Forced to Awaken to Star Wars: The Force Awakens

So, I had it all figured out. At some point in the first few weeks of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it came to me; rather than seeing the flick first, what I clearly needed/wanted out of life was to be the last to see it. I'm not the type to buy movie tickets two months in advance -- I don't even plan things out two DAYS in advance, or sometimes two hours. So, I realized, for me it would be fun to see the movie last -- I would see it on that last Thursday night show on its last week in whatever Chicago theater continued to run it the longest. What a funny plan, was how I saw it.

Then, it got nominated for five Oscars. And now I was, as they say, on the horns of a dilemma. Two months is a good long time for a movie to have its first run, but from the looks of it, I thought, a month in, it could easily stay in theaters beyond Oscar weekend. And then I'd have to make a choice between seeing it before the Oscars ceremony and my silly plan of seeing it last.

Which was more important? This newfound plan I had hit upon, to see last the film that everyone else wanted to see first, or my oldfound plan to see as many Oscar-nominated films as humanly possible before the night of the Academy Awards?

Well, I told myself, maybe, just maybe, its last week in the theatres will conveniently also be the last week before the Oscars and then everything will work out? And so I've kept my eye on the showtimes and checked mid-week to see what's changing each upcoming weekend and...here we are.

The Oscars are this weekend, but Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still playing in theatres during the movie-run week that starts tomorrow, Friday the 26th. Which of course means that I cannot both see it in its last showtime AND see it before the Oscars.

And so my choice was made.

I went to see it. (Shout-out to my mom, who had generously gifted me with an AMC gift card!)

I've seen a very good amount of the nominated flicks. Just missing three of the foreign films (two of which will be coming to theaters in Chicago in the next month or two, after the Oscars), three of the documentary Shorts (which are HBO docs and going to air on HBO this year), and three of the Original Song nominees, one of which I am going to help myself to this weekend via Netflix (Racing Extinction), one of which will be on DVD in a couple weeks (Spectre) and one of which is the ONLY nominee I have no plans to see (Fifty Shades of Grey). So I'm in excellent shape this year.

Oh, what did I think of Star Wars? It was fun! I enjoyed it!

And now we know who wins in the battle between my contrarian quirks and my obsessive quirks. Glad we could put that question to rest.