In some ways, it's hard to believe we're half-way through 2021...but following 2020 (the year that felt like an entire decade in and of itself), the faster we get back to some sense of "normal" the better.

Movies are just now starting to pick up into full swing, with Summer blockbusters like "F9" setting post-pandemic records and inching towards pre-pandemic levels. Theaters across the country are open and at full capacity, and we're somehow just a few months away from what is hopefully a "normal" awards season for film.

Before that rush of "award films" in the Fall, I thought it would be nice to take a look back at the best of 2021 so far. I've left off films that came out in early 2021 that were still eligible for last year's pandemic-adjusted awards season (films like "The Father" and "Supernova" were omitted). And you'll note four of my top ten thus far are documentary films (it's already a strong year for the genre).

With that, here are my Top 10 films of 2021 so far...in no particular order...as well as where you can watch them currently.

Perhaps until the past few years, there was nothing that would divide people more than their opinions of the annual Academy Awards telecast.

The "hate-watchers" as I call them are in one corner, tuning in every year just to complain about the length of the program, the stuffiness of it all or to call for the hypocritical Hollywood elites handing each other golden statues to just be quiet. On the other side, you have "Awards aficionados," the ones that eat this stuff up, that block their calendars off months in advance when they announce when the Oscars are happening, who secretly love when the Oscars go long, who tear up during the In Memoriam segment each year and who would do all of the above annually without question because it validates and confirms their "love of the movies."

The first group LOVES trolling the latter, and the latter love to defend the Oscars at all costs...they are and have always been a sacred celebration of all things movies, and an attack on the Academy Awards is, in fact, an attack on us.

I say "us" because I proudly identify as being in the second group, an awards show junkie who credits his love of movies to watching early 80s Oscar telecasts as a kid, who learned about movie-making from the technical awards categories that would be presented to the  "nobodies" on stage (I desperately wanted to one day be one of those nobodies), who thought that his grandma had been invited to the gala (it was, in fact, not my grandma but Jessica Tandy), and who fights off naysayers each year when they inevitably attack the integrity of the biggest awards show of all, by suggesting that it - gasp! - shorten, or otherwise change.

So let me say this as Oscars biggest fanboy: Last nights show was indefensible. There was a lot of good, some bad, and then a final 20 minutes or so that absolutely sucked the wind out of me, and made me disgusted. The Steven Soderberg-produced show crashed and burned after a promising start...and if I ended up feeling devastated about it, I can only imagine what the "haters" thought.

I'm not here to defend the 2021 Oscars...but let's take a look at what worked, what didn't and everything in-between.

Oscar Short Films have long been the biggest enigma of every Academy Awards ceremony. Where most movie-goers tune in to the Oscars for the glitz, glamour and celebrity of it all, very few have seen or even heard of many of the nominated Short Films each year.

Often, the audience might recognize one of the Animated Shorts (if it happened to play in front of big Animated blockbusters like "Frozen" or "Moana"), but two would be a stretch. In recent years, the entire nominated Short Film slate has been packaged and shown in theaters, but even then, they're a hard sell for everyone except the Oscar die-hards or the movie-going elite, and rarely have the Shorts been played at any multiplex or theater that isn't a small art house.

Despite this, they continue to be a part of the celebration, earning a seat at the table among the "longies" at the biggest awards celebration of all. The Globes, the Critics Choice and even the Screen Actors Guild has no such public (or private) award for the Short Film format (under 40 minutes in length), so it is very much a medium which The Academy alone seems to deem important.

But I'm here to tell you: Do not sleep on the Oscar Short Films! Here are 5 reasons why: