You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

In the full flush of excitement that comes with the Oscars every year, I am currently watching lots of Oscar-related material. At the moment, I'm watching the 2004 ceremony - the one with the Return of the King sweep. A few minutes ago, Annie Lennox performed "Into the West." I had a brief wahleecon flashback before going into yet another emotionfest about the forthcoming "end" of HP. Ah, music - a magic beyond all we do here. ;)

Anyway, in 24 hours I'll once again be consumed by this year's Oscar ceremony and celebrating the joy of movies, along with all the glamorous celebrities in the Kodak theater and the not-so-glamorous folks in their homes across the world. I'm afraid all the politics and campaign strategies that accompany these awards have done very little to tarnish the magic of this event in my imagination. (No promises if that will still be true in the event of Babel winning Best Picture tomorrow. :P) Despite the names that go along with the awards, the Oscars are not really about what's the "best" anything. They're a pat on the back and a "ya done good." They're a celebration of movies, and the whole world gets to be a part of it. Even if you don't get to go to the actual awards and wear a bajillion-dollar gown, you still get to participate by being one of the millions upon millions of people who sit around the television set and watch and shriek with excitement when someone deserving wins and complain about how skinny that actress is while stuffing your own face with pizza and laughing at the jokes that will be much less funny the next morning.

The envelopes, please?

[Note how I'm totally ignoring the fact that I fell down on my promise to post about all the Best Picture nominees. :P]