Part Four: The Oscars

*As the 2010 Oscars, which honor the best films of 2009, will not be taking place until March 7, I will update this (if necessary) on March 7 or 8, 2010.*

Close behind my birthday and Christmas, Oscar night ranks as my favorite holiday. I think it's no coincidence that the winners of the first Academy Awards in 1929 were announced on February 17 (my birthday). Marking an end to my favorite season (awards season), not only do the Oscars celebrate the best movies of the year, they're a celebration filled with glamour and history - both of Hollywood and the movie business as a whole. As is normal for most film fans, I may not agree with the nominations or the winners, but I still love the Academy Awards.

In this decade, I've had two pretty memorable Oscar-related experiences. The first is at the center of the trip I took to Los Angeles in the summer of 2003. I visited every venue that has hosted the Academy Awards - which I'll go into more when I talk about that trip in part seven. During that trip, I also accumulated my fake Oscar. The second involves two pretty memorable wins. George Clooney and Kate Winslet, my two favorite living actors, won their first Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in 2005 for Syriana and Best Actress in 2008 for The Reader, respectively. I was beyond happy to see them both get their well-deserved trophies.

As far as this decade's nominees and winners go, I haven't agreed with a large percentage of the outcomes. The most notable example of this is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It received a staggeringly low two nominations - one for Best Actress for Kate Winslet and the other for Best Original Screenplay for Charlie Kaufman. The fact that it wasn't nominated across the board (as it was the best-reviewed film of the year) - most notably for Best Picture, Best Actor for Jim Carrey, Best Score for Jon Brion, Best Cinematography for Ellen Kuras and Best Visual Effects - is a downright tragedy. Kaufman did win for Best Original Screenplay, so I was pretty happy about that, as he's probably my favorite screenwriter.

Looking at the (at times controversial) Best Picture category this decade, I didn't 100% agree with any of the winners, but the one I most agreed with was 2006's The Departed, which took home the trophy at the 2007 ceremony. Of all of that year's nominees, it was definitely my favorite.

It may have been frustrating to not always see the nominees or winners that I wanted, but, as I mentioned at the beginning, what I enjoyed the most about the Academy Awards of the 2000s were the moments that reflect the history of cinema. The montages - of films in general and the "In Memoriam" ones dedicated to the people involved with film who have died over the last year - almost always at least bring a tear to this film-lover's eye. Those moments, seeing "my picks" win and the appearances of film industry legends have sustained my love of the Oscars and film in general.