Why I'm Not Watching

I'm not watching the Oscars. Nope. There are some reasons.
See I used to be all about the Oscars. I love movies and thus the Oscars was always the big night...bigger than the Superbowl even.
But the way my life is formed now, I don't get out to the movies like I used to. I mean I used to see everything! There was a string of years where I saw all the nominated films. That always made watching the awards shows even better.
But now, I'm lucky if I get out to see the really big must sees much less the arthouse and December releases that get the buzz.
I did manage to see a few films last year, sneaking out on a Saturday or two. Like I did see "An Inconvenient Truth" and I'm not a crunchy uber-environmentalist, but I found the movie compelling. I saw "Clerk II" because I'm a Kevin Smith fan (though it was strangely overlooked by the Academy...hmm....)
Looking at the nominees list here's the films I saw that received at least one nomination in something (to show you how lame my moviegoing year was):

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (kind of disappointed me)
The Black Dahlia (one of those movies where I liked to the book too much to be fair...Josh Hartnett is better in Lucky Number Slevin which I saw too)
United 93 (amazing and powerful...Paul Greengrass is a fabulous director)
Superman Returns (cuz I'm a total fanboy...though frankly I found Kevin Spacey, someone I love, somewhat distracting)
Poseidon (I don't even know why I saw that...horrid...felt like I spent 2 hours in purgatory but with popcorn)


I do want to see both Eastwood Films (Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima) and of course the Scorsese film (Departed)...can you tell I mostly enjoy movies for directors?

I kind of want to see Children of Men and Babel as well...

Last night I did manage to finally watch all of Munich which is completely underrated.

I did tune in to see Ellen's opening monologue because I have a soft spot for Ellen DeGeneres. I happen to think she's one of the funniest comedians, and without a doubt has always been my favorite female comic. She did a good job I think, she was definitely nervous though.

The other reason I'm not watching the show though is because Shell bought me some good headphones for my computer and so now I can listen to my iTunes when everyone goes to bed and so I'm just obsessed with my headphones right now.

I don't really have a rooting interest in the Oscars this year either. I mean how scary is it that Peter O'Toole is nominated against Will Smith, Ryan Gosling, and Leo DiCaprio...whose combined ages is probably just about O'Toole's? I hope he wins because the fact that he never won for My Favorite Year, not to mention Lawrence of Arabia...that's just shocking and sad.
I also hope Kate Winslet wins because she's just gorgeous and a fabulous actress who is always overlooked (I think) as one of the best of her generation.

Maybe next year I can get my movie groove back...