2.04.2010

February 4, 2010

I’ve always described The Oscars as my Super Bowl. It’s exciting for me, I have to watch the pre-show, I have to know about the films and I settle in and normally do dinner and the show. For a few years I’ve even been to Oscar parties that heavily resemble football parties. When Martin Scorcese won his best directing Oscar my friends and I screamed so loud you would have thought the quarterback just threw the game ending pass – the neighbors even complained about how loud we screamed.

I constantly wait through awards season leading up to The Oscars watching who gets nominated for other awards, who wins, what new films are on the horizon, etc. I watch it all with a fanaticism and anticipation for what’s coming next, guessing the whole time what films and people will make it into the Oscar race. In the past I’ve felt a little strange about this because most people around me have no idea who was even nominated for the SAG, PGA or DGA Awards, or why certain people would be favored at the Globes, or what the heck the ISA’s are – so they look at me a bit strangely and I took it to heart for awhile, wondering why I get so excited about these silly awards shows. As a girl so many people would simply accuse me of wanting to see the red carpet spectacle, but that’s not really it.

Finally, a friend said something that made it all click for me. If The Oscars are like be Super Bowl, awards season is like my play-off’s. Only for me it’s even more exciting because there are far more teams and variables than in any sport I can think of. There’s politics, bodies of work, box office, critical response, the possibility that one nomination could cancel another out, etc. It’s fun.

I still believe that at the end of the day judging one film against another is a futile attempt to quantify art in a way it can’t be measured, but I don’t think there is any harm in it. Good work should be rewarded, and watching the process is really fun.

2 comments:

marc aurel said...

The day after the Oscars is always my first non regular vacation day of the year. Last year I discovered the Oscars internet site, which is really quite good, although it could provide more details. I particularly like the technical awards.

Megan said...

There's actaully two sites - oscars.com & oscars.org. I don't know which you're using but I've found that oscars.org is much better, it's the actual one for the academy, not for the "commercial" side of things.