Oscar Watch 2011

Due to the unfortunate, time-consuming process of studying endlessly for the bar examination last year at this time, I was forced to cease my critiques of the Oscar nominated films. That was a bummer on several levels, though I guess it turned out okay in the end and I enjoyed the Oscars just as much anyway.

But, this year, I can resume, even if it's just for my own benefit. So, I will!

Generally speaking, I hate the new format of ten nominated movies. It's just kind of dumb, since the Academy still nominates only five directors, begging the question of whether a nominated film with no nominated director will ever win the big prize. But, logic has not been the Academy's strong suit ever, so we'll just go with it.

So far, I've seen nine of the ten nominated films. I am pretty proud of myself, but must confess I had seen a good deal of them prior to the nominations being announced, so maybe I was just lucky. The following is a list of the nominated films and the five nominated directors:

**The Fighter - director David O. Russell

**The Black Swan - director Darren Aronofsky

**True Grit - directors Joel and Ethan Coen

**The Social Network - director David Fincher

**The King's Speech - director Tom Hooper

**Winter's Bone

**Toy Story 3

**127 Hours

**Inception

**The Kids Are All Right

All in all, a pretty interesting group. (I haven't seen Toy Story 3 yet, mostly because I've never seen any Toy Story movies ever. Don't kick me out of America. I plan to catch up on them all before the big night.) I have really enjoyed this year's crop of nominations, and look forward to going through them in more detail, as well as the nominated performances. There are a few I may not see, but I do try my best to be as thorough as humanly possible.

Yay for this time of year, when movies are even more central a part of my life than the rest of the year!

To be continued...