TO DO: Buy Groceries, Win Oscar.

This week’s blog is dedicated to… The Aaaaahscars.

Hello, Lover.

It’s not an infrequent thing for a family member or friend to call me around Oscar time and declare, “I can’t wait until you get your Oscar!  Are you going to thank us? Can we come?”  I would bet that almost all of my filmmaking friends have heard the same thing from their well-meaning loved ones…   No pressure. 

Of course, WIN AN OSCAR is on my short list of Things To Do.  Of course it is!  Isn’t it on everyone’s?  …No, I guess it wouldn’t be.  Honestly, though - I think “Win an Oscar” would be on my list even if I sold insurance for a living. 

I have to admit, I didn’t really get to “watch-watch” the Oscars this year.  My husband is out of town on a shoot and some friends convinced me that I could bring my delightful 19 month old to their place for a viewing party and so… when I wasn’t pulling Luna down off the coffee table, I was yanking her fingers out of someone’s 7 & 7, or prying her fingers off the volume knob on the receiver…

Despite my daughter’s lack of interest in the show, I did get to see Anne Hathaway sing (because it made Luna stop doing donuts around the coffee table and clap, “Singing!”) and Melissa Leo cuss at the crowd in the balcony.  I even got Luna home and in bed in time to see Natalie Portman gush about her newest and best role (pretty Mama) and Colin Firth do his wonderfully understated, fabulously dry British comedy thing.  

I love the Academy Awards.  I love the movie montages that remind me of what this medium is capable of, I love the appearances from the Old Guard that remind me that making movies makes us a part of history (at least Film History).   Then, in no particular order, I love the dresses, the gushing, and the crazy actors.  I don’t mean to dismiss the crazy – it’s a close bed fellow with genius and actor-crazy, specifically, is so darn fun and exuberant - unlike writer crazy which, while equally self-destructive is all defeatist and internal and not nearly as fun to watch.

I have to admit that over the past few years, my love of the Oscars has waned along with my belief that I would one day be accepting one.  “So sad!” you say!   I know.  It’s totally depressing.  I sell a script, I’m in the guild, I make a movie, I am in the industry! Amongst winners! Getting screeners of the Oscar Nominated films! I’m closer than ever and it’s almost like the Oscar is an illusion and the closer I get, the further away it seems.

Despite all this, and - let's be honest, perhaps because of all this, I'm keeping WIN AN OSCAR on my To Do List. My belief that I might actually do it is part of my director brand of crazy. Believing in the impossible and then motivating to make it real is exactly what it takes to get a movie made in the first place. And I’m a believer.  Call me a deluded dreamer, but I may just have an Oscar in me yet.