With the Oscars behind us, I have to ask, do the Oscars really influence your viewing choices?
I'm not one of those people who makes it a point to see everything that's nominated. If a movie has gotten a lot of positive buzz and seems to be the sort of film that I might enjoy, then I'll certainly go out of my way to find it. Sometimes if the buzz is so overwhelming, I might venture outside of my comfort zone, which is why I made it a point to see The Hurt Locker.
But I did not see, and have zero interest in seeing Precious, A Serious Man, and An Education. I don't care how well-crafted Precious is, it's not my kind of film.
Last year I had only seen Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. I note with some amusement that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has spent a year on my Netflix list and has been continually pushed to the bottom by films I'm more interested in seeing. Nothing about The Reader looked appealing to me, and frankly I had no interest in Milk either.
Most years I end up seeing at least three of the nominees, but rarely does a win by a film I haven't seen end up motivating me to go check it out.
There have been plenty of recent cases where the Best Picture Oscar went to a film I saw that I was either indifferent to (A Beautiful Mind, Chicago) or utterly hated (Crash, No Country for Old Men, Gladiator). With an average like that, I don't let the Oscars influence my viewing habits.
Do you?
