{"id":4403,"date":"2009-02-22T09:56:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-22T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/?p=4403"},"modified":"2021-06-10T10:02:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T14:02:11","slug":"oscars-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/2009\/02\/22\/oscars-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscars 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/images\/moviesbug.gif?resize=65%2C20&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"65\" height=\"20\">&nbsp; &nbsp; A day I never thought I&#8217;d see has dawned.&nbsp; Not the return of another Oscars celebration, but an Oscars celebration in which I don&#8217;t care who wins.&nbsp; An Oscars celebration in which I have so little interest I have to make an effort just to finish this entry.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; I admit I had similar reservations back in 2005, but that changed once I got a chance to see the five Best Picture nominees.&nbsp; I realized then they were all excellent movies which truly deserved to be singled out for recognition.&nbsp; The same is not true this year.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve seen four of the five nominees and was underwhelmed by all of them.&nbsp; The front runner, <i>Slumdog Millionaire<\/i>, is a movie filled with torture, hardship, and gruesome violence redeemed only in its closing moments by a dance scene under the credits &#8212; a move which I strongly suspect is why it has engendered so much lasting goodwill.&nbsp; <i>Benjamin Button<\/i> might be filled with memorable imagery and have attractive leads, but I just can&#8217;t get past the creepy p\u00e6dophilia inherent in its love story.&nbsp; <i>The Reader<\/i> had a very good story, but was so boring &#8212; despite all the nude scenes &#8212; I couldn&#8217;t help thinking it must have made for a better book.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; With such lackluster offerings I can already guarantee the Academy will be whining tomorrow on how their ratings have reached their lowest.&nbsp; And in response, I already have three words for them: The, Dark, and Knight.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; I admit I was late to <i>The Dark Knight<\/i> bandwagon, not seeing it in theaters, not seeing it till it came out on Blu-Ray.&nbsp; But it was such an obviously well-crafted, well-received, and well-reviewed entertainment that I assumed it would not only get a nomination but would surely win as Best Picture.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; But not only did it get snubbed as Best Picture, it didn&#8217;t even get a Best Director nod.&nbsp; And, I may be in the minority, but I&#8217;m not that impressed with the one high-profile nomination it did get.&nbsp; Sure, Heath Ledger will win as the sentimental favorite, but his performance struck me as one long Paul Giamatti impersonation.&nbsp; The other sure thing at the Oscars, <I>WALL-E<\/i>, is also flawed, in my humble opinion, with a second half that comes as anti-climax to such a wondrous first half.<br \/>&nbsp; &nbsp; Which brings me to my main point.&nbsp; This is going to be one very disappointing Oscars, and that&#8217;s coming from someone to who usually <i>loves<\/i> to watch this show.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; A day I never thought I&#8217;d see has dawned.&nbsp; Not the return of another Oscars celebration, but an Oscars celebration in which I don&#8217;t care who wins.&nbsp; An Oscars celebration in which I have so little interest I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/2009\/02\/22\/oscars-2009\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-me","category-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4405,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4403\/revisions\/4405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wastinaway.net\/shortfatguy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}