Oscars - as far as I'm concerned.

by Mr. Blunderson

If you've read any of my pointless diatribe here at the Cirque, you know I've recently said I don't care much for the Oscars. I am a huge John Stewart fan so I planned to at least watch until I started vomiting.

I even thought I might do one of those live Oscar blog-casts, adding my thoughts as they came but there are plenty who have more insight that would (and did) do it a whole lot better. I also hadn't seen enough of the nominated films to be up to my full wise ass self on that score.

It doesn't help that the Oscars don't have a half time show that would allow me to detox a bit while watching Puppy Bowl for twenty minutes on Animal Planet. Also, I must confess I haven't actually sat through an entire Oscar telecast in years. Finally, due to being sick all week I had not taken the time or effort to replenish the liquor supply that would have gotten me through it all. Yes, it might be a crutch but booze smells and tastes better than the crutch I had to use when I had my knee surgery.

That was a lie, I never had knee surgery.

Back to the Oscars, I thought the John Stewart did a fine job. Too bad there wasn't more of him and his brand of humor. While he was doing the opening monologue it occurred to me that I was seeing what the Tonight Show might be like if Jay Leno were actually funny.

But I digress...

Back when I made my top two picks for the year, I said that Zodiac and No Country for Old Men were the two best movies I'd seen from 2007. Of course, as the agoraphobic film critic I've missed more than my share of nominees from this year. After I posted my top two, I got around to seeing Juno. I would put Juno as a solid third on my list with no regrets.

I did tell people in my review of Once that it was my favorite movie of the year, but that doesn't mean I thought it was the best I had seen. Pretty damn close though. As movie making goes, No Country for Old Men was the best, even though it's not one of those movies that you go to for a good time (so to speak). I like movies like that though, and the Cohens made a masterpiece that can not be denied.

But Once is a great little film in it's own right that should have been seen a lot more than it was. The music was as amazing as was everything else about the film. The one song that was nominated for an Academy Award was such a cut above the other songs nominated that it was a crime that it was an abbreviated performance.

And I did mention in an earlier post that if the best the Academy could muster were three songs from Enchanted then maybe they need to do away with that category altogether but I actually made that remark before I saw Once. Since "Falling Slowly" was not only nominated but won, I suppose I have nothing to bitch about other than why weren't three songs from Once nominated?

When I get around to seeing the other movies that were nominated I'll come back to the debate of what the best of 2007 was and wasn't. Right now, I've got to run so I can catch Mythbusters before going to sleep.

Oscars as a show - hooray for John Stewart but I am all montaged out. Hooray for the Cohen brothers. Keep up the good work. Boo for you dillholes who didn't honor Zodiac but nominated both Norbit and Transformers.