What is the Oscar Project?

There is a long rambling story that I could tell about how I got to this point, but I'll try to give you the short version...

I've been looking for a personal quest for some time, something I can look forward to when the rest of life gets too hectic. I was inspired by the work of Chris Guillebeau who went on a personal quest to visit every country on earth before he reached the age of 35 (I think). He made it a few years back and has moved on to other things, but that idea stuck with me. My own quest had to be something that I was passionate about but that was also achievable with my current means.

For several years, even before hearing about Guillebeau, I had a dream to spend a year traveling the country, attending a sporting event on every day of the year. Seeing how I have a wife and kids at home and I'm not independently wealthy, that was a little out of the question, so I kept looking.

​About two years ago I came up with an idea that blended two passions of mine, film and poetry. That project, which I called Film Poems, was a quest to watch all 88 (at that time) winners of the Oscar for Best Picture and write a poem about or inspired by each one. I didn't make it very far before even that became too much. So I adjusted course once again.

In 2017, I set out to watch all of the films nominated for Oscars in 2016. That was a total of 62 films, a smaller set than all the Best Picture winners, and most of which were readily available since they were only a few months to a year old. As of this writing, I have finished 58 of the 62 films nominated for Oscars in 2016 and begun making progress on the 2017 films.

So here we are in 2018, with the Oscars a few weeks behind us. We know who all the winners are, most of the big films are already available on Blu-Ray, Netflix, Amazon, or other services. The list is even shorter this year, with only 59 films nominated across all 24 categories. I actually saw 25% of the films before the awards ceremony in early March and have since taken in a few more.

I'm hoping to do little write-ups for each film, not reviews per sé, but something more about how I felt about the film. The first thing I will be working on are the write-ups for each film I have already seen, then as I take in viewings of the remaining films, I will add them to the posts here on the blog.

I also have a tracking document that I've been using since last year to remember which films I've seen and which ones I have yet to see. It also helps with the current crop to know when they are being released and I can start getting them on Blu-Ray. If you are interested in getting a copy of this for yourself, shoot me a quick email and I'd be happy to provide a link.

I hope you'll come along with me on this journey. I know it has already opened my eyes to the possibilities of film and I'm sure will continue to do so in the coming months and years.