Oscar Season

It's that wonderful time of year again when Hollywood celebrates itself and the rest of us try to see as many of the top movies as possible (and are sometimes left wondering whether it was really worth the effort and expense). 

As I noted when I wrote about this back at the end of December (http://rfrancocsp.blogspot.com/2014/12/2014-at-movies.html), I only managed to see 12 movies in 2014 (at least one of which was actually a 2013 movie). Of the eight nominees for Best Picture this year, I have seen only three - Boyhood, The Imitation Game, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. I also saw one (only one) of the 5 nominees for best Foreign Language film - the Polish film Ida, a movie that thoroughly engaged me and that I would certainly consider to be very Oscar-worthy. Obviously, I can't compare the movies I have seen with those I haven't seen. Normally, I try to see all the nominated films, but I doubt I will do so this year. I have heard and read enough about Selma's distortion of Lyndon Johnson's historic role to make me not particularly keen on seeing that particular film, for example. 

Of the ones I have seen, I'd probably give my vote to The Imitation Game, although I wouldn't mind at all if Boyhood won. On the other hand, I can't say the same for The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I enjoyed seeing but would not consider serious Oscar material. In fact, I ranked it at the bottom of my admittedly unrepresentative list of 12. (I recognize that this is obviously a minority view - at least within the Academy - which probably says something about how out of sync I am with Hollywood values!)