You won't believe it, Dad.....

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But I'm doing a blog post.

And I have revamped my site a little bit – you’ll understand why in a minute.

Today, while I was sitting in the theater waiting for Anna Karenina (which SUCKED by the way) to start, I was looking at Oscar nominees.  For the last couple of years I have tried to watch all the nominees for Best Picture, because I like the challenge, and I like movies.  I thought I successfully did this two years in a row, but I realized I missed seeing two of the nominees last year (Hugo and War Horse).  So I guess, technically, I've only ever done this once successfully, but I'm trying to make it a thing - so just cut me some slack.

This year, the top contenders seem to be:

Lincoln

Les Miserables

Silver Linings Playbook

Zero Dark Thirty

Argo

and other possibilities:

Life of Pi

Django Unchained

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Moonrise Kingdom

The Master

Of the top 5, I've only seen 2 at this point.

Of the top 10, I've only seen 3.

Yikes.  I have until February though - it can be done.

Anyway, back to the story I originally intended to tell, which I haven't even started telling yet.  Andrea and I were looking at the list of movies that have won Best Picture throughout the years, and I realized that there are TONS I haven't seen.  So, I'm going to switch my Netflix subscription from streaming for awhile (not because I'm too cheap to pay the 7.99 additional fee to add the discs, but because I'm not going to give Netflix the satisfaction of getting my extra money after what they did when they changed their plans) and watch the Best Picture winners I haven't seen.

And there are A LOT I haven't seen.

Which reminded me of the blog/movie Julie and Julia.

Except this will be "Oscar and Tonya: One girl's mission to watch a lot of Best Picture winners for no other reason than to say she saw them all"  Good title...(ha! a reference to an Oscar winner right out of the gates! amazing)  This would probably be much catchier if my name was Olive or Oscarina or something like that, but this isn't Hollywood, so it will have to do.

Here is a link to the Academy's web page for all the Best Picture winners in case you care:

http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/legacy/best-pictures.html

Out of the 84 Best Picture Winners, I have seen a total of 29.  This leaves a total of 55 movies for me to watch (along with all my current nominees for this year and next.)  This could get expensive…I haven’t checked into how many of these are available through Netflix. 

The Best Picture winners I have seen so far are:

2011 – The Artist

2010 – The King’s Speech

2007 – No Country for Old Men

2006 – The Departed

2005 – Crash

2001 – A Beautiful Mind

2000 – Gladiator

1999 – American Beauty

1998 – Shakespeare in Love

1997 – Titanic

1995 – Braveheart

1994 – Forrest Gump

1993 – Schindler’s List

1991 – The Silence of the Lambs

1990 – Dances with Wolves

1989 – Driving Miss Daisy

1988 – Rain Main

1987 – The Last Emperor

1986 – Platoon

1984 – Amadeus

1980 – Ordinary People

1978 – The Deer Hunter

1965 – The Sound of Music

1961 – West Side Story

1957 – The Bridge on the River Kwai

1943 – Casablanca

1939 – Gone With the Wind

1935  - Mutiny on the Bounty

1931/1932 – Grand Hotel

Now, I also think I may have seen Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1929/30), but I can’t say it definitively, so I won’t count them. 

I don’t think I’ll go in any particular order, especially since if I save all the ones from the 20’s and 30’s for last, I’m likely to go broke if they aren’t on Netflix.  Actually, I take that back – they are pretty much all on there.  Bonus.

For some reason, Out of Africa (1985) and Annie Hall (1977) are jumping out at me as the ones I should get first.  So my next post will be about one of those.

I watch a lot of movies.  I figure having a little purpose for myself will make me feel like I’m getting something accomplished :)