Even I watched the Oscars

I usually hate awards shows. They’re long, full of speeches nobody wants to hear, and for the most part are a pat on the back of the rich by the rich (see: The Grammys). Now, I have nothing against rich people, just rich people congratulating other rich people for being rich. Doesn’t that seem a little, well, rich?

As fate may have it, I ended up watching the Oscars tonight. In my defense, I was lulled in by Ellen, then rapidly switched channels during montages, thank you speeches, and awards even huge movie buffs don’t care about (quick digression: why is nothing else ever on during awards shows? Is there not a direct demographic – I would guess 18-45 year old males – who are most likely to not be watching the award show? Couldn’t we get Die Hard on TNT or a marathon of Seinfeld on TBS?). As I was watching the show, it quickly occurred to me that I missed out on a lot of movies last year. And I’m not talking the big ones, or the award prone (such as The English Patient) that I avoided because I knew I wouldn’t like it regardless of how many other people did; I’m talking about a lot of movies!

I decided to do some quick research with the help of Rotten Tomatoes and see how many “great” movies I missed. I popped up the top 100 movies of 2006, according to average review, and quickly looked at how many I had seen. I was astounded to find out that only 11 (eleven!) of the aforementioned 100 cinematic adventures passed through my eyes between January 1st and December 31st, 2006. And yes, there were many independent movies that I had never heard of, but even so, that’s a very small number.

I’m not your average Joe Blow that watches whatever movie gets the most publicity. I use Rotten Tomatoes to seek out the highest rated movies in order to have a higher chance of enjoying my time (and I’m not trying to plug them, it’s simply the only place I know of that will take all of the reviews of a movie and spit out an average score at you). Yet I have managed to let 90 great movies slip by me (and even more that managed to score just under 78%) due to failing at watching movies.

These things happen, I suppose. But I’ll try harder this year (and I’ll try to catch up on last year). And in hindsight, I’m sure The Departed deserves the Oscar (I actually did see that one, and I have to ask you, William Monahan, you couldn’t think of anything but a cop out ending?), but without seeing the other movies, will I ever really know? Thank god for Netflix!