One of my bride’s many charming features is her, shall we say, focus. This time of year that single-mindedness is put to good use in the form of movie madness. For the past 4 years my reason for being has seen every movie nominated in every category for an Oscar. NOT just best picture, but best documentary, best screenplay, best costume, best anything.[This is not technically true – last year one movie was gone and not available ANYWHERE, and so poorly thought of you couldn’t even steal it on the internet]. As a result, during December – February we see an insane number of movies. Two movie weekends are expected. Three movie weekends, common. Four movie weekends, yep, that happens, and sometimes it gets worse. When the nominations actually come out, other responsibilities must be weighted against movie times, the releases of DVDs and, if truth be told, if all else fails, the rare use of a bit torrent download if there is no other way to get a movie before the actual awards night.

Living in a suburb of D.C. makes this craziness doable. We have a great array of theaters that cotton to those like us who frequent the art house films, actual organized showings of all the foreign films, the animated films, and the documentaries (more about this anon). One thing I do not understand is why the makers of documentaries and short subjects do not just release their films on iTunes. All of them express concern over not having the efforts of their labors seen by the public. Their movies are released at a handful of theaters around the country seen by a few hundred people. Seems to me that making one’s movie available for $2 downloads by potentially millions would yield a better outcome for the moviemakers.

Anyway, this year she who must be obeyed is grading the films she sees and posting her scores on her Facebook page. So, if you want a pretty good take on the best flicks, friend her and follow along. If you don’t know her, that’s a real loss for you.

If I ever make a movie, I promise to release it on iTunes. I’ll let you know.

Please don’t wait up, however, I’ll give you plenty of notice.