Nominee Project

Nearly two years ago, I decided to undertake a monumental task to diversify my cinematic literacy (to coin a phrase). I haven't written about it here before. As awards season for the 2007 films approaches, it is a good time to review my Nominee Project, which I originally mentioned on my old blog.

The Nominee Project

My goal is to watch every movie nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Award — during the course of my life. I was born in 1971, just before the Oscar ceremony. So, this list includes any film nominated for one of those three awards from 1971 until now (no matter when it was filmed or released).

Not every movie gets to be on my master list, though. I decided I could exclude movies for one of three reasons. I think this is a fair exclusions list.

Exclusion Reasons

1. Best Original Song — If a movie was nominated only for "Best Original Song", it's excluded. I don't need to see a Disney sequel because Phil Collins won a Grammy.
2. Short Subjects — I'm not going to go running around trying to find nominees of "Best Documentary Short", "Best Live Action Short", or "Best Animated Short" categories on 8mm. Short subject films are really difficult to find, especially old ones.
3. Unavailable on DVD — I don't currently own a VHS or have access to a sufficiently diverse video cassette rental place. DVDs that are likely to be released in the future are generally savable on Netflix. I'm not going to track down movies on weird formats.

How many is that, anyway?

Not including the recently announced Golden Globes, Academy Awards, or Independent Spirit Awards, my database says:

• Total Films: 2344
• Total Viewed: 619 (26.41%)
• Unavailable: 319 (13.61%)
• Left to See: 1406 (59.98%)

How long will it take?

I suspect that I will be working on this list for a very long time. There are currently 477 movies in my Netflix queue, but the four at my house right now have been sitting here for a few weeks. I am hoping to be all caught up with the current year by the time I turn 50. That's 13 years from now. It's not a full-time project, though.

How to follow along

Since I decided to undertake this project a while ago, I've been writing reviews of everything I watch, whether it's new or not, as well as everything I listen to, on 50 Words — my blog of reviews, each of which is exactly 50 words long (no more and no less). 50 Words started before I came up with this project, but it has helped me focus and track my progress.