Getting over the Oscars is like getting rid of a nasty hang-over. It was fun, but in excess it makes one vomit. And losing sleep on Oscar night needs one to take time to adjust to. Yep, the Oscars are like jet-lags. But all in all it was a pleasant flight.

So, who won “Cinemascope”’s Oscar quiz? Amazingly three of you scored 17 out of a possible 24 (And although I aced nearly all of the top categories, including the two actresses upsets, my tech balloting was less than stellar and I ended up with a total of 14 of 24). Also amazingly, two of you hit the bull’s eye with the tie breaker, guessing correctly that the winning movie will walk away with 4 awards (note to self: come up with a more difficult tie-breaker next year).

Here are the winners:

Honorable mention: Leire Vaz
First Place (tie): Rob and Nicholas Plowman

So who’ll get the DVD? A good old-fashioned coin toss called it. What do you stand to win? Everything. And the winner is Mr. Plowman. (If I’ll get my hands on a second copy of “Beaufort” Mr. Rob will get one as well, scout’s honor).

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I launched this blog on December 1st, three months ago. It was after many of my stories on my Hebrew blog got picked up and was followed up upon by such bloggers as Jeffrey Wells, Nikki Finke, David Hudson and Anne Thompson. Variety’s middle-east desk, headed by the astute and brilliant Ali Jafaar, came calling. Israeli cinema made headlines this past year (and is on track to make some more in 2008 and 2009), and Hollywood and Foreign movies sometimes get realed over here day and date, and sometimes well ahead, odf their American release, so even my reviews can go online as quickly as my those of my American colleagues.
I, for example, was the first to break the news way back in September that “The Band’s Visit”, the charming Israeli movie that’s turning out to be a minor hit in the States right now (and is doing incredible business in Europe), might have qualification issues at the Academy Awards because of the amount of English dialogue. It was indeed disqualified but has since marched on to win two awards at the European Film Awards and a nomination at The Independent Spirit. It turns out that Sony Pictures Classics, “Band’s” distributor, walked out with a foreign language Oscar nevertheless: it also handles Austria’s “The Counterfeiters”.
I also predicted, way back last February, that Israel’s “Beaufort” will be nominated for an Oscar (but that it would ultimately lose the prize itself to either Austria or France’s submissions). Little did I know what an odd road the movie, and indeed this entire category, will take before my prophecy would come true.
But all this - the headlines, the exclusive reporting and a bizarre run of spot-on prognostications, made me realize late in 2007 that an English blog, quotable by international media, was a necessity. Not that I had an idea how such a blog would fit in my schedule: I have a full time print critic job, a hyper-active Hebrew blog (one of the most popular blogs in Hebrew), a teaching post at two of Israel’s leading film schools, two baby girls to raise and a brand new out-of-the-blue career as a screenwriter. I shall never sleep again, I guess.
My intent was to post stuff up, in hopes that slowly Google will point readers my way. I was ready for years of zero traffic, until some one would notice. But to my astonishment US bloggers, such as Sasha Stone, Scott Feinberg and David Poland (and - again - the generous Mr. Wells, Mr. Hudson and Ms. Thompson), took notice of the blog and helped direct traffic this way. In virtually no time readership exploded. I’m in no way a traffic threat to any of the established bloggers but my Google Analytics chart, and my Alexa and Technorati ranks zoomed.
So, for all the readers and colleagues out there: thanks. Thanks for proving me that my instict was right: that with movies being such a global event, even a film columnist stuck all the way across the world in sunny Israel can produce content that’s relevant to American and European media and readers.

I took some breathers since the Oscars, to think of what’s coming up. And now I’m back in full force. I’ve got some great stories lined up for the next few days. Keep checking back.