoy the last week of Oscar season!