Oscar Fever

I don't watch much TV these days. In fact, some days would go by without me turning on the tv. I especially hate watching the news. I know I should, for the sake of knowing current events. But heck, everything in the news seems to be depressing. And I don't consider showbiz talk as news, even when the media tirelessly offer it as such.

I was so bothered by that particular news about a ten-year-old girl being raped by four men and then murdered and then left in a grassy abandoned place with hastily put-on shorts. I was really so bothered that I kept thinking about the incident for the following days. I have a daughter, and it's just so scary when you think about all the dangers that she might face the moment your head is turned away from her even for the shortest time. Even now, that video about the girl's shorts and legs after rape and murder still haunts me.

But even when I don't watch tv, it seems that nobody can escape the orcars (nice transition, huh? hehehe) The moment I log onto the internet, that's there staring at you.

I watched three out of the five nominated films for Best Motion Picture of the Year.

Babel was very well-crafted. It smoothly intertwined four extremely different cultures. In fact, it so smoothly intertwined the four cultures that when you watch the film, you wouldn't focus on the difference but on the distressing similarities among them. The film expertly presented how ordinary days can instantly turn into shocking ones and how ordinary lives can turn upside down in a moment, and that no matter what you do, some events will always be totally out of your control.

The Departed was an exciting film. I was able to watch the original on dvd, but I enjoyed the remake more. It was more thrilling and suspenseful somehow. And I liked that they killed the protagonist-antagonist character in the end (giving the film some sense of "justice") which they did not do in the original.

Little Miss Sunshine was both serious and hilarious. It was dealing with some very grave issues like suicide, drugs, homosexuality, death, marital strife, and the list goes on. But they were presented with such day-to-day matter of factness that you couldn't help chuckling all through the film, while shaking your head from time-to-time and thinking about the themes at the same time