The Oscar Project Coda: Best of the 2000s/Best Decades

by Chris Marshall:

It is so, so strange not having any more Oscar winners to watch. I mean, I guess I could go back and watch all the nominees, but there’s a limit to my masochism. Besides, there are no existing prints of one of the early nominees, so I would always feel like there’s something missing. On the other hand, I am very much looking forward to watching movies that are more fun, more offbeat, and more interesting than the standard Oscar fare.

Most Best Picture winners are obviously high-caliber films, but the Academy virtually never picks anything that comes out of left field. I complained in my last post about people who called The Artist a safe pick. I stand by what I said, simply because by Best Picture standards, it was actually quite a bold choice. But compared to what exists out there in the wide world of cinema, it’s pretty tame.

The Oscar Project Interlude #7: Best of the 1990s

by Chris Marshall:

Well, the 1990s are finished. This decade in The Oscar Project took place during a time of major change in my life. I watched the first movie of the decade in somebody else’s apartment in Columbus, Ohio, because my power was out, and I watched the last while lying in bed in Smithville, Mississippi. It’s kind of hard to imagine that I wrote the first post of this series two and a half months ago when I should have been paying attention in my hierarchical linear modeling class at Ohio State.

It’s been quite a ride. When I first started in late April, I’d seen 21/84 of the winners, or 25%. Now I’ve seen 80/84, or 95%. By Tuesday, I will have seen every single one of them, which I bet very few people are able to say. There have been some really bad movies, though not as many as I expected, and some extremely good ones, many of which completely took me off guard.