Team Delpy

I still have the hots for Ms. Julie Delpy. At 44, she is as beautiful as ever.

Forgive me. I suppose some context is definitely in order here.

I decided that this year, since we are now in the Oscar playoffs, I would actually make a concerted effort to watch the major contenders so I would have a team to root for come the Oscar Bowl…I mean the Academy Awards. I always talk a big game about being a movie buff, but last year…and the year before…I entered the playoffs (nominations) with no stakes in the game. This year, I plan to be part of the loyal fan base.

It isn’t easy. I missed many of the nominated pictures during their first run, partly because my wife and I save the expense of seeing movies in the theater for the big blockbusters, those movies that truly require Surround Sound for the full artistic effect. I also missed a lot of these movies because my wife tends to favor “things go boom” movies over character-driven dramas. Although I did persuade her to see “American Hustle” with me, she only acquiesced because it starred Jeremy Renner and Bradley Cooper, and I can only play the eye candy card so many times. Whereas, I personally loved the film (and not just for Amy Adams eye-popping dresses), my wife informed me that she was picking our next date night movie.

So, now I’m on my own to plan out my viewing strategy for the playoffs. Some I will see with my oldest son (e.g., “Gravity” and “Captain Phillips”), some I will see on my own (e.g., “The Wolf of Wall Street”), and some I will see late at night on DVD after everyone else has gone to bed (e.g., “Before Midnight”)

Tonight I finished “Before Midnight” which has been nominated for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay. I truly hope it wins.

To be fair, I was already a fan of Richard Linklater’s previous films in the trilogy, “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset”. All the films are basically an extended conversation between an American man (Ethan Hawke) and a French woman (Julie Delpy) who meet on a train in the first movie, find each other nine years later in the second movie, and face the trials and tribulations of real live parenting, cross-continent custody battles, and mid-life romance nine years later in the third. All three movies are fascinating, endearing, and way more engrossing than you would expect from movies about people talking. But the writing is so fantastic, the timing is so flawless, the chemistry between the characters so natural, that you are immediately pulled into their stories.

And, of course, the movies star the luminous Julie Delpy, with whom I have a slight infatuation.

I am continuing my way down the list of Academy Award contenders. Sure, I won’t have seen all of the Best Picture nominees by March 2, but my goal is to have seen enough of them to talk turkey at the water cooler the week before. “Sure, Captain Phillips, has Hanks, who has had a pretty good season, but it’s no match for Gravity’s long pass. Or is this the year that American Hustle throws the Hail Mary in hopes that the Academy goes for a comic drama?”

Oh yeah. I positively ooze street cred.