Critically aligned

I love blockbusters (read: Bourne) and slapstick/teen comedy (Knocked Up, Superbad) as much as the next guy, but I really am a film critic at heart. For that reason, the stuff I really love, the stuff that makes my heart a-flutter is the serious Oscar contender stuff that is out now, and coming out soon. I mean, I really wanted to see a really good cinematic interpretation of The Golden Compass (especially to support the atheistic subversion!), but there's no way I'm going to spend money on a dismally-reviewed film when I can go see No Country for Old Men, a film swimming in a pool of critical drool. No, the stuff that I'm itching to see is the stuff that critics are high-fiving themselves over:

In the past five days, five groups — the National Board of Review, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Washington. D.C. Film Critics Association and my crowd, the New Yorkers — have convened to choose the most notable movies and moviemakers. No Country was named best picture in four of the groups, There Will Be Blood in L.A. George Clooney won two best actors awards, playing a lawyer at crisis point Michael Clayton, Daniel Day-Lewis a pair for his oil mogul in There Will Be Blood and, in Boston, Frank Langella the prize for playing an aged novelist in Starting Out in the Evening. Three groups selected Julie Christie as best actress — she's an Alzheimer's patient in the Canadian film Away rom Her — and two liked Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La vie en rose.

You will be forgiven if, like my friends at Time, you are scratching your head and feigning interest, hoping I'll get quickly to the sexy stuff, like best non-fiction feature (the Iraq docs No End in Sight and Body of War and Michael Moore's Sicko) and distinguished achievement in production design (Jack Fisk, There Will Be Blood, L.A.) . Gee, you're wondering, did The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the French story of a man totally immobilized by a stroke, beat out the German spy drama The Lives of Others? (Three out of five critics groups say yes.) If you're getting restless, movie lovers, too bad. You'll be hearing the same obscure names at the Golden Globes and on Oscar night.
(from Time.com)

Hell, I've never even heard of No End in Sight until just now, and I desperately want to see it. You know, they say that everyone's a critic, and there's a sucker born every minute.. well, I'm a born sucker for film critics.