Penn State President Graham Spanier works about 90 hours a week, but at the end of the year he makes sure to spend some time catching up on the year's best films.
Visiting family in Des Moines, Iowa during winter break, Spanier watches about 25 movies in theaters, which often involves plotting out a schedule to cram in 15 films in four or five days, he said.
"The one thing I do that's not job-related when I have a chance is see a movie," Spanier said. "When you're that focused on other things, it's a little bit of escapism."
When it comes time for the Academy Awards, which will air at 8 p.m. Sunday on ABC, Spanier would appear to be a go-to guy for speculation about the night's festivities.
His holiday movie reviews, received annually by 6,000 core recipients, are also published on Penn State Live, his official blog, president.psu.edu and other online sources. Of the four films he awarded four stars to this year, three -- Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk -- were nominated in the Best Picture category, among other awards.
"They were all wonderful movies and any of them would be deserving of the award," Spanier said. "I don't have a category above four stars, but if I had to discern, I thought The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire were the two best movies that I had seen all year."
Spanier's annual movie reviews began about 15 years ago as a variation of a Christmas card sent to a small circle of friends, family and colleagues. Bill Mahon, a Penn State spokesman, said the reviews' increasing popularity prompted him to feature them on the Penn State newswire.
"The second year I was on his list it occurred to me that a wider audience might enjoy reading them, since many of us have more time to go to the movies during the break between fall and spring semesters," Mahon said.
Spanier's readership has blossomed so extensively over the years that his opinions on certain movies sometimes affect his relations with members of the Hollywood elite.
In 2007, Spanier praised the Ben Kingsley black comedy You Kill Me on his list but didn't know its producer was Mike Marcus, Class of 1967, former president of MGM Studios and a recipient of Spanier's yearly newsletter.
Marcus, who lives in Beverly Hills, serves on the Board of Visitors of the College of Communications and keeps in touch with Spanier through e-mail and periodic visits. He said Spanier's interest in film is a supplemental benefit to the university.
"It's a nice augment to what he does," Marcus said. "It's nice for kids in the College of Communications to know that their president enjoys that segment of their college."
Spanier said he is a big supporter of the Fraser Centre project, which would create several cinema screens downtown, potentially including an IMAX theater.
Marcus, a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said he submitted his Oscar ballot shortly before Tuesday morning's deadline.
"You feel like it is work because you feel obligated to see all of the films nominated," Marcus said. "I got my last viewing in just in time."
The Academy Awards are of special interest to Spanier, but multi-tasking is often necessary to accommodate such a hectic lifestyle. He said there have been some years he hasn't watched the telecast at all and other years in which he'll watch out of the corner of his eye.
"I'll have to look to see what I'm even doing Sunday night," Spanier said. "I'll probably be watching it in my study catching up on my work. I'll be following it."
