Not Another Post on the Oscar Noms!

This morning’s Academy Award nom­in­a­tions really drove home to me why I write this blog. I am not embar­rassed to tell you that I have yet to see any of the films nom­in­ated for Best Picture. That’s not to say that I won’t see them at some point. But I’ve come to under­stand that I just don’t care about keeping up with the flood of new releases or rushing to see every nom­in­ated film before the awards are announced.

I will dis­cover the great films the way I’ve always dis­covered them, and in the same way that I find great music, or lit­er­ature. Not (neces­sarily) from awards or year-end lists, but in my own time and in my own way. Maybe it will be through a friend’s recom­mend­a­tion, or an inter­esting review, or a con­nec­tion with another film or actor or director.

But I don’t want this blog to try to “cover” the big news the way that so many other blogs do. They do it quicker, and bigger, and better most of the time.

The title “Toronto Screen Shots” may make this site sound like a gen­eric (if local) film blog, but the truth is that it’s a per­sonal site, with my idio­syn­cratic tastes on full display.

Instead of posting the nom­in­a­tions and carping about them, like hun­dreds of other sites will be doing today, I’m simply going to let it pass. If some­thing shiny appears in the corner of my eye, I’ll let you know about it, as always, but it’s become clear to me that I’m just not qual­i­fied to talk about the Oscars right now when I’ve seen so few of the nom­in­ated films.

The media gen­er­ally like to whip up the hype to make everyone think that this year’s nom­inees are among the greatest works of art ever com­mitted to film. When you take the long view back into his­tory, and the broad view around the world, you realize how ridicu­lous that really is.