Saturday, February 25, 2012

Are You Ready for the Oscars? I Am!

oscarsHey gang, just a friendly reminder that tomorrow, Sunday, Feb. 26th will bring us the 84th Annual Academy Awards and I will be right here conducting my LIVE moment-by-moment Oscar commentary for the 7th straight year! That means I’ve been doing this kind of thing before Facebook... before Twitter... before Tumblr... I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am a goddamn pioneer! Of course, these days, everyone in the world will be live-tweeting the show and your feeds will be inundated with information. But if you’re watching the big show, please do consider swinging by and following my in-depth, stream-of-consciousness musings, observations, predictions, rants and raves. And if you’re not watching, this will be the ultimate resource!

If you’re new ‘round these parts and want to know what kind of madness to expect, or if you want to relive the magic of previous Oscar nights, here are links to the past six years’ worth of commentaries (along with their respective Best Picture winners as a point of reference). Honestly, if I can manage to amuse you with even half as much as I amuse myself with these things, it will be worth your while. :)

2006 (Crash)
2007 (The Departed)
2008 (No Country For Old Men)
2009 (Slumdog Millionaire)
2010 (The Hurt Locker)
2011 (The King's Speech)

To refresh your memory about this year’s nominees, be sure to revisit my epic Oscar Picks & Predictions post from a few weeks ago, in which I offer my educated opinions about which movies I am rooting for and which I think will probably take home the gold in every category. Note that I DO have a couple of addendums to that post, as I’ve seen a few more of the nominees since then: I have now seen all of the Best Documentary Feature contenders, and while I will still be rooting for PINA, I believe PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY will probably win. Furthermore, I may be rooting for CHICO & RITA for Best Animated Feature. Haven’t quite decided that yet, but it is fantastic... as is A CAT IN PARIS... and as is RANGO, which will I still think will win.

I also continued my tradition of seeing the Oscar-nominated Short Films at the IFC Center, including the Documentary Shorts for the first time ever! You can find those reviews here:

ANIMATION
LIVE ACTION
DOCUMENTARIES

Be sure to adjust your Oscar pools accordingly. Actually, I am particularly proud of myself this year because I have seen more Oscar nominees than ever before. There are only FIVE nominated films that I have NOT seen: Foreign Films IN DARKNESS, FOOTNOTE and MONSIEUR LAZHAR; Costume Design contender W.E.; and Documentary Short nominee GOD IS THE BIGGER ELVIS (which was not screened for some reason). Not too shabby!

Lastly, while we’re at it, in case you haven’t seen them all and need some extra guidance, here are the links to where you can find my reviews of the nine nominees for Best Picture:

THE ARTIST MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
THE DESCENDANTS

MONEYBALL

THE HELP THE TREE OF LIFE
HUGO WAR HORSE
EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE


My Oscar commentary will begin tomorrow promptly at 6 p.m. EST with the red carpet show on E!, after which I’ll switch over to ABC and continue ‘til the final award is handed out at the end of the night. Will THE ARTIST pull off the expected sweep, or is there a chance that my #1 movie of the year, HUGO, could pull off an upset? Will Frenchie Dujardin defeat America’s golden boy, George Clooney? Can Michelle Williams steal one from frontrunner Viola Davis, or will the great Streep snag her first statue in 30 years? Could old favorites like Scorsese and Woody Allen leave their mark? Will the Muppets thumb their noses at the Academy and sing anyway? And how about the return of Billy Crystal? So many questions! It’s gonna be good... so bookmark BenLikesMovies.com and get ready to click “refresh” over and over again and enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. Ready! At least this year I've seen most of the movies on the list. I've realised, checking the winners of these past years, that I've been a little disconnected of the Oscar thing(I didn't remember, at all, The Departed or The hurt locker...)
    Besides this year I totally miss nomenees like Kate Winslet for Carnage, Michael (awsome performacne) Fassbender for Shame, Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg for Melancholia... It's really hard to understand.

    Eli :)

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