2007 Academy Awards Nominations

The nominations for this years Academy Awards was released this morning. The list is here.

Scanning this list I thought for a few moments that I was going to score a 0% this year. But alas, I had to settle for a meager 2.5%. That means that I only saw 2 of this years nominated films in the theater. I saw two others on the list at home on video after its theatrical run was over.

So why is it that a guy who for many years spent every Saturday afternoon at the theater watching movies only saw 2 of this years nominated films in the theater. What changed?

Am I too busy to go to the theater? Maybe, but probably not, I still watch a lot of movies. I just watch them from home now.

Am I sick and tired of the "crap" that Hollywood is producing these days? Absolutely.

Am I unwilling to put my hard earned dollars into the hands of hollywood actors and actresses who insist on shooting off their mouths telling me how much they hate my country, my government, and me for voting for the politicians that I voted for. Again - Absolutely.

Is the theater business pricing itself out of business? If my family of five goes to the movies and if we use every discount we can (matinee price, discount coupons for snacks, sneaking snacks into the theater, etc) it still runs around $40 for our 80 minutes of entertainment. If we don't worry about doing this on the cheap we can drop over $50. Compare that to a video or pay per view movie at home with popcorn and soda for everyone runs us about $9.

Finally the main reason I didn't see most of this year's nominees at the theater is that I just wasn't interested. There were only a small handfull of movies released this year that I felt I wanted to see badly enough to go see them. And only three of them were nominated for Oscars, and they were nominated in the "animated feature", "art design", "visual effects" type catagories.