Ryan McNeil
I go through the same song and dance every year at this time. The Oscar geek in me takes over, and tries to watch every nominated film from the top eight categories (best picture, directing, original & adapted screenplay, and all four acting groups). I’m not sure why I do it, it’s not like I get a vote or anything. I wonder if there are support groups for people like me?
The good part of this obsession is that I end up watching a steady diet of really great flicks for a month or so. Over the last six weeks or so, I’ve soaked up the following:
ATONEMENT
SWEENEY TODD
WALK HARD
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
CLOVERFIELD
U2-3D
WAITRESS
NO END IN SIGHT
LA VIE EN ROSE
SICKO
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR
ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
All of ’em time well spent…to varying degrees of course, but still time well spent.
Looking over that list, I wonder how I’ve had time to do anything else. Matter of fact, that list might account for the lower frequency in my writing. I mean after all, who has time to write about movies, when all one does with their free time is watch movies? Yup, it’s a sickness. Ranks right up there with a case of the flu or a weird rash in your bathing suit area.
Part of it might just be an animal instinct. See, usually the months of February, March, and April are pretty dull at the movies. Sure, you might get something like THE 300 or KILL BILL to break up the doldrums, but the fact is that the really good movies in that part of the year are few and far between – enter the animal instinct.
I stockpile all this cinematic goodness. I insist on looking for good movie after good movie without giving my fiancée the chance to subject me to Katherine Heigl and her twenty seven dresses. I am, in essence, much like the chipmunk that scurries about the neighbourhood in the fall with his cheeks full of nuts…stowing them away to get through the long, cold, winter. Then again, mr. chipmunk does it to survive…what’s my excuse?
Seriously…are there support groups for people like me?