Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Seeing Every Oscar Nominee from 2007

I should mention that as far as calendar 2007 goes, I've since made up for lost time by a separate resolution I made over the summer, which was to watch (on DVD) every Oscar-nominated film from that year. This is not an endorsement of the Academy Awards as the be-all and end-all of cinematic quality, rather a way of understanding quality as defined by the Oscars themselves, whatever that may be, and of seeing some movies which are generally considered important and excellent in their categories by people in the industry.

Using Netflix and Redbox (god how I love Redbox--I'm a total addict), I managed to accomplish this by the end of August, for all the feature-length categories, with the exception of the categories of Best Documentary and Best Foreign Film. Not all the movies in those categories were yet available on DVD, but I suppose I will get around to seeing them as well.

As far as Best Picture goes, among the five nominees, I would have voted for There Will Be Blood, but only after seeing it twice (an artifact of the DVD process perhaps). The first time I watched it, I didn't really "get" it. But I gave it a second chance, and realized that Daniel Day Lewis' character is actually the sympathetic one, and is a tragic character. I too might have beat Eli to death with a bowling pin at the end.

The best part is that I get to make my three-year nieces laugh hysterically at the dinner table by grabbing for their chocolate milk and screaming, "I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!"

Update: after I wrote this, I went into the kitchen and found both of them at the table, yelling that line alternatively at each other.

No comments: