Oscar Nomination Madness

The reaction to some of the nominations, or should I say non-nominations (try it with 4 beers - you'll kill your tongue) is verging on hilarious. Personally, I'm not so bothered. It seems to be between Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook. Lincoln's not been released in the UK yet and I enjoyed SLB, even if the end descended into something verging on romcom cliche.

But some folks really need to get a grip. Much of the vitriolic back and forth I've seen on some professional film blogs is up there with angry, pished pub arguments about football - pointless and nasty. And folks who don't care also need to back up and just let it be; "Waah! I hate the Oscars! They're irrelevant back-patting!! Waaah!". Well, then shut up, fuck off and stop paying attention to something that's upsetting you. Of course it's back-patting. It's a fucking awards ceremony. Sheesh.

The days of getting upset over these things seem to be happily behind me now. My opinion doesn't matter and neither does yours in the grand scheme of things. I still enjoy the madness around the Oscars, from the embryonic buzz throughout the year which starts to snowball around September to the night itself, which I like to stay up and watch (last year's was particularly memorable as my blog post about that makes clear). And I'm an unashamed Family Guy/Seth McFarlane fan so I'm hoping for a genuinely funny but old style showbiz affair this year. He knows his classic Hollywood and big time music numbers. I even found most (but not all - that deliberately awkward WW2 shtick needs to end) of today's announcement refreshingly funny.

I'm also going to make a point of reading as many of the screenplay nominees as I can. As far as the Best Film nominees go, I've only seen 3 of them so far (Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild and the afore-mentioned Silver Linings Playbook) as the many of the rest have not been released in the UK yet, apart from Amour, which got a dismal release I feel, and Life of Pi, which I'll see this weekend along with Les Miserables.

Most of the nominated screenplays are out there now. Time to get hunting.