Movies I've Missed

I've watched a few movies recently, in my usual scattershot way. I saw "Away from Her" (Julie Christie brilliantly plays Alzheimer's victim), and a few from the past: "Million Dollar Baby" (hadn't thought I'd like it based on subject matter, but of course I was wrong about that), "Brokeback Mountain" (Anne Hathaway was an unexpected pleasure), "The Color Purple" (Whoopi Goldberg's movie debut, nominated for 11 Oscars - how did I ever miss that one?), and "Praire Home Companion" (wonderful in every way; brilliant acting, directing, and the music! - worth seeing on DVD to get all the "extras", such as the complete musical numbers that you only hear Altmanesque parts of in the actual movie).

Anyhow, I looked up The Color Purple to see why it hadn't won the best picture award in 1985. Well, it was up against "Out of Africa" (the winner), "Prizzi's Honor", "Witness", and "The Kiss of the Spider Woman", all of which I DID see at the time. Tough choice for the voters that year.

But this led me to scrolling down the lists of other nominees by year, here, and most likely elsewhere as well. I thought I was reasonably movie-literate (is there a better term?), but I was amazed to discover how many great films I must have missed over the years. Since it's so easy for me to get pretty much anything through the library, I'm making a plan RIGHT NOW to work through this troubling gap in a systemmatic way. I'll start with the "best picture" group, realizing that there are going to be plenty in some of the other groups ("best actress", etc) that will be worth tracking down as well. Even at one movie a week I can work through fifty in a year. Will that bring me up to speed?