I am slowly but surely making it through last year’s Oscar nominees for Best Picture.

Last night I watched “An Education,” though I spent 90 percent of the movie trying to figure out why Carey Mulligan looked so familiar. It’s quite possible I have seen her in something else, or maybe I just remember seeing her at the Oscars (where she was nominated for Best Actress).

Hm, I just checked IMDb, and the only other movie of hers that I have seen is “Brothers,” and while that was an excellent film she only had a small role. So we are back to possibly resembling someone I know.

Let’s try something. Go look at yourself in the mirror. Do you look like this?

If so, please let me know. If not, do you know any of my friends who look like that?

As for the movie itself, I thoroughly enjoyed it. That’s not surprising since the screenplay was written by Nick Hornby, the author of several books I have read in the past few years. (From last year, A Long Way Down and from 2008, How to be Good).

In addition to “An Education,” I have also taken in “Up” (fantastic), “Up in the Air” (pretty solid) and “Inglourious Basterds” (also fantastic).

Earlier in the week I watched “Crazy Heart” which was not nominated for Best Picture but did feature Jeff Bridges’ Best Actor performance. Not a huge fan of that movie. It’s possible I was just tired, but I wasn’t the least bit interested in what was going on.

Maybe I will just blame Maggie Gyllenhaal. I didn’t dislike her before, but she probably killed this movie for me. Put in Kate Beckinsale and things may have been different.