Chronicide Online

I’m at the halfway point — two weeks (and two days) since the Oscar nominees have been announced; two weeks (and a day) before the actual ceremony. So how’s my Oscar Challenge going? Well.

Looking at the big six categories: I’ve only seen one Best Picture nominee…and, therefore, one Best Director nominee (Slumdog Millionaire); one Best Actor nominee (The Wrestler); one Best Actress nominee (Rachel Getting Married); two Supporting Actor nominees (The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder); and one Supporting Actress nominee (The Wrestler again).

So of the 15 movies that comprise the top six categories, I’ve seen seven. Two more — Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Best Supporting Actress) and The Visitor (Best Actor) — are here from Netflix, so those’ll probably be knocked out today. And I’m hoping to go see either The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or The Reader this weekend, either of which would get me up to ten of fifteen, which is not a bad ratio to go with two weeks. I can do five movies in two weeks. (I think.)

To the greater tally of Oscar nominees, you can add WALL•E, In Bruges, and Iron Man to my list (which gives me two Original Screenplay and one Best Animated Film nominees, so it’s not a bad showing).

What’s tempting is the more obscure stuff. A theater near here is showing The Class and Waltz With Bashir, two Best Foreign Film nominees, and another theater is running this week only all ten Best Live-Action and Best Animated shorts. I really want to see all of those, but I don’t know if it’s worth sacrificing movie-going time that could be used for one of the remaining big six nominees to go to them, so we’ll see.

Each year, when the Oscar nominees are announced, I set myself a challenge to see as many of the nominees as I can before the awards are given.

I never do particularly well with this challenge — for example, of the 44 films nominated last year, I saw only 12. But this year’s nominations have been announced, so once again I’m going to give it a try. It’s a little easier this time in that there are only 36 films nominated this year, and I’ve already seen five of them.

Will I be able to see 31 movies in the next 31 days? Almost assuredly not, but I’m going to give it my all.

(For the record: the five I’ve seen are The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Rachel Getting Married, Tropic Thunder, and WALL•E. Not a Best Picture nominee in the bunch, but at least I’ve knocked out two Best Supporting Actors, a Best Leading Actress, and a Best Original Screenplay…)