Lost On The Yellow Brick Road

I feel like a disgrace to my own industry.  I know it's officially Awards Season, but it's as though I'm lost on the yellow brick road.  The Golden Globe Awards came and went.  Oscar nominations were announced and I was only halfway interested.  I'm usually riveted to the screen come awards season, but this year... I hate to say it, but I just don't care all that much.

To be honest, I've had alot going on which precluded my ability to get to the movies much.  Due to that, I'm less informed about the Oscar-caliber films this season than I've ever been.  Of the nine films up for Best Picture this year, I've seen ONE of them... "Les Miserables," which I finally saw this past Sunday. Ironically, it was the reason why I missed watching the Golden Globe awards telecast. ( I can say that Anne Hathaway deserves everything coming her way for her exhausting and heartbreaking performance as Fantine in "Les Miserables.")

Despite my relative ignorance of sorts this year, I am excited to see films like "Silver Linings Playbook" and "Beasts Of The Southern Wild" getting recognition this year.  Both of those films have been on my buzz list for awhile; I just haven't gotten around to... well, seeing them.  I'm also intrigued by "Amour," a film written and directed by the Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke.  It's the type of small film about real life issues that rarely gets noticed, if it gets made at all.  "Amour" is about an elderly couple coming to terms with their changed lives when the wife suffers a stroke.  If not for award season buzz, I may never have become aware of it.  Now it's on my "must-see" list. "Amour" is up for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language film at this year's Oscars.  (It won the Golden Globe for best foreign language film.)

I'm also glad to see Lena Dunham getting award recognition for "Girls," her show about young Brooklynites struggling to find their way in the world.  (I can talk about this with clarity because I have Season One on DVD.)  It's nice to see Dunham get a warm embrace from the entertainment industry since many have given her the cold shoulder for "flaunting her body" and writing storylines that center on the sexual topics of young adulthood, the things no one wants to talk about.  The horror!  San Francisco Weekly called the show, "Startling, uncomfortable, and incredibly accurate."

"I was wondering about the stuff that gets up around the sides of condoms?" Hannah inquires...     Nothing's taboo in Dunham world.  Love her or hate her, she knows what she's doing.  No, it's not perfect, but it rings more true to life than most shows about the battlefields of post-collegiate life.

By this year's Oscar telecast, I hope to have seen a few more titles, but if not, I'll be plowing through my "must-see" list now that I have a little more free time. 

©2013 by KLiedle