Winter Awakening

Although considered by many to be the dead of winter I have a soft spot in my heart for this, the second month of the Julien calendar year for many reasons. It is unique for the number of it's days, the home of Black History month, many VIPs (former presidents, a few friends and myself) were born in this month, the promise of another memorable baseball season looms in the form of spring training and New Orleans Mardi Gras and Rio de Janiero's carnivale is celebrated. Also, for the past several years the Oscars, the grandaddy of all awards shows, celebrates excellence in movie making. This past Sunday the 81st ceremony took place and some people questioned going ahead with such a lavish affair in the midst of our national economic woes. I for one was not one of those people. Whenever a nation is experiencing negative circumstances, such as a recession, it's citizens tend to crave escapism. Our many forms of entertainment usually benefit from hard times. None more so than movie attendance. So far the movie industry has profitted more from the movies that have been released in this, the early part of 2009, than any other year at the same time. This is quite a feat because usually the winter doldrum months have been known to be the movie release graveyard aka releasing less than spectacular movies before the ones later in the year that people are actually looking forward to seeing. This was probably an added reason why Hollywood was in full celebration mode.
Is it such a bad thing to enjoy watching Tinseltown's annual glorified high school prom? Many people think the highlight of these awards are the various fashions that are put on display. While I have grown to enjoy that aspect of the Oscars, I actually anticipate more the revelation of who the winners will be. Would Queen Actress Meryl Streep receive her first win since 1983 (sadly no), would Indian fairy tale Slumdog Millionaire sweep with wins as expected (yes), would back from the almost dead actor Mickey Roarke get the ultimate comeback prize (no), would Robert Downey Jr.'s Tropic Thunder Vietnam era soldier upset and win over Heath Ledger's twisted Joker (again no), would Clint Eastwood come out of nowhere and win Best Actor even though he was not even nominated, just because he's Clint? (thankfully no) These questions had to be answered and as the world watched it was a good time to be had by all.