Lists and the Oscars

I have always enjoyed writing, I have kept a journal for years.  The question as to whether I am a good writer or not is likely up for debate.  I am sure if I do get some followers of this blog, or even the occasional reader people will feel free to share their opinion as to my writing ability.  To be clear, I certainly don't fancy myself the second coming of John Irving, who happens to be my favorite author.  I just decided blogging was a good way to share my thoughts in a more public forum.  I certainly have no desire to put my journal out there for public consumption.

So, why blog?  Why Everyone Loves Lists?  I will admit I struggled with the title, but because it is about a list, it seemed an appropriate title.  I am a list person, always have been.  I am not the quirky OCD list type, but they do appeal to me because of structure.  I enjoy ticking off an item on the list and they provide an easy way to track your "achievements". 

It also appears to me that lists seem to be all the rage these days.  All one has to do is walk into a Barnes and Noble if you dispute my last statement.  There are a plethora of books with lists.  1001 Books to Read Before You Die, 1001 Places to See Before You Die, etc.  I used those two specifically because I own both.  As I said, I love lists.  Now I am not sure how well any of these titles have done in terms of sales, but I believe that the Places to See has been very succesful.

This blog is born out of a list that I have created.  My wife and I were talking about movies one night and some of the classic movies that we have seen or wanted to see, or classics that we have seen a few scenes from.  A good example of this would be the chariot race in Ben Hur.  I have seen that part of Ben Hur at least a dozen times, yet I have never watched the entire movie.

From this discussion, we decided that we were going to get a Netflix account and make an attempt to finally see many of these classics.  We ultimately decided we would make a list of all the movies that have been nominated for an Academy Award in one of the following categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.  We decided to forgo the writing category mainly because the list is quite large; 1211 movies with the categories we chose. 

I am by no means attempting to be a movie critic, though my plan is to give a review of the movies as I watch them.  I plan on throwing in some trivia, interesting facts etc about the movies as well.  Who knows maybe someone will watch a movie that they normally would have passed over after reading my blog.  I also realize that this may appear to be similar to the blog type that resulted in the movie Julie and Julia.  I am not attempting to copy that blog, I just wanted another outlet to share my thoughts on the movies I watch, without the character limits of Facebook or other social media outlets.

So, if you happen by my blog, I hope you enjoy it.  If you are interested in how I came up with the list, here is the link to website that I used to compile it.  http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/BasicSearchInput.jsp