This Week at the Movies

I fell in love with the movies at an early age, but when I got into college, that addiction kind of exploded. For two reasons. First of all, my boyfriend at the time bought me a book for our second Christmas together called Inside Oscar. It was a comprehensive (at that time) history of the Oscars, complete with gossip, reviews, projections, and aftermath stories. Now, I'm a competitive person. I'm also compulsive in a lot of ways. After I devoured the book, I began to wonder if the right movies had won or what my choices would have been.

Then, that summer, I got a job at a video store. With free rentals for employees. I was doomed.

I decided I was going to watch every movie nominated for one of the six major awards (4 acting, directing, and picture), starting in 1936 since that was when the supporting acting categories were added. I even typed it all up and compiled them into lists, binding it all together in a folder. When I watched a movie, I crossed it off The List (which meant highlighting it, the more yellow I saw, the happier I was).

The List survived for a very long time.



My moviegoing career came to a screeching halt when I moved to the UK and had my kids. No longer could I do movie crawls that lasted all weekend. When I finally could start going to the movies again, most of my options were limited to what was appropriate for the kids. My 30s were lost to Disney films, for the most part.

Now that my kids are past their Dora the Explorer stage, and Netflix has made it possible to stream grown-up movies into my home, I'm finally getting back into my addiction. I've even updated The List, though I've now expanded it to include every movie (minus the documentaries and short films since those are often difficult to find anyway). The recent Oscar telecast just reminded me how much I love movies, almost as much as I love books, so I'm going to make Saturdays my This Week at the Movies post, talking about the 2 or 3 Oscar-nominated movies I watched that week.

Starting next week, since this introduction/explanation post is already too long. :)