Oscars? Did I just hear Oscars?

Same procedure as every year… Or not? As someone who even on weekends falls asleep at around 9 PM due to illness-induced exhaustion I hadn’t been out to a cinema those last 2 years or so, so naturally I didn’t know any of the movies at all. Strangely that may even be true for many fellow Europeans, as this year’s selection was rather US-centric to begin with, not necessarily boasting stories that would pull people in this part of the world in. Argo is probably still the most approachable of the lot, followed by Zero Dark Thirty (the ridiculous fake stealth helicopter design made me laugh, though, and reminds me of cheap propaganda “stealth” fighters that just rip design elements without understanding the technical and design differences; clearly some production designer went batshit on that without reading contemporary military aviation literature). Not sure about Django Unchained. Tarantino movies always are rather special and usually work better once you take them home on DVD and can enjoy all their subtleties. It is “cult” movies in both the good and bad sense of the word, though the cynic humor and of course having Christoph Waltz helps a lot. I also doubt too many people will be reeled in by Lincoln given the very special subject matter and all its baggage and Silver Linings will suffer the same fate despite the little golden statue now attached to these movies. Adele taking the prize for the Skyfall theme was almost a sure bet and Life of Pi inevitably would have to have won one prize at least for the visuals. Of course there’s still that ugly story of Rhythm & Hues bankrupting over it and VFX workers protesting at the red carpet that put a dark cloud on that one. The rest of the winners were rather predictable simply because there wasn’t much competition to begin with and what I’ve seen of the show felt strangely lukewarm. I guess it’s one of those years where we will have difficulty next year to even remember some of the movie titles and actors… I had my own little very memorable Oscar moment today, though. Little Arthur turned 4 last Friday and my colleague showed me a video with him opening up the present I sent him and holding his own personal thank-you speech (in his pyjamas shortly after getting up, no less…). What a cute little devil! ;-)