But I do feel a bit of an obligation, which is actually coupled with genuine desire, to do a little Oscars prep, so this weekend, I watched the only remaining best picture nominee I hadn't seen, and my second-favorite of the nominees. (My favorite, Drive My Car, may have been available, but I can't just casually throw on a three-hour movie.)
Friday night it was Nightmare Alley, which I had planned to watch on the projector in our garage, until I realized, moments beforehand, that I had that problem last year trying to play iTunes rentals through our projector. It's incompatible for some reason. So I just watched that one in the living room.
On Saturday night I got my technical specs worked out correctly and remembered to rent Dune through Amazon instead, where I could play it through the Amazon Prime website rather than my iTunes software, hence allowing a projector setup in my garage. (There may have been a way to do this with an Apple equivalent streaming site, but I didn't bother to figure it out.)
I liked Nightmare Alley a lot better at the start, before Cate Blanchett's character came into it. No offense to Blanchett, but the direction the story took after this point just didn't do it for me, nor particularly did her performance if I'm being honest. (Okay, so, some offense.) I was set to give it 3.5 stars on Letterboxd by the end, but ultimately caved and went with four just because of how great the first hour is and how much I liked the production design, the camerawork, and the overall effort that went into creating this 1930s circus. I think I am a sucker for old circuses (aren't we all). Also, I remain an old softie when it comes to star ratings. I just can't help myself.
As for Dune, I did not expect my enjoyment of it to diminish on a second viewing, and indeed it did not. I said above I could not casually throw on a three-hour movie, but I guess a 2:35 movie wasn't as much of a hurdle for me. But Dune moves more quickly for me than a movie that length usually does, and besides, I had already decided I was going to allow myself a certain luxury when watching it: Namely, if I started to fall asleep, so be it. The tricky thing about watching on my projector is that I don't have a way to remotely stop the movie from playing, so I have to get up out of my bean bag and press stop if I want to close my eyes for a minute. In a movie I've already seen, though, I decided I could just let sleep overtake me for a few minutes, knowing a loud sound would snap me back to attention periodically (especially with Hans Zimmer doing the score). And if I missed a few minutes, it would be stuff I already knew was going to happen anyway. Besides, the first half of the movie, where I was less likely to fall asleep, is the best part anyway. It was pretty freeing to make this decision, and indeed, I probably did miss a combined ten minutes of the film's final half-hour.
I've got one more night, Sunday night, before the ceremony airs on Monday my time, so am I going to watch the best costume nominees I haven't seen and jam in as many of the live action shorts as possible?
Nope. Talk to 2002 me if you want to see that sort of thing.
I will, however, be avoiding spoilers during the day on Monday, and will gladly watch the ceremony, as I always do, on Monday night once the kids are squared away for the evening.
I haven't missed an Oscars since the mid-1980s, and none since I started watching them regularly. Some things will never change.
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