I never wrote about the Oscars!

I just realized that I never wrote anything about the Oscars this year. I watched it from start to finish, all the way through even though most of my roommates didn't make it all the way to the end with me. A few notable items:

• The Social Network really swept the place. I haven't seen it, still, but with all the awards that it won,  I want to now. Since I never saw it, I just figured that it was a holiday blockbuster type that wouldn't really get that much attention from the Academy. But it did! And the soundtrack won! Trent Reznor won an Oscar. Which is just simply astounding to me but I don't think there are enough people that span the two worlds (Nine Inch Nails and paying attention to movie soundtracks...) to really make people realize the strangeness of that award. It's Trent Reznor for crying out loud! Just think about it... 
• I thought the lack of surprise in the winners for the big awards (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director just to name a few) was kind of disappointing. There wasn't really a question ahead of time who was going to win those awards. I must say I had to laugh to myself when people on the red carpet were talking about who they thought was going to win. Mark Ruffalo kept talking about how he thought Annette Bening would win Best Actress. It makes one wonder whether the "not obvious" nominees realize that the award is pretty much already in the hands of someone else. Interesting psychology project.
• The King's Speech is actually a very uplifting film. Many of the past winners of Best Picture are not those that end with an uplifting feeling. Most of them are downers but show the grit of real life. Which brings me to what I really want to discuss.

I find the disconnect between critically acclaimed films and popular movies to be very interesting. Or the difference between indie films and blockbusters. There are several indie films that were critically acclaimed that I saw and never want to see again. They were such downers in the worst way! Two of those are The Squid and the Whale and You and Me and Everyone We Know. Both movies were interesting, yes, but I don't understand the obsession that has made both of those cult favorites. After watching both of them I simply said to myself, well, the world is messed up. And we can't really do much about a lot of our problems. And too many older men sleep with too-young girls. But then we look at some of the blockbuster hits and wonder how people deal with the problems in their own lives when they are so far into the escapism of these happy worlds, like Alice in Wonderland, or Avatar, or (though I must admit that I am wayyy too far into this) Harry Potter.

And this problem is why I loved The King's Speech so much. It bridged the gap between so many of these levels. Yes, it is about the royal family, which is not something that pretty much 100% of the population can identify with, but there is such a universal humanistic feel to the film. It is well made, it reveals that struggles can bring us so far down, but shows a kind of hope that is attainable, rather than some extraordinary fairy tale kind of hope.

And on a lighter note, there was a pretty hysterical mix up when my roommate told me that Colin Firth was dating Rihanna. But it was actually Colin Ferrel. Just take a moment, though, to think about Colin Firth dating Rihanna... Hilarious.