Film Appreciation 101

I love movies. I grew up watching them. I wasn't as lucky as my parents to be able to catch double features for a quarter, but I still saw as many as I could on the five channels we got at home.

Saturday mornings were the best. I'd wake up early. It was the only day my parents slept in. I'd turn on the TV to 11 or 30 - the two UHF channels we got in St. Louis in the seventies. I spent my mornings watching the triple feature. Usually I'd get a Shirley Temple, an Abbot & Costello, and a Charlie Chan. However, this was not set in stone. Sometimes I might get lucky and see a Lewis and Martin or even a 'Road' movie with my favorites: Bing and Bob. I just loved Saturday mornings.

As I've grown older, my appreciation for movies has also grown. Recently, I decided to start writing a screenplay of my own. What I realized as I read through Save the Cat was that even though I had watched many movies in my life, I had never made myself a student of them.

With this in mind, I started scouring the Internet for 'free' film courses. I found a lot of courses for budding directors. However, the standard film courses for non-movie makers were typically focused on one genre, one era, or one theme. This was not what I wanted. Therefore, I decided that I would create my own curriculum. Armed with all three of the late, great Blake Snyder Save the Cat books, I decided to sit down and see for myself how film has evolved over time. As a way to make it easy for myself while making a yearly 'check-in' with movie magic, I decided that I would set the crazy goal of watching each of the Oscar winners for Best Picture.

Therefore, over the next 85 days, I will be watching the 85 movies that have won the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture. Hopefully, I will learn a lot about structure and genre and the way that movie making has evolved. I hope to use this blog to chart my journey and share my insights as I go.