Oscar Nominees

You know the feeling when one of your fellow country(wo)men achieves something astonishing and you regard it as an achievement by the entire population (the "we" feeling)? That is sort of what I feel right now about the Oscar nominations.

Coming from a small, ultimately insignificant, country (never mind that we were very much involved in kicking off two world wars) that feeling is normally limited to successes in winter sports. That's what 'we' are good at. (I am a flatlander myself and never cared much for skiing, but I totally cheer our boys and girls [but really, mostly the boys] on from my comfy chair.)

But today's Oscar nominations are - for a film aficionado from tiny Austria - something else entirely. Amour by Austrian director Michael Haneke (who was not actually born in Austria and the film is in French) was nominated for a total of five Academy Awards. Five! Four of them in the heavy weight categories.

Best Picture (!)
Best Director (!)
Best Actress (for Emanuelle Riva)
Best Original Screenplay
Best Foreign Language Film (we expected that one)

And to top it all off, 'our' Christoph Waltz was again nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Django Unchained.

Now starts my yearly task of trying to watch all Best Picture nominees before the award ceremony. The only one of the nine I have already watched is Argo, which is great BTW. Next up for me will be Life of Pi with friends on Sunday. That leaves me with a few weeks to get in the rest of the bunch. *phew*