The Peg Is In

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

No posts for a month? Dear readers, you must have wondered what hole I fell into.
It was a deep and wide hole, and its name is Overcommitment. I fell down it and couldn’t get up. Several of my friends were down there, too. We discussed our predicament over many beers. This did not help us [...]

Wow! I just got finished watching the Oscars, and what a movie year it was! Not only that, but I made my most accurate predictions ever. Didn’t that set with the Swarovski crystal curtain look incredible? And I think the device of having 5 past winners in a category present the award was marvellous. This [...]

The 2009 Academy Awards are just two days away! Here’s who would win if I ran the show, along with my predictions for who will win.
Best Actor
On pure acting chops, the best was Sean Penn, but Hollywood is a big softie and tends to reward living the role. In that case, Mickey Rourke takes it. Frank [...]

I’ve been making good progress on my Oscar Run. Just to remind the uninitiated, an Oscar Run is an attempt to see all feature-length movies nominated for an Oscar or containing an Oscar nominee before the prizes are awarded. This year, that is this Sunday, February 22.
Coming soon: my top ten list from these movies, [...]