2017 Oscars-Nominated Movies. All of them.

I came across an old Marketplace Story on how long it would take to see all of the movies that were nominated for an Academy Award.  Sure, this was 2013, but I assume the 2017 nominees would be in the same ballpark.  Back then, it was 99 hours.  So, less than a week, right?

I've heard it a number of times that nobody sees the movies that are nominated for Best Picture. They never play these films outside of New York and Los Angeles and a couple of film festivals.  I've never bought into this.  Sure, it helps to live near a major city, but even in small college towns, all you need is a cinema department with a projector, and you can find these films if you search beyond the 18 screen megaplex.

Before the Oscars, I managed to see 5 of the 9 Best Picture Nominees, all in the Washington suburbs. Moonlight and Hidden Figures were at the American Film Institute Silver Theater for an African-American film festival, La La Land at a 1930s renovated movie theater in Greenbelt (retro theater for retro musical), Fences was at the MegaPlex in the theater with the reclining seats - very nice, and Hell or High Water was a DVD I checked out of the local library.  I remember thinking for each film that rather than needing to go to impressive lengths to find them, that I had multiple options for watching them.  That same Greenbelt Theater also was showing Hidden Figures, but with talks by NASA scientists before the film since NASA has a space center in the town.  Moonlight was showing at a handful of art theaters in addition to the film festival.  And La La Land could be watched by anyone anywhere with a screen.  I assume.

So, I'm on my way to try to watch every movie that was nominated. Library DVDs have been a real help, but Amazon Prime and HBO have had some available at my leisure. Should be a fun couple of months to get me through the rest of our non-winter.