Who's Oscar Anyway?

I'll be honest - I took a look at the lists of nominees for each of the 2008 Oscar categories and I've only seen two of the movies. American Gangster (highly recommended), nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Ruby Dee) and Best Art Direction, neither of which they took away the award for, and I saw Norbit (Best Makeup), which despite what I've heard people say about how bad that movie was and how it was an hour and a half of their life that they'll never get back, I actually enjoyed it and found it, call me crazy, very funny.

Dont get me wrong, it's not like I don't get out of my house or anything, it's just that I don't get enough cash flow to be able to see all the movies nominated for Oscars. Evening showings nowadays run for about nine dollars a person that I can't be spending every weekend to see what apparantly is "the best picture of the year," even though there's only a small handful that I've seen previews for that haven't claimed that same statement.

With only two awards dealing with music, and both including only motion pictures that I've never seen, I had to brush up on what went on in these movies. Winner of Best Original Score was "Atonement," a soundtrack written by Dario Marianelli (also wrote for Pride & Prejudice - great movie) and performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. I can see why it won such a prestigious award, as the music is moving and allows me to picture some kind of on-screen emotion that would be fitting for the tune. Other nominees included The Kite Runner, Michael Clayton, Ratatouille and 3:10 to Yuma.

The award for Best Music in a single song went to Once and the song "Falling Slowly," written and performed by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. I listened to it on YouTube and then immediately downloaded it, despite never even hearing of the movie Once ever hitting theaters close by. The Irish singer-songwriter duo combines Irglova's femininity with Hansard's deeper tone, giving off a contrasting yet still pure sound. Mixed with some light piano and background strumming, "Falling Slowly" was very deserving, along with its contenders from August Rush and Enchanted. I took a look at the songs nominated from Enchanted (all three of them) and saw that producers Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz and Mark Bright wrote songs from other Disney films including the Little Mermaid, and my second all-time favorite Pocahontas (right behind the Lion King). It brought back some memories of the type of music I would exchange with my Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys CDs on the way home from Allenwood School, so I'll admit it was almost refreshing.

But in all seriousness, I'm not some kind of person that is against movies or anything, it's just the movies I risked my money on weren't nominated. Personally, I would have liked to have seen I Am Legend nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Art Direction, Makeup, Visual Effects and most definitely Best Picture (it was worth the nine dollars to say the least). But from the looks of it, I'll surely be keeping Blockbuster busy in the future when all these movies hit shelves.