city at night

city at night

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Oscar Night



(image from the web)


I may, or may not, watch the Academy Award ceremony this evening.  It seems that the films that I am rooting for rarely win.  I have to admit that I can usually count on one hand the number of times that I go to the movie theater in the course of a year, and I have only seen two of the films that have won nominations this year.

Usually when I am visiting family in Columbus at Christmas, we will go to see a movie, and when I am in Mexico Alejandro and I may go to the movie theater.  This year at Christmas we went to see "Joy" which garnered Jennifer Lawrence an Oscar nomination.  I didn't like it.  I thought it was tedious, and I really didn't care that much for characters.  While I was in Mexico City this winter, Alejandro, my blogger friend Kim, and I went to see "Brooklyn".  I had not read anything about the movie, and I was not aware that it had been nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress.  (I had never even heard of its lead actress, Saoirse Ronan.)  We all agreed that the movie is superb in every way... the story, the acting, the photography are all excellent.  I am rooting for it to win, but knowing my track record, it probably will not.

I already have a favorite for next year's Oscars.  While Alejandro and I were in Columbus last weekend we went to see "The Lady in the Van".  The movie is based on the true story of an eccentric, homeless woman who parks her van in the driveway of London playwright Alan Bennett.  (Bennett wrote the original play, as well as the movie screenplay.)  The movie is at turns funny and sad.  Maggie Smith... whom I love as the dowager countess in "Downton Abbey"... gives a stellar performance.  She definitely deserves an Oscar nomination.  The problem is, will the Academy remember the movie when the time comes to make nominations for next year's award ceremony?  We shall see.


7 comments:

  1. I totally agree with you about JOY. I was very disappointed. The whole thing seemed so disjointed. I'm dying to see The Lady in the Van. The only movie I saw that I thought was good, and hasn't been mentioned by anyone is The Intern with Robert De Niro. Totally enjoyable...........of course, not nominated for anything. Ha. I still have no TV, haven't seen TV since December, so won't get to see Oscars. That's okay, not a big deal.

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    1. I have a TV, but people think that I am a dinosaur because I don't have cable. Most of my TV watching is of DVDs from Netflix.

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    2. Oh, and even my favorite TV series, "Downton Abbey" I watch when it comes out on Netflix since I am always in Mexico when the new season is aired on PBS.

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  2. I am a huge movie buff and I always get caught up in Oscar predictions, so I try to catch as many nominated films as possible (an expensive hobby!). Like you, I adored "Brooklyn" and disliked "Joy." Looks like a Mexico City-born filmmaker won the Best Director Oscar for the third year in a row!

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    1. As I said in my post, I don't get out to the movie theater very often. However, I usually catch the movies that interest me when they come out on Netflix. When my Mexican friend Alejandro comes up to visit, we always watch a bunch of Netflix movies, including some old classics. On his most recent visit we saw "African Queen", Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and the comedy "Bringing up Baby". He enjoyed them all, especially "Bringing Up Baby".

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    2. Those are three classics, especially "Vertigo."

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    3. Would you believe that I had never seen "Vertigo" in its entirety? I had caught bits and pieces on TV, but had never watched the whole thing before. It's definitely one of Hitchcock's best. Oh, and we also watched Hitchcock's "Rebecca". An oldie, but it holds up very well.

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