Labour Day Oscars, second year running

Last year in this post, I discussed the fact that it took ten years of my family being in Australia for the Oscars telecast to line up with Labour Day, a day off from work that I believe always falls on the second Monday of March.

Well, it took only one year for it to happen again.

I doubt the Academy is specifically consulting the Australian bank holidays, but by landing on some sense of consistency with its telecast date, it has allowed the two to align for the second year in a row -- which means only my second chance to watch the Oscars live since I've lived in this country.

And this year, I don't even have to take my kids out for breakfast as a trade with my wife, to buy myself the good will to take three hours off in the middle of the day to watch TV.

I hadn't remembered that that was the case last year, but reading the previously linked post reminded me of it.

Another improvement from last year: I'm writing the post you are currently reading on Sunday, rather than Monday, meaning that I can write my Oscars recap post as the ceremony is occurring, and post it straight afterward. (Some necessary background information: I never post more than one post in the same day. If it looks like I have ever done this in the past, it's only because changing time zones to Australia may have retroactively placed two posts in the same day that were once in two different days.)

I did my final bit of Oscars homework this past week, watching American Fiction on Tuesday night. It's the only best picture nominee I hadn't seen and really the only film of note that received any nominations that I hadn't seen. The only other film I haven't seen with a nomination in any of the major categories -- excluding categories like documentaries or international features, where there is not an expectation that I would have seen them -- is The Color Purple with its best supporting actress nomination for Danielle Brooks. (I don't know why they even bothered to name any other nominees in that category as Da'Vine Joy Randolph is going to win, and rightly so.)

My initial reaction to American Fiction was a bit more tepid than I wanted it to be. You can read my review here. Then yesterday I was listening to a podcast in which the three hosts discussed the movie, and though they had some of the same reservations I had, they pointed out that the bait-and-switch Cord Jefferson is doing here is similar to the sort of stunt Monk Ellison is trying to pull off in the story. And that gives some of my concerns with the film a sort of intentionality that makes me value those choices more. It still likely comes in ninth out of the ten nominees for me, miles ahead of Maestro, but at least trailing the others by less than I would have originally thought.

As proof that it is almost Oscars time, I am also early this year in printing my ballot -- or would have been, if I'd actually clicked print on Vanity Fair's printable Oscar ballot just now. But the printer is in close enough proximity to where my wife is currently sleeping that I held off. 

Don't want to give her an excuse to make me take my kids out to breakfast again.