While some of us still haunt the art houses, and others socialize at the Cineplex, and still more stay home to watch the finale of "Battlestar Galactica," the largest number of video viewers are now found online. And those numbers are staggering.

It's a rainy week at the outset of March, and what we all need is a vacation. Take one to the Great Barrier Reef, in a restored 35mm print of "Age of Consent," with richly baritoned James Mason and lithe blonde Helen Mirren, in one of those all-but-forgotten films from Michael Powell.

There are many reasons to question something called "English cinema" - like, Aren't all American films in English? Or, Isn't the term an oxymoron? And perhaps, If it's anything like English cooking, should I worry?

It should have been obvious the Academy was in an independent mood, and soon the awards started piling up for "Slumdog Millionaire." And I have to say, of all the movies I saw in the past year - again, those which were nominated - "Slumdog" was the closest to a triumph. If it signals the acceptance of the Bollywood aesthetic into Hollywood's own, it is a warranted win.

If Mickey Rourke goes home with an Oscar tonight, it will be as much for playing the chimerical, difficult, tortured actor Mickey Rourke as that wrestler with the heart of tarnished gold.

Sunday night is Oscar night, when the 52nd annual awards are handed out to 2008's best movies, or at least the nominated ones. You can stay home and watch on TV, or go out and share your joys and disappointments in public.