The 87th Academy Awards: Before

January 22nd, 2015, 9pm

It’s hard to believe that it has already been a year since I began a massive undertaking and attempted to watch all of the Academy Award nominees in 2014. While I didn’t see them all—time and resources constrained me into skipping many of the lesser-followed categories—between January 10th and March 2nd, I watched 31 movies and cast my ballot in the following categories:

Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Animated Film, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Visual Effects [I did not watch The Lone Ranger on principle.], Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Music (Score)

I ignored or failed to watch all or part of the following categories as they were either too hard to find online or in theater, or had no interest to me:

Best Documentary (Feature), Best Documentary (Short), Best Hair & Makeup, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Short Film (Animated), Best Short Film (Live), Best Music (Song)

Last year, even watching all of the movies in 17 categories, I was able to ambitiously consume nearly 100 hours of film in the 45 days between when the nominations were announced, and when the awards were given.

This year? It’s a real challenge. I’m going to do my best, but here’s what we’re looking at:

  • I will vote in 18 categories (the original 17 from last year, plus Hair & Makeup).

  • I will not vote in 6 categories (the same as last year).

  • Within those 18 categories, there are 31 films.

  • Unlike last year, the nominations were announced on January 16th but the awards take place on February 22nd, giving me only 37 days (of which I am traveling 13).

Luckily, I have seen a handful of the films already, 9 to be exact. I’m wary to vote on nominations that aren’t fresh in my mind, but time is of the essence, so I may not get to go back and re-watch all of those movies again (though I’ve made a good effort so far, watching Guardians of the Galaxy and How to Train Your Dragon 2 in the last two nights).

So here we go! I hope you’ll follow along on my rapid-fire attempt to consume the remaining 22 films in the remaining 30 days. I’ll do my best to review them all. Be sure to click follow to have them delivered to your inbox!


Emanuel and David Wade said thanks.

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Valerie Stimac

Constraints create lots of great things, diamonds and creativity among them.

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