And Here. We. Go.

I can smell it. It’s in the air. No, I’m not talking about the commercialized ‘tis-the-season-to-be-jolly’ holidays. To put it simply, the season of the really good movies are here and some of the festivals have announced their winners as well. A lot would call it Oscar mania, but I wouldn’t really want to label it that, as I previously did, because I came to realize that there are a lot of good films left out, the ones that either lacked studio backing or marketing strategy, but standouts. The Academy is a sucker for marketing strategy. Put up a whopper of a poster, and then some. You know, that For Your Consideration thingy that usually appears in bootlegged copies of films. Well, it’s Oscar fever for one because most of the films that would likely end in the Academy’s roster are released this time of the year.

Around September last year, I listed down films that piqued me and what I thought would be potential contenders come awards season. It’s usually safe because most of it I haven’t seen yet, except some trailers and it’s really fun how your amateurish prognostication will turn out.

3 out of 5 nominated films last year I was able to mention: There will be Blood, Atonement, and No Country for Old Men. No Country I didn’t even knew about until it was raved in most of the festivals it screened. I was partial with Blood because it’s Paul Thomas Anderson and Atonement because that time I just finished reading the novel. Wasn’t gaga that much for Atonement, but thought that Blood and No Country are important films because it cinematically depicted the current socio-political milieu, whether America or the world.

I also mentioned The Savages, which earned an Original Screenplay nod and I’m Not There, though it earned just an acting nod from a luminous and unbelievable Cate Blanchett.

Oh and I also finally decided to start a new blog. Well, it's just a move actually, because, well it's one of those things that you know you just have to do. I'd thought this blog, which I wasn't able to update as regularly as much as I want to (in fact it will turn 1 year of being untouched), and for reasons that are only apparent to me, was a bit tight, and with the risk of sounding cheesy, so academic, which I think is not really a bad idea. After all, it's the experience of watching. So I decided that I had to do more than just that, nitpicking; I should try to enjoy more, though I'm not saying that it wasn't really fun. It was an exercise and fulfilling to say the least.

But what the crap. Ok. So here goes.