I could blame the pandemic. But it could also be that I’ve lost interest.
Until I started seeing and hearing people pop up with their Oscar predictions, I had forgotten all about them. I wasn’t really paying much attention. I even had to look up who was actually nominated.
Just looking at the nominees for Best Picture was somewhat confusing. Seeing as how both Dune and West Side Story are included in that category. At one time in my life, I might have seen many of the nominees. This year, I had heard about a couple of them.
Part of the issue is the fact you would have to subscribe to several streaming services to see them all. I know people who sort of do that. They subscribe to one, watch everything they can on it, then move on to another. Seems too much like work to me. For the past two years, that has been the way movies work though. And some of that will likely continue.
Now that the days of sitting in a theatre seat, munching popcorn and watching a movie are starting to return, I may get out to see a few once in a while. But those days didn’t really exist for much of the past couple years.
And when it comes to the actual televised award show, truth be told I was losing interest long ago. While I appreciate the artistry involved with making a movie, the people who were winning a lot of those awards just did not matter to me. Knowing who won Best Foreign Short Film is not something that has an impact on my life. Yes, it is a big deal for people who are in the movie industry. I’m not.
And every year there seemed to be some controversy over who was going to host. Until they finally gave up having hosts. They are bringing them back this year, which might make it a bit more enticing to watch. And they are taking out some of the categories that the television audiences won’t care about anyway and doing them in a show before the show. And they are bringing in presenters who have nothing to do with the movies to try to entice people to watch who might not under other circumstances.
But I probably still won’t watch this year. I am only slightly familiar with some of the nominees and I haven’t seen any of the movies. I may check a list of winners after it is all over. Just to see if I feel like I missed something.
There was a point in my life when the Academy Awards would mean I would get dressed up and go to a party to watch the show. This year, I’ll probably still be wearing my sweatpants, seeing what else is on.
