Lee Nau

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.

Yesterday, Brent Simmons announced that NetNewsWire, my favorite RSS Reader, is being released for free download. Along with NetNewsWire, which won my RSS reader roundup a couple of months ago, NewsGator has released all their RSS readers for free.

It seems like an excellent time to update to NetNewsWire 3.1. Congratulations to Brent, Greg, and Nick. Well done, gentlemen.

I listened to a lot of really great music in 2007 and reviewed 97 albums, almost all of them jazz, on 50 Words. Ignoring albums I’d heard before, but never reviewed, that still leaves a whole lot of really phenomenal music that came through my headphones in 2007. Many of these albums I’d heard excerpts of, but never listened to the album all the way through. While very few of them were horrible, a few of them were just not that great (although some of the albums in the “worst” list were still albums I graded above a C). A lot of them, in contrast, were superb.

I guess I have a higher tolerance for bad movies than I do for bad music.

The Best

1. Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker — Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (2005) – A++
2. Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane — At Carnegie Hall (2005) – A++
3. Bill Evans — Complete February 1972 Paris ORTF Performance (2006) – A++
4. John Coltrane — A Love Supreme (1964) – A++
5. Miles Davis — Kind of Blue (1959) – A++
6. Clifford Brown — Clifford Brown Memorial Album (1953) – A++
7. Dave Brubeck — Time Out (1959) – A++
8. John Coltrane — Live European Tours (2001) – A++
9. Sonny Stitt — Personal Appearance (1957) – A+
10. Eric Dolphy — The Illinois Concert (1999) – A+

The Worst

1. Eric Dolphy — Wherever I Go (2000) – D-
2. Dave Valentin — Come Fly With Me (2006) – C
3. Andy LaVerne — Double Standard (1993) – C
4. Oscar Peterson — A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra (1959) – C
5. Bill Evans — Eloquence (1982) – C
6. Ella Fitzgerald — Ella By Starlight (1993) – C+
7. Charlie Parker — Congo Blues (1993) – C+
8. Stan Getz — At the Shrine (1955) – C+
9. Stanley Jordan — Stolen Moments (1991) – B-
10. Various Artists — Spike & Co: Do It A Cappella (1988) – B-