With the Academy Awards/Oscars just one week away, I am beginning my yearly ritual of asking myself why I actually watch them year after year. This is the time of year when many critics and bloggers dedicate a post to why they don’t watch and go into detail about why. The reason most often given is that the films that have been nominated are not actually the “best” films and performances of the year. When this criticism is launched, the critic generally discusses the various films, usually foreign and/or low-budget and/or independent and/or arty, that should have been nominated instead. The problem with these posts is that very few, if any, of these supposed better films have been seen by a wide enough audience. They show at festivals that not everyone can attend or only in “select cities.” Another problem is that the critics that compile these alternate lists rarely agree. Read more ›