With Netflix and Hulu streaming to our connected Blu-Ray player, Netflix mailing discs to our house with regularity, and us running to the theater sometimes four times in one day, you’d think this year’s Oscar Run would be one of our most complete ever. So how is it we’re going to miss 9 movies, the most we’ve missed in years?

Perhaps there’s easier access to movies in general, but not all movies. Particularly those who live in a purgatory of “just left theaters, not yet on DVD.” Add to that the Oscar categories that almost always put a movie you’d rather not see on your list (best song brought in Country Strong) and those that are hard to find anyway (any film not in English) and you have a perfect storm of Oscar completist frustration.

Here are the movies up for Oscars that we probably won’t see before the awards next Sunday:

• Country Strong
• Hereafter
• In a Better World
• Incendies
• Inside Job
• Outside the Law
• The Tempest
• The Way Back
• Waste Land

If you can help me view any of these movies, please let me know if in the comments below.

Oh, and go see GasLand. It’s my pick for best documentary. Yes, even over Exit Through the Gift Shop. It’s available on DVD.

A personal favorite - True Grit

Every year my husband and I commit to seeing every movie nominated for an Oscar or with an Oscar nominee in it before the awards ceremony itself. This year, that meant seeing 32 movies in 33 days (excluding shorts and the 9 movies we’d already seen).

We’re not even in the industry, so we don’t get screeners to watch at home. I know, we’re nuts. We call this The Oscar Run.

Completing an Oscar Run requires a strategy, and here’s ours:

• Watch on Netflix streaming at home whenever possible. At $8-12 a month, it’s cheap and convenient.
• If watching on disc, rent Blu-Ray. Upgrading a Netflix account to Blu-Ray is well worth the additional $2 a month, and you can revert back after the Oscar Run.
• If seeing in the theater is your only option, try to go to UltraStar. They are all-digital, and movies are $6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• Keep a list of which movies you’ll see where so you don’t impulsively buy spendy theater tickets for something you could have seen at home for pennies.

Here’s our list of what movies we’ll see and how.

Netflix Streaming
Alice in Wonderland (though I’m sure this looked much better in theaters)
Dogtooth
Exit Through the Gift Shop (also available on Hulu, but Netflix is in HD)
I Am Love
Restrepo

Netflix Blu-Ray
Animal Kingdom
How to Train Your Dragon (3D would have been better in theaters)
Iron Man 2
Salt
The Kids Are All Right
The Town
The Wolfman
Toy Story 3
Winter’s Bone (They say there’s a short wait for this)

Netflix DVD
GasLand

Theater
127 Hours
Another Year
Barney’s Version
Biutiful
Black Swan
Blue Valentine
Country Strong
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Inside Job
Rabbit Hole
Tangled
The Fighter
The Illusionist
The King’s Speech
The Social Network (Also on Blu-Ray, and on Netflix Blu-Ray on 2/8)
The Way Back
True Grit
TRON: Legacy (See in 3D if at all possible. Worth the extra money.)

Not yet available
Hereafter
In a Better World
Incendies
Outside the Law
The Tempest
Waste Land
Unstoppable (Blu-Ray will be released 2/15)

If you find a way to see these last movies, please drop me a line in the comments.

Finally, if you really want to see the shorts, it’s not impossible. Here in San Diego they are often available for seeing in one go for a short time at the Ken Theater. Try your local art house.

Happy hunting!

Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

State of the Oscar Run (updated 3/8/10): Saw all but 2 films. Which Way Home eluded me completely. Ajami I couldn’t find with English subtitles, and I don’t speak Hebrew. Squeezed in Un Prophete and El Secreto de Sus Ojos before the Oscars. All told, I saw 32 full-length films and 10 short films in 34 days.

We’re nearly there, folks. The 2009 Academy Awards will be given out tonight starting at 5:00 PM Pacific time. The world holds its breath: Will Peggy see the last two movies on her Oscar Run list?

Okay, no one cares about that. They really just want to know, after seeing all these movies, who I’d predict to win and who really deserves it. That’s why I watch all these movies, really – so you won’t have to. You’re welcome.

NOTE: This list is now updated with actual winners starred (*). I made 17 predictions, got 12 right, and 4 wrong. (I gave myself a half point each for Documentary and Costume Design as for each I was split between two films.)

Best Picture

My pick: Avatar
My prediction: Avatar

Check my reasoning here. Up in the Air was a close second. (Winner: The Hurt Locker*)

Best Director

My pick: James Cameron, Avatar
My prediction: James Cameron, Avatar

Check my reasoning here. Kathryn Bigelow* (The Hurt Locker) might be an upset win, in more ways than one – she’s Cameron’s ex-wife.

Best Actress

My pick: Helen Mirren, The Last Station
My prediction: Sandra Bullock*, The Blind Side

…which would be ironic, given All About Steve.

Best Supporting Actress

My pick: Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
My prediction: Mo’Nique*, Precious

Very tempted to pick Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart, but I think Anna squeaked past. And no, that pick was not Twilight-influenced.

Best Actor

My pick: Colin Firth, A Single Man
My prediction: Jeff Bridges*, Crazy Heart

Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) might pull off an upset win.

Best Supporting Actor

My pick: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
My prediction: Christoph Waltz*, Inglourious Basterds

I so wanted this to be Stanley Tucci, but no one wins with a movie like The Lovely Bones - including the audience.

Best Original Screenplay

My pick: The Hurt Locker
My prediction: The Hurt Locker*

I actually liked The Messenger better, but I think that was because of the performances, not the screenplay.

Best Adapted Screenplay

My pick: Up in the Air
My prediction: Up in the Air

(Winner: Precious*)

Best Foreign Language Film

My pick: El Secreto de Sus Ojos*
My prediction: Un Prophete

Ojos had the most incredible single-take tracking shot I’ve seen all year, and the best story. Prophete, however, had the distribution. Who knows? Last year, that didn’t matter to Oscar.

Best Art Direction

My pick: Avatar
My prediction: Avatar*

However, I really liked The Young Victoria for this, and thought Bright Star should also have been nominated in this category.

Best Costume Design

My pick: Bright Star
My prediction: Either Coco Before Chanel or The Young Victoria*

Clothes were more of a character in itself in Bright Star, even more so than in Coco Before Chanel, oddly enough.

Best Makeup

My pick: Star Trek
My prediction: Star Trek*

Three words: Zachary Quinto’s eyebrows. But bravo to Il Divo for the nomination.

Best Animated Feature

My pick: Up
My prediction: Up*

But damn, if The Princess and the Frog wasn’t a great return to classic animation for Disney!

Best Documentary Feature

My pick: The Cove*
My prediction: Food, Inc.

Actually, they tied for both pick and prediction in my mind.

Best Cinematography

My pick: Avatar
My prediction: Avatar*

The White Ribbon was deservedly nominated here, and was also the most painful movie to watch – that counts.

Best Original Song

My pick: “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart
My prediction: “The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart*

But Marion Cotillard singing “Take It All” was the best part of the otherwise-awful Nine.

Best Visual Effects

My pick: Avatar
My prediction: Avatar*

Check my reasoning here.

Note that I am leaving off categories where I have no opinion: Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing. I’m also skipping Best Original Score because that would take more independent listening than I have time for.

What are your picks and predictions?

Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish pine for each other in Bright Star

I’ve noticed I’m writing fewer reviews of individual movies this year, and by fewer, I mean “not a single one yet.” Sorry, movie fans. Here’s some (I hope) useful info that I can jot down quickly.

We’ve seen 26 of the 34 Oscar movies we intended to, so I can now recommend which you should see and which you should shun.

DON’T MISS:
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Up in the Air
Avatar
The Messenger
In the Loop
Bright Star
Star Trek
Crazy Heart
A Single Man
The Last Station
Up
Invictus
The Princess and the Frog
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince
Food Inc.
The Cove
Burma VJ

DON’T BOTHER:
The Lovely Bones
Nine
The White Ribbon
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

GOOD, BUT FOR NICHE FANS ONLY:
Precious
Coco Before Chanel
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Blind Side
The Young Victoria
Julie & Julia
The Secret of Kells
Coraline

I STILL CAN’T DECIDE:
A Serious Man

State of the Oscar Run: 21 more movies to see in 14 days.

Podcast alert: If you prefer your movie talk in a visual format, go check out my husband Ken’s new video podcast That Movie Was…, where he and his friend James give their opinions on current movies.

Ken and I have reached a point in our Oscar Run where we’ve knocked out all movies in a few categories, so I can make some picks with confidence. These are not predictions, just who or what would get the Oscar if I were giving them out.

Forgive me if I skip Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. I don’t even know the difference between those last two categories, so clearly I’m no judge there. I’ll also skip Best Original Score, as I’d have to go back and hear them back-to-back to decide (no time, I have 21 movies to watch!). However, I will tackle Best Visual Effects, Best Director, and Best Picture.

Best Visual Effects

• Nominees: Avatar, District 9, Star Trek
• My pick: Avatar

It isn’t just because James Cameron has spent so many years on this film (his last film was in 1997) and claims to have actually invented the means for new digital effects along the way. And it isn’t just because the list of people credited for special and visual effects for Avatar is so long (1232, versus District 9′s 291 and Star Trek’s 481). It’s my pick because the result was so jaw-dropping, so seamless and stunning, so outright beautiful and so completely involving that I forgot I was even looking at something digitally produced. As good as the effects in the other films were, my brain would still click to the inner comment, “Whoa, that was an incredible special effect” when an alien would blow up or the Enterprise would go through a black hole. With Avatar, the effects were so good that I forgot they were effects. It was like I had ingested them in my Diet Coke, rather than watching them on the screen. They were miles better than the laughable aliens in The Abyss. Good job, Jim. And kudos for dedicating the film to the late, great Stan Winston, whose company worked on it.

By the way, WETA is the new ILM.

Best Director

• Nominees: James Cameron (Avatar), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Lee Daniels (Precious), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)
• My pick: James Cameron (Avatar)

Even though I’m happy to see a woman get nominated for making a war movie, and even though I’m happy to see Jason Reitman focus his considerable talents on recession angst, and even though I love seeing Quentin Tarantino do anything at all, the winner in my mind is still James Cameron. Yeah, he’s the King of the World, and yeah, this movie breaks no ground in terms of storyline (spoiler alert: the good guys win) – it doesn’t matter. Avatar was what the prize is actually named: an achievement in directing.

If I had my druthers, I’d have nominated Lone Scherfig for An Education, but still given it to Cameron. Not that I’m trying to expand any categories, because that would be just stupid. Speaking of which…

Best Picture

• Nominees: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air
• My pick: Avatar

Oh crap, look what I just did there. It’s an all-Avatar lovefest. Not what I intended. So let’s talk about this “10 Best Picture nominees” thing for a minute.

I mean, what? Ten nominees? What for? Because The Dark Knight was unfairly left out last year? Okay, more nominees might prevent future gaffes like that, but it also makes the nominated movies seem less special. Ten Best Picture nominees a year, and in ten years, there will be 100 Best Picture nominees (but probably not 100 really good movies). It will become a sad trivia question: “What were all the Best Picture nominees in the 2010s? Betcha can’t name ‘em all!”

But let’s get back to Avatar. In a sense, it won by default. The other pictures just didn’t reach the same level. Precious went where other movies won’t go, but even though the heroine was smiling in the last frame, she’s still completely fucked, so I’m not sure what we were supposed to learn. A Serious Man dumps you off at the metaphorical bus stop with both cancer and a frickin’ tornado inexplicably coming at you, so I can’t reward that. The Hurt Locker gives you a fresh perspective on work stress – are you standing in the middle of a flower-like arrangement of 7 live bombs? No? Then STFU – but not alot more.

The only serious contenders for my affections besides Avatar were District 9 (a classic and very good sci fi film), An Education (an English coming-of-age film that ought to do wonders for Carey Mulligan), and Up in the Air. Considering Avatar’s somewhat hackneyed storyline – note to Sigourney Weaver: YOU CANNOT TRUST CORPORATIONS IN SPACE! – this means that 2009 was actually not a great year for movies.

Do you know where I could see these movies? They are Oscar-nominated, but eluding me. Help a movie-lover out!

• Ajami (from Israel)
• Burma VJ
• El Secreto De Sus Ojos (from Argentina)
• The Messenger
• The Milk of Sorrow (from Peru)
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
• The Secret of Kells
• Un Prophete (from France)
• Which Way Home

Current state of the Oscar Run: 28 more movies to see in 25 days.

As Ken and I have discovered over many years of trying to see Oscar-nominated movies, a nomination doesn’t guarantee that a movie will stay in theaters long enough for you to see it. It helps that there are more movies on DVD and available via cable On Demand services every year, but there are always those that fall in the cracks.

Here are the movies that we advise you see ASAP, as they may be nearing the end of their theater run, and they don’t have a DVD release date yet.

Fantastic Mr. Fox – Most theaters that are still showing this are doing so at “kid times” – just a few showings early in the day. That’s a sign that theater managers think it’s got a limited audience, which means it’s doomed. We’re going to try to see it today. Never miss a Wes Anderson flick!

Invictus - Though this came out only in December and has many big names, it’s being overwhelmed by other, bigger releases, and got few nominations. See it to decide if Morgan Freeman should get Best Actor or Matt Damon should get Best Supporting Actor.

Nine – I suspect this one is going fast because it stank up the joint. Seeing it will be one of the things I do for the love of movies. If you’re not a completist like me, maybe don’t bother. If you do see it, check the art direction, costume design, and possible Best Supporting Actress performance by Penelope Cruz.

The Lovely Bones – This is still playing in a bunch of places, but even with Peter Jackson attached to it, it’s been giving off eau de fail. See it for Stanley Tucci’s performance, nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

The Princess and the Frog – Playing in many theaters, but like Fantastic Mr. Fox, it’s playing at “kid times” – the kiss of death.

Any nominated documentary or foreign film – These are notoriously hard to find. Last year’s winner for Best Foreign Film, Departures, we couldn’t find anywhere – and we were REALLY trying.

Happy film hunting!

As I first explained a year ago, my husband and I try to see every film with an Oscar nomination or a nominee in it before the prizes are awarded. We call this the Oscar Run.

Today we got our marching orders – the 2009 Oscar nominees were announced. Go here for a complete list.

Here are all the movies with a nomination or nominee (excluding shorts and the more obscure technical nominees):

Nine

Up in the Air

Crazy Heart

Precious

Invictus

The Messenger

The Last Station

The Lovely Bones

Inglourious Basterds

The Blind Side

An Education

Julie & Julia

A Single Man

The Hurt Locker

Avatar

A Serious Man

Up

District 9

In the Loop

Ajami (from Israel)

El Secreto de Sus Ojos (from Argentina)

The Milk of Sorrow (from Peru)

Un Prophete (from France)

The White Ribbon (from Germany)

Coraline

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Princess & the Frog

The Secret of Kells

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Sherlock Holmes

The Young Victoria

Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince

Bright Star

Coco Before Chanel

Burma VJ

The Cove

Food Inc.

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

Which Way Home

Il Divo

Star Trek

Paris 36

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

That’s 44 movies, of which I’ve seen 8. Bottom line: I’ve got to watch 36 movies in 33 days. Gulp!

Anybody want to go see a movie?

So I’m watching Bored to Death on HBO, the new film noir/comedy series starring Jason Schwartzman. We had recorded several episodes on our DVR, and my husband was zipping through the in-between filler stuff to get to the next episode, when I yelled “STOP!!!”

Him: “What?”
Me: “Was that a Twitter quote I just saw on the screen?”
Him: “What do you mean?”
Me: “I mean instead of quoting a movie critic about this series, they quoted a tweeter.”

Ken cycled back through the previous frames, and sure enough, there it was:

@plectrude's review

Who or what is “plectrude”? A new arts magazine? A grandmother from Sheboygan? The pimply teen across the street? I decided to find out. I looked up the @plectrude account on Twitter, which said it was a person in Romania with 33 followers. Ken suspected it was a front for HBO. I sent them the following tweet:

Shortly afterward, I got a reply:

@thepegisin yes, I know. they asked for my permission :) thank you so much for that still. is it ok if I post it on my blog? :D

I said of course, and later found this blog post. If her bio is accurate, @plectrude is a 23-year-old woman from Romania. You can read more about her at her blog, potential hikikomori.

Or she’s a front for HBO, and I fell for it. You decide.

My husband does not share my love of Harry Potter. Dumbledore, Hogwarts and Quidditch leave him cold. But he loves me, and I love the books, so he made it his business to find out when the next Harry Potter film was coming out (July 15), and when it could be seen in the best of all possible formats, IMAX 3D (July 29).

Since it was opening day for this film in IMAX, we knew we’d have to wait in line to get decent seats, so we lined up at Edwards Mira Mesa Stadium 18 at 5:30 for the 7:40 PM show. We’d gone right after work, and given that we’d be in the movie until about 10PM, I bought concessions – a practice we call “conceding,” since we know the food is both terrible and overpriced. I got a hot dog, a medium popcorn, a medium soda, and some fruit gummies, which cost almost $20. IMAX movies cost more, in this case $16.50 each, so by the time we took our seats, we were already in for over $50.

Half a C note.

My friends, as much as I love Harry Potter, this gave me pause.

Another thing that gave me pause – the much-vaunted, totally immersive 3D effects in this movie only lasted for about the first 15 minutes. Then a flashing red symbol told us it was time to take off our 3D glasses, which remained perched on top of my head for more than 2 hours.

The final thing that made me question my decision to spend extra to see this movie in IMAX 3D? The screen is not much bigger than a regular movie screen.

Now, if you’ve ever seen a movie at the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park, you’re thinking, “What? No way! IMAX screens are huge!” And that IMAX screen is huge, something like 75 feet wide, and completely surrounds your field of vision in a curved dome. But the IMAX screen at the Fleet is different than the IMAX screen at Edwards Mira Mesa. It’s what’s called an IMAX Dome theater, and it’s the only one in San Diego (and was the first in the world, by the way). What’s at the Edwards Mira Mesa is known as a IMAX MPX theater, which is rectangular, and according to the IMAX website, is “specifically designed to enable multiplex operators to more cost effectively enter into the IMAX® theatre business, by retrofitting an existing stadium seating auditorium or via an economical new build.” In other words, sell you “IMAX” without having to build a new theater. Which means the screen is not much bigger than that of a conventional theater – and only about 1/3 the size of traditional IMAX.

Now when you pay your $5 extra per ticket to see an “IMAX” movie, they really work hard to convince you that the movie you are about to see is the most pristine, incredible, optimum movie experience imaginable. An usher tells you that the sound will be incredible, even upsetting to some people, but that they won’t turn the sound down – it’s a bajillion watts and 999 speakers behind the screen, all aimed at you, and that’s the ride you paid for, buddy. And it is good, don’t get me wrong. The sound is probably the best I’ve ever heard in a theater.

But is it worth twice the price of a regular movie? Or even 3 times?

I decided to do a completely subjective, non-scientific experiment. I’d seen Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in IMAX 3D at Edwards. Now I would go and see it again, this time in “standard definition” – i.e., a regular theater, at regular prices. I’d found out if the extra I paid for “IMAX” was worth it to me.

For my second viewing, I chose the UltraStar Del Mar Highlands. UltraStar is my favorite movie theater chain, because they feature really clean, crisp digital projection in all their theaters, but cost the same as a regular movie (and often less – movies there are $5.50 all day Tuesday, and if you clip the coupon you’d find in the San Diego Union-Tribune every Friday, they are $5.50 anytime). Essentially, they improved my movie experience without passing the cost on to me. I like that.

It’s still a long movie, and I hadn’t had dinner, so again, I conceded. This time I used another coupon UltraStar offers in the newspaper, and got a medium popcorn and a medium soda for $6. Boy, I thought, I am becoming a cheap date. So far I’d only laid out $11.50.

I was in Theater 8, and I asked the usher how big the screen was. He told me it was 18 feet by 37 feet. To my eye, it was only slightly smaller than the IMAX one at Edwards.

I saw the movie again, and it was just as thrilling, just as immersive, and just as magical as my previous viewing. Yes, “IMAX” was better in terms of picture and sound quality, but twice as good? No, not nearly.

So I may be saving my husband a lot of money when we go to the movies in the future. And if I ever want to go have a real IMAX experience, I’ll consult bigmoviezone.com, which allows you to search for theaters by type of projection or whether the screen is rectangular or domed.

Yay for cheap dates!