My favorite season

And it is not the one with snow

So winter is pretty terrible in many ways, as attested in other articles in this section. It isn’t wholly an inhumane monstrosity of a thing, though. With it comes some seasons we enjoy. For many in Big Rapids, it’s hunting. That’s not me, though. Camo makes me cringe. I’m all about Oscar.

Winter means Oscar season, when a large amount of the awards-bait movies are released. All the big actors and directors get together and make their biopics and their war epics in hope of, in a few months, standing on a stage to congratulate each other with gold statues and grossly excessive speeches about the importance of movies. I eat it up.

You don’t have to. There are good reasons not to: life is short, time is money and who cares about a probably fictionalized biopic about some dead dude?

There are reasons to care about which movie wins which award, but that’s not what I’m advocating for here. As much as I love explosions and Avengers – and I adore explosions and Avengers – awards season is a time when movies that are interesting in a much different way are celebrated. This is when films that are weird or starless can be celebrated and it’s these films that I’m vouching for.

The arts are important, even if our government treats them as less so than other first world countries. Music and movies, television and drama, they play a role in each of our lives and affect the way we think. Watching “Apocalypse Now” will affect your opinion on war in a vastly different way than “Lone Survivor.”

This time of year is when it is easiest to see movies that are weird or challenging, movies that challenge the way we think movies work, even some that challenge the way we think. Some of it is pretentious swill, no doubt, or the same old awards bait. Much of it doesn’t work. Some of it does, to great effect.

The award is not the point. Awards are meaningless in the long term, as likely nobody will remember what won best picture at the Oscars this year. Nor should they, often the movie that wins isn’t actually the best. The point is that, in a year otherwise filled with prequels, sequels, re-quels, biopics, spin-offs and adaptations, Oscars season gives you the option to at least dip a toe in the pool of auteur cinema. So go forth. Like now.