Oscar Madness Hits So Early...
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at 5:36PM 
I have a post scheduled to go up later suggesting that the new Film Experience 'season' will start on Tuesday September 13th.... after a wee break. But it seems that the Much Oscared Web we travel and help weave isn't even waiting till after the Labor Day Holiday to spazz out about Oscar This, Oscar That. You'd think Labor Day was already past us the way the web is collectively all up in Fall Movie Season's grill. Over at Movie|Line Stu Van Airsdale surveys the red carpeted landscape ahead with quotes from yours truly and other pundits who suffer, as I do, from gold fever. You know who they are.
Are you ready for fall movie season yet? How ready: Scale of 1 to 10?
Or do you need a summer vacation from summer first?
In other news, little nuggets from Venice are on the way soon from two Film Experience correspondents. Stay tuned.
Oscars (11)
Reader Comments (12)
I'm at a 7. I am sooo glad summer is over just because I felt that every movie i saw started to blend together (with some exceptions). Too much 3-D, sci-fi allegories, and superheroes for my brain to handle.
This fall's slate looks wonderfully varied and I'm very excited for Oscar season.
I'm at an 8 or 9. This summer has been pretty bleak, it feels like all the movies that are considered successes - Thor, Captain America, even Crazy Stupid Love - were not actually loved, like the reviewers and the public had to talk themselves into liking them because there was nothing else even approaching ok.
probably a 9.
I think i'm wear Terence is. There is a real problem with the samey samey aspects of summer. which is why those release quadrants are so dumb. I'D LOVE a superhero picture in December during all the "message" movies and i sure as hell would love some prestige flicks in between the superhero pictures.
VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE.
i agree with Terence, it seems like every American superhero is soon to have their own movie.. so bored with superheroes and 3d..
I am at a 10. I need intelligent movies and I need them now.
I guess 3.
1 - minimum interest in the race as such. Not even Close vs Streep, the possibility of Woody Allen nominated again, or Viola Davis get me excited about it. Past AMPAS decissions have made me completeley skeptical. If Portman won a second for Thor I wouldn't be surprised or shocked anymore.
+ 1 : because it's always interesting reading about it, no matter what.
+ 1 : more movies, though that will be at the beginning of the next year around here.
Around a 6, I'd say. I like this small window time of the year, post-summer/pre-fall when optimism is high in the air about the Nov/Dec/Jan delayed releases. Because from Oct-Feb, it'll be nothing but gold fever and then summer movie season in a short time after that. The first couple of weeks in Sept is the break for me.
I guess a 5, if that's neutral? I'm tired of reading about the summer crop and looking forward to some new intelligent films but - I'd like to focus one the films themselves. Let the films earn those awards and buzz, instead of it being taken for granted that such and such is an Oscar winner before it even opens. In other words, put Oscar back in the box for a few months and we'll take him out a few months down the road and play with him then, ok?
10. I need all the good movies to come out in one week so I can watch them all.
I'm at about a 6 this year. I'm excited about particular movies (The Artist, Extremely Loud, 50/50, Drive-- not that the last two are particularly Oscar-y), but when it comes to looking at potential winners, people seem settled in many categories-- Spencer or Redgrave, Streep or Close, possibly Plummer. I'd say the Best Picture winner could already be narrowed down to a very small pile of movies.
So here's hoping for a major shake-up: War Horse ends up average, Streep is over-the-top in The Iron Lady, people latch onto Drive...
That would really up my level of excitement.
Eh, I'm not looking forward to all the Oscar hype at all. But this does strike me as an unusually strong fall/early winter slate of films, so I guess I would break it out as: Oscar interest, 2; fall movie interest, 9 or 10.