Don't ask me. I've only seen a few of the nominated films- not because I don't  enjoy movies. To me, they're a lot like pizzas. Some are better than others, but they're all pretty good. It's just that movies have to compete with really good TV for my eyeballs these days. I'm currently working my way through the first season of "Dexter" and the fifth and final season of HBO's "The Wire".  That leaves little time for the big screen.

I always watch the Academy Awards more for the spectacle than the competition.  The fact that Juno and There Will be Blood are nominated in the same category reveals the folly of picking the best of anything. Did you see Westminster?   Uno is one fine looking Beagle, but is he a superior dog to my Airedale Terrier, Archie who wasn't even eligible to compete at Westminster because he's missing a couple of teeth and his great, great grand-sire may have actually been a goat? Preposterous!      

I can tell you that No Country for Old Men has the scariest bad guy  in Javier Bardem since Silence of the Lambs. Marion Cotillard is riveting in La Vie en Rose (a film I  watched only because it was my wife's turn to pick the netflix movie), but the screenplay on the life of singer, Edith Piaf is such a cliche  of the music legend bio-pic that it should have been called Le Dewey Cox Story: Marche Dur.             

I'm halfway through The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford but I can tell you that Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt  should do more films together.The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an artful film made astonishing by the fact that it's a true story.  I don't know if I'm going to get to Michael Clayton or Juno between  now and Sunday, but I'll try.

By the way, if you want to watch ABC's Oscar show with me and a couple hundred of my closest friends, consider springing for a ticket to the Tampa Theater's Oscar Night America this Sunday night. You'll see the show on the big screen after dining on food catered by Mis en Place while supporting the Bay Area's priceless 1920's landmark theater.  See you on the red carpet!