I've usually been a regular moviegoer, but I barely saw any this past year because it was just a really dry year. I did miss a couple I had intended on (Bugonia, Rental Family), which was my bad, but most weeks had pretty much nothing I actually wanted to see, so I just stayed home instead.
If there's something I watch even less of, it's whatever awards bait movies show up each year. Occasionally I'll see one, but it's pretty rare. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against something artsy fartsy, but most of the time, movies that Hollywood considers great are ones I don't care about, especially if they're all heavy-handed with political messaging, which is nearly all of them.
Hell, half of the Best Picture nominees I haven't even heard of, and of the rest, I only saw two: F1 and Sinners. Of those, my personal pick would be F1 because it was simply a good time, the kind of movie you
want to go to the theater to see. Sinners was okay, and the "racism bad" angle was easy enough for me to ignore in favor of focusing on the vampire killing, but I don't really have a desire to see it again, whereas I'd happily rewatch F1 anytime. It won't win, obviously, but who cares? It's an industry awards show that doesn't really mean anything, especially with regards to the quality of a film. Plenty of Best Picture winners have been completely forgotten over the years, while others that were snubbed have become regarded as classics.
Demon Hunter is gonna win because voters will recognize the name from all the toys and merch their children or child slaves asked them for. That's enough for them to vote it.
I think KPDH is the most likely animated feature winner, though they might throw a curveball and have one of the two French movies win in a repeat of Flow's surprise win from last year. It's no secret the Academy hasn't had the best track record with taking animation seriously, usually chucking the Oscar at whatever Disney churned out that year regardless of how good it was in comparison to the other nominees. But in recent years, they seem to have been putting a little more thought into the winners, and Disney's been snubbed for three years in a row now. And frankly, I don't think Elio or Zootopia 2 are likely to break that streak.
And honestly, I don't really care who wins, as long as Disney loses. If they're gonna choose to keep churning out crap, they shouldn't be praised for it.
