Tag Archives: oscars

“Sentimental Value”: The Magic of Movies Comes With a Price

February 8, 2026 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve share a darkened restaurant table in front of a window at sundown, He has an empty plate, her side is empty. Both have neutral expressions.

The winner of the “Have Dinner With a Marvel Star!” Sweepstakes was really hoping she’d be meeting Chris Evans.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscars Quest ’26 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony. Sometimes it’s surprising how many actors and filmmakers return from previous years to pop up on my to-do list again, whether from Hollywood or from faraway lands.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of writer/director Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, a sex-forward Norwegian dramedy of thirtysomething dysfunction that definitely wasn’t made for fussy prudes like me. Trier, his co-writer Eskil Vogt, and star Renate Reinsve (who subsequently crossed over into the U.S. in 2024’s A Different Man opposite Sebastian Stan) reunite and return to the Oscar spotlight with Sentimental Value, this year’s only Best Picture contender that I hadn’t already seen before the nominations were announced. With 20/20 hindsight I’m sorry I didn’t make time for it sooner.

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“Arco”: The Rainbow Connection

February 7, 2026 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anime preteen boy in a pink hooded jumpsuit and rainbow vest being hugged from behind by a girl his age and height.

Cel-paint with all the colors of the wind!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscars Quest ’26 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony. Among other perks, sometimes it means movies I was thiiis close to watching last year get a second chance to slot into my free time.

Arco played at last year’s Heartland Film Festival and was on my viewing shortlist, but its lone showtime wound up among the several I missed due to schedule conflicts amid that great cinematic feast. One of two French nominees for Best Animated Feature this year, it played here in Indy for a single Oscar-season week before it flew off like a rainbow-streaking rocket toward the sunset.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Zootopia 2” End Credits

February 1, 2026 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Nick the fox and Judy the bunny sit in a therapy group, wearing nametags and looking askance at each other.

HE’s a wiseacre loner trying to walk the straight-and-narrow! SHE’s an irrepressible do-gooder crusading for justice! THEY FIGHT CRIME!

Previously on Zootopia: I was thrilled to see my favorite film of 2016 go on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. I was less thrilled when Disney announced it was next in line to be stuffed into their sequel-sausage grinder. I don’t need every great film to keep filing for brand extensions. Zootopia 2‘s unhelpful first teaser trailer invoked one of my personal theorems: if a given film’s teaser is just a clip of dancing main characters who won’t dance in the actual film, said film is bound to suck. (Exhibit A: Chicken Little, Disney’s weak attempt at making their own Nickelodeon flick.)

Two months after release, the sequel is still riding high in theaters and now likewise Oscar-nominated. It’s therefore on my annual Oscars Quest scorecard, which obligated me to see it per my self-imposed rules. I doubted it would hit Disney+ before the March 15th telecast deadline, so I relented for the sake of the game.

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My Oscars Quest 2026 Quick-Start Scorecard

January 22, 2026 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Michael B Jordan in red hat and Sinners suit, grinning and surveying his hometown.

16 nominations for Sinners? Smoke and Stack about to throw another killer party.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: every winter is my annual Oscars Quest! The game is simple but time-consuming: after the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announces their latest nominations for the Academy Awards, I make plans to watch as many nominees as I can in every category — not just Best Picture, regardless of whether I think I’ll like them or not, whether their politics and beliefs agree with mine or not, whether they’re good or bad for me, and whether or not my friends and family have ever heard of them. They have the Super Bowl; I have the Oscars.

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Oscar Quest 2025 Final Scorecard: 47/50

March 1, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan sit in character in the back of a limo. Strong glares at Stan, who's on the 1980s car phone.

“Look, Bucky, you’re gonna get me into the MCU right NOW.”

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 is over! I did my best to catch all the Academy Award nominees I could in every single category before the big ceremony Sunday, whether in theaters or on our household’s available streaming services. Last year I managed a 100% completion achievement, but no one gave me a trophy for my amateur hobbyist efforts. My wife Anne was relieved to know our routines could get back to normal, but that’s about it for prizes. Oh, and it was a great excuse to catch some fantastic films I might otherwise have missed…as well as a few pieces of garbage.

This year I earned no real bragging rights. Of the fifty different works up for honors this year, I’ve seen 47 in all as of Saturday morning, with no chance of getting any farther. Per my completionist tradition, the following are capsule summaries of the other ten nominees I watched over the past six weeks that I hadn’t previously written up. The services that granted me access to each of them are provided as well, though at least one has changed since I watched it.

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The MCC 2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Film Revue

February 28, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
2-D animated woman asleep on a floor mat in light shadows with sunlight pouring in through a narrow rectangular window. Next to her on a table are components of an elderly relative's daily medicinal regimen.

Don’t sleep your life away! There’re always cool new things to see!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my annual Oscar Quest continues! I’m still trying to catch all the Academy Award nominees I can before the big ceremony regardless of whether I think I’ll like them or not, whether their politics and beliefs agree with mine or not, whether they’re good or bad for me, and whether or not my friends and family will care in the least bit.

Each year since 2009 (except for 2021’s pandemic lockdown marathon) I’ve ventured out to the few Indianapolis theaters carrying the big-screen releases of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but I appreciate the opportunities to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether I agree with their collective opinions or not. My wife and adult son usually accompany me on the journey and we make a family outing of it, even though Oscar Quest is not their problem. Since 2019 I’ve also given myself extra credit for catching as many nominees for Best Documentary Short Film as possible, depending on their availability online, for the most complete shorts experience possible.

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Yes, There’s a Family Photo Album During the “I’m Still Here” End Credits

February 25, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A Brazilian mom poses on outdoor stairs for a photo with her five kids. All but two are smiling. Dad is not around.

We’re a happy family! We’re a happy family! We’re a happy family! Me, Mom, and…oh.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony. That includes any and all works I never heard of before they were nominated. I have no fear of subtitles — I relish them, in fact — and I’m always happy to learn more about the world history they failed to teach me in school, which was nearly all of it.

One of the interesting side effects of AMPAS’ membership diversification efforts of the past few years (contrasting with all their many other years of existence) is the Best Picture nominee lineups offer more surprises from other countries — works that only film-festival attendees could’ve possibly seen in their official year of release. Nominees about dictatorships are sadly commonplace across several categories, which is understandable considering our sinful humankind has spawned far too many tyrants throughout the millennia and on most continents. Most of those works used to be Holocaust films, but in recent times filmmakers from other countries have been taking turns sorting their own tragic histories. Next up is Brazil with I’m Still Here, following in the footsteps of recent-vintage, Oscar-recognized tales of South American regimes such as Argentina, 1985 and (technically) El Conde.

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“No Other Land”: The Oscar Nominee THEY Didn’t Want You to See

February 23, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Movie poster in a black case hanging on an exterior brick wall. Poster image is a young Palestinian man fallen on a rocky plain and a bulldozer parked on the distant horizon.

Now playing in 54 theaters this weekend, as opposed to Captain America 4‘s 4,100+ screens.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, assuming the filmmakers can afford a release wide enough to reach us Midwest film fans in time.

As of February 17th my Oscar Quest scorecard was down to the final five unseen works, all of which I’d assumed would remain out of my grasp for the rest of the season. Then up stepped Indy’s own Kan-Kan Cinema, an eclectic nonprofit who frequently hosts tiny new films that the major chains overlook or think aren’t worth their time and space, because they really really need a dozen screens showing Dog Man for the rest of the year. Of all our theaters, I should’ve known they’d be the first (and as of this weekend the only one) to jump at the chance to bring us No Other Land. In a true rarity for recent Oscar history, it was nominated for Best Documentary Feature without a preexisting distribution deal. The filmmakers themselves have had to foot the bills for a slow rollout because all the studios passed on it (major and minor), possibly because it contains that magic hot-button word guaranteed to start a riot whenever it’s dropped into a conversation among two or more people: “Palestine”.

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“The Girl with the Needle”: The Case of the 37-Week Abortionist

February 22, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Black-and-white poster for "The Girl with the Needle", featuring a glowering young lady in old-time sewing factory togs. A large sewing needle is stabbed into the film's title.

Not just another Lisbeth Salander mystery.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, no matter how dark or disturbing or draining.

The Substance and Nosferatu are the highest-profile nominees from the realm of horror, but farther down the ballot is a smaller tale of terror out of Denmark — The Girl with the Needle, inspired by the true story of a serial killer with a very specific, defenseless prey. Its nightmares are measured not in buckets of blood, but by the breadth of its unhealed psychological scars.

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“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”: Your Father Worked Very Hard for His Promotion to Death-Sentencer

February 20, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
An Iranian mom stands at a window with her two daughters, one college age and one high schooler. Nobody's happy, everyone's shadowy.

Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, some of which have had me driving all over Indianapolis to catch fleeting, one-week-only releases and sometimes having entire screens to myself.

Case in point: for the Iranian drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig on a late Tuesday afternoon, it was just me and one other fat, four-eyed white guy sitting in the way back who was hopefully not my evil twin. I’ve no idea whether or not he found it as chilling as I did, because we pasty introverts don’t run up and share our opinions with just anybody. The travel effort (to the other side of the city) and the social awkwardness were the least I could “suffer” for the sake of witnessing the work of writer/director Mohammad Rasoulof, who had to flee his home country so he could safely take a stand against it through his art.

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“A Complete Unknown”: Deluxx Folk Explosion

February 18, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Movie poster with Timothee Chalamet onstage, playing acoustic guitar and harmonica holder around his neck.

As seen on Saturday Night Live!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, regardless of whether or not I’ve previously connected with the subject matter in the slightest, and whether or not I’ll sound like a philistine to said subject’s biggest fans who outnumber me 500 million to 1. It wouldn’t be my first time speaking as an ignoramus who’s willing to learn.

Over the years James Mangold has directed films of all sizes and accumulated enough goodwill among studios and audiences alike that he’s now alternating between them — not exactly the vaunted “one for them, one for me” model of project selection, considering the last time he spent under $20 million on a film was 1997’s Cop Land. A steady career of dramas (and one fantasy-lite rom-com, the underrated Kate & Leopold) segued into blockbuster franchising with The Wolverine and Logan (still in my superhero-film Top 3), returned to true-story territory with Ford v. Ferrari, then was handed the golden keys to the Indiana Jones series and…uh, lost a lot of Disney’s money, but at least he helped the old man live down the one with Mutt and the aliens in it.

Mangold manages to do more with a little less in A Complete Unknown, technically another biopic in the manner of his Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, though it only covers a five-year period — the early years of Bob Dylan, which seem enough to convey his impact on the world of folk music and stopping short of…well, the last five decades of his career that fell within my lifetime. Hence why I procrastinated seeing this ever since its Christmas Day release until after it was a confirmed Oscar nominee rather than a presumptive one: folk music is generally not my thing.

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“Sing Sing”: The Divines’ Comedy

February 13, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Colman Domingo as a prison inmate sitting against an outdoor courtyard wall, laughing with eyes closed.

Colman Domingo, two-time nominee for Best Actor — for this and last year’s Rustin.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony, no matter how much chase they give me as their showtimes are few and far between — disappearing from all local screens one week, only to pop up the next as a last-minute addition to fill up any remaining back-of-the-theater showings that weren’t already taken up by the cartoon about the weredog beat-cop.

Such was the elusive cat-and-mouse chase between me and Sing Sing, which seemed to hold down more screens here in Indy before its three Oscar nominations were announced. It finally slowed down and let me catch up so I could marvel at Colman Domingo’s bravura performance in a very different prison drama — no sex, drugs, gore, riots, or interfaith gang wars among tattooed factions. (There are tattoos, but no one declares war over wearing the wrong ones.) It’s based on the true story of a community of men encouraging each other to find new purpose in their broken lives behind bars.

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“Nickel Boys”: Press Start to Begin Empathy

February 6, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Large standee for the film next to a white theater wall. The image is first-person viewpoint from a kid on a bicycle, riding behind another one, both heading down a straight country road surrounded by fields.

New | Continue | Load | Save | Options | Extras

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’25 continues! Once again we see how many among the latest wave of Academy Award nominees I can catch before the big ABC ceremony. Every year it’s a lively ballroom dance between new voices and For Your Oscar Consideration familiarity. Sometimes it’s two for the price of one.

Academy Award Winner RaMell Ross won that honorific with the live-action short film Hale County This Morning, This Evening back in 2019. This year the director scored another shot at the trophies with his first full-length feature, Nickel Boys — a period-piece drama about a subject familiar to longtime Oscar fans, not to mention historians and other decent folks still working and/or waiting for social sciences to discover the cure for American racism. To differentiate the film from past exemplars, Ross conducts an extended experiment with the narrative vantage approach that’s seemed revolutionary to scores of film critics whose only pastime is movies.

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My Oscar Quest 2025 Quick-Start Scorecard

January 24, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Robot has baby bird in its palm. Hand emits red and orange light rays into the darkness around them, diffused through its fingers.

The Wild Robot, my favorite film of 2024, nominated for three Academy Awards!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: every winter is my annual Oscar Quest! The game is simple but time-consuming: after the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announces their latest nominations for the Academy Awards, I make plans to catch the nominees in every category, regardless of whether I think I’ll like them or not, whether their politics and beliefs agree with mine or not, whether they’re good or bad for me, and whether or not my friends and family have ever heard of them. They have the Super Bowl; I have the Oscars.

I’ve seen every Oscar-nominated feature and short released between 2021 and 2023 — running the full gamut from the highest-priority Best Picture contenders down to the mediocre flicks with negative Tomatometer scores that show up only for Best Original Song. I’ve seen every Best Picture winner from Wings to Oppenheimer, and every Best Picture nominee from 1984 to the present, many of which were memorable and worth the hunt. I’ve enjoyed surprises and suffered regrets.

Sometimes I have to wait for smaller films to arrive at the art-house theaters here in Indianapolis. Sometimes I luck out and they’re available on our subscribed streaming services of choice. Sometimes my only option is a streaming rental for a few dollars more. For extreme cases and a bit of savings, I used to turn to Redbox kiosk rentals, but alas, as of last July they are no more. I go wherever the Quest takes me, while my wife Anne waits patiently at home or in another room, like Penelope looking forlornly at her calendar and wondering why that pigheaded Odysseus insists on stopping at every single time-wasting Mediterranean island in his way.

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The Academy Awards 2024 Season Finale

March 11, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Kate McKinnon's Weird Barbie invites Jimmy Kimmel into her Barbieland house and unrolls a large presentation map of "Oscarsland", which looks like a Candyland game board with photos of each of the ten Best Picture nominees scattered along its dotted-line path.

Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie gives a lost Jimmy Kimmel directions to the Oscars, in ABC’s extended trailer.

Oscar season is over at last! Tonight ABC aired the 96th Academy Awards, once again held at ye olde Dolby Theatre and hosted for a fourth time by ABC’s favorite trooper Jimmy Kimmel. This year’s soiree clocked in at 144 minutes, a surprising 14 minutes shorter than last year’s telecast. That’s after starting six minutes late and keeping the stopwatch running till the very end of the end credits, up to the final boilerplate disclaimer read by announcer David Alan Grier. Kimmel and his writing staff made only a single overtime joke in the monologue, then dropped that annual running gag for the rest of the night. It’s refreshing whenever a tired joke is crossed off the setlist.

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Indianapolis Man Watches All 53 Academy Award Nominees, Receives Pat on Head from His Oscar Widow

March 9, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jon Batiste on stage at Carnegie Hall, viewed from behind as he raises his arms toward an impressed audience.

Jon Batiste playing Carnegie Hall between awards ceremonies.

I am so, so tired. It’s been a loooong six weeks.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’24 has dominated my head space and made me neglect numerous other overdue blogging projects. I’m pleased to report I’m at long last finished: I’ve seen all 38 nominated features and all 15 shorts, marking my first-ever 100% achievement of completing my OQ24 scorecard before the big ABC ceremony. I don’t watch sports, so the Oscars are my Super Bowl, which makes me look weird to most folks in my circles. Nevertheless, once again my traditional hobby-journey was spellbinding, enlightening, maddening, exhausting fun.

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“Io Capitano”: From Naivete to Nightmare

March 9, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Google Wallet screen shot of the mMovie poster for "Io Capitano": Black teen walks through the Sahara Desert while a smiling African woman flies behind him and holds his hand.

When you wish upon a star…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’24 is in the home stretch! We do our best to see how many freshly nominated works we can catch before ABC’s big, indulgent Academy Awards ceremony ends the viewing season.

Our final theatrical release on the list is the Best International Feature nominee Io Capitano. It opened in Chicago and Cincinnati at least a week before its distributor deigned to grace Indianapolis with its presence on the very last weekend of this Oscar season. Its local “Coming Soon” status had been in limbo for weeks, leaving me to seriously consider road-tripping to Cincy for the sake 100% completion of this annual hobby-project. My patience paid off, and some time and gas money were saved.

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“Robot Dreams”: You’ve Got a Friend in Me (for Now)

March 7, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A cartoon dog and a robot on a skyscraper's observation deck playing around on coin-op binoculars. Other cartoon animal tourists are scattered around the deck, including a yak.

If you love pointing at ’80s stuff or iconic NYC places, have we got a film for you!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest ’24 continues! We do our best to see how many freshly nominated works we can catch before ABC’s big, indulgent Academy Awards ceremony ends the viewing season.

Each year there’s at least one nominee for Best Animated Feature that’s completely unknown to mainstream audiences because they don’t come with a massive corporate brand stamped on the front. This year is no exception: Pablo Berger’s li’l Spanish dramedy Robot Dreams kept me waiting for any kind of release, whether streaming or in theaters. My patience finally paid off: Indianapolis’ own Kan-Kan Cinema was among the few theaters holding exclusive, one-night-only screenings the Wednesday before the Oscars. I showed up alongside three or four dozen other folks at various stages of their own Oscar Quests. Oscar Quest is often such a solitary activity for me that it was nice not to be alone for a little while.

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“The Teachers’ Lounge”: The Case of the School Sleuth Snafu

March 2, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A teacher wearing a scarf and holding a Rubik's Cube stands in her classroom, empty except for a single student she's talking to offscreen. Subtitle reads, "It's about mathematics not magic."

In my day, teachers could rest easy knowing Encyclopedia Brown would solve all their mysteries for them.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: our fourth annual Oscar Quest continues! We do our best to see how many freshly nominated works we can catch before ABC’s big, indulgent Academy Awards ceremony ends the viewing season. Every year the most challenging category for attaining a 5-for-5 viewing score is Best International Feature. Every single year, three-to-five out of five honored films haven’t even been released in the U.S. before their nominations are announced, so I have to contain myself as they slowly enter the national art-house circuit. Weeks can pass before they reach our Indianapolis theaters. Sometimes my patience pays off; sometimes a straggler or two misses the deadline.

Of this year’s lineup, I watched Society of the Snow on Netflix in early January, and The Zone of Interest arrived here a month ago. Whereas Society was a Spanish film about an Uruguayan ensemble and Zone was a U.K. film entirely about German characters, our next nominee The Teachers’ Lounge (oder “Das Lehrerzimmer” auf Deutsch) was Germany’s official submission for the category, but its main character is Polish and she’s fluent in German and English. ‘Tis truly a solid year for cosmopolitan cinema.

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The MCC 2024 Oscar-Nominated Short Film Revue

February 18, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Tenebroso illustration of a giant pink pig with pinprick eyes looming in the shadows over a girl rendered in black-and-white.

Some pigs are nice, like Wilbur or Arnold Ziffel. Some pigs are made of rage.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my annual Oscar Quest continues! I’m still trying to catch all the Academy Award nominees I can before the big ceremony regardless of whether I think I’ll like them or not, whether their politics and beliefs agree with mine or not, whether they’re good or bad for me, and whether or not my friends and family will care in the least bit.

Each year since 2009 (except for 2021’s pandemic lockdown marathon) I’ve ventured out to the few Indianapolis theaters carrying the big-screen releases of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but I appreciate the opportunities to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether I agree with their collective opinions or not. My wife and adult son usually accompany me on the journey and we make a family outing of it, even though Oscar Quest is not their problem. Since 2019 I’ve also given myself extra credit for catching as many nominees for Best Documentary Short Film as possible, depending on their availability online, for the most complete shorts experience possible.

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