Who are we, and what are we doing here?

Who are we?

I'm Eitan. My girlfriend Shira will be posting here shortly. We are both college students at different schools in the University of Maryland. To put it simply, we love watching great movies (and even some trashy ones like Six String Samurai and Chopper Chicks in Zombietown... in fact, mostly the trashy ones). We're both Jewish, cosmopolitan, well-read, cynical, and obsessive about the things we like.

What's the 79 Best Pictures project?

We decided together, on a whim, that while our cinematic interests stretched far and wide and our favorite films (the ones we share and the ones we hold dear to ourselves) spanned every decade and every genre, our vocabulary in dealing with the "great" films was severely crippled by the fact that we had not seen every winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Although this award is (in my opinion) rarely given to the best film in a given year, it is in any case a truly remarkable signifier of trends in filmmaking and in the perception and acceptance of popular cinema. Because of the eternal fame bestowed on the films printed on the last envelope of Oscar night, regardless of their actual quality, they seem to exist in a pantheon that is worth exploring to the fullest.

There are some years where the Oscars are so right -- such is the case with Casablanca, Gentlemen's Agreement, The Godfather, and Annie Hall -- and some years where it couldn't be more wrong, like the years they picked In the Heat of the Night over The Graduate or Rocky over Network, Taxi Driver, AND All the President's Men. Nevertheless, by our calculations, we have each seen about half of them, and we're each missing essential films like All About Eve and The Last Emperor. In the midst of a particularly exciting, wide-open Oscar season, and with the 80th Academy Awards coming up next year, we decided that in order to bring us closer to an understanding of and appreciation for the great films, actors, directors, and overall monuments of cinema, we would undertake a simple year-long project: watch all the Best Picture winners--in chronological order, from Wings to this year's winner, which we will know in less than one week--together, and blog about each one before and after seeing it.

There are certainly some films we dread seeing, such as The Greatest Show on Earth, but we're going to do them all, in order. No excuses and no exceptions. For every Gigi and Crash, there's a Schindler's List and Midnight Cowboy to look forward to. The list of winners is a stunning and mostly comprehensive overview of the greatest productions in the history of American cinema, and we feel excited and privileged to experience all these films in such a whirlwind manner; over the course of one year (we have set next year's Academy Awards as the deadline for completing our project), we will get to watch 79 mostly terrific films and think about what the Oscars mean, how fims hold up over time, and what makes these ostensibly "great" films truly great.

What are the rules and procedures?

For the most part, we will be renting the films with Netflix and watching them on my TV at school, or, during the summer, on my TV at home. Wings was not available on DVD in the United States (which is a real shame... all of these movies should be easily bought or rented, for historical purposes if nothing else), so Shira bought it from a Chinese seller on eBay. We'll see how that pans out. Films that are unavailable on DVD but are available on Laserdisc (such as Hitchcock's wonderful Rebecca) will be tracked down and viewed at the Non-Print Media Library at the University of Maryland. Some of these viewing locations and circumstances will be less than ideal, but we will do our best.

An additional rule that we have established for ourselves is that we are not allowed to watch any of the Best Picture winners when it is not the time to do so. I love American Beauty, but if I have a hankering to watch it before our 72nd round of viewings, I have to restrain myself (and if I can't do it myself, Shira is more than capable of doing it for me). This rule is actually very important, and acts as the glue for the project as a whole; we are certainly undertaking this interesting and somewhat large effort to get a "crash course" in the best movies ever made, but we don't just want to "watch em all."

This project also has the bonus of providing for us an invaluable tool with which to understand the evolution of--and trends in--American film from the silent era to today. Watching them out of order, in many ways, breaks that spell and disrupts the flow of the project. Understanding why and how the Academy picked light-hearted, G-rated musical Oliver! (1968) just one year before they awarded the top prize to nihilistic, nearly pornographic, and X-rated Midnight Cowboy (1969) is just as important to us as enjoying both of the movies on their own individual merits. In other words, we're not just in this for the movies; we're in it for the history, and for the appreciation of the Oscars themselves.

Lastly, how will this blog work?

Shira and I will watch at least one movie each week--with less frequency during the school year and MUCH greater frequency during the summer--and blog about it both before (with our expectations) and after (with our reactions, analysis, and notes about our personal discussion). Since the project has a cumulative aspect to it, expect notes about older movies. We will be sure to annotate every entry with relevant reviews and IMDb links. For the purpose of consistency, when we refer to the 19xx Oscars or the 200x Oscars, we will be referring to the year in which the movies were released and not the year in which the ceremony was held. For example, Crash won the 2005 Best Picture award, Million Dollar Baby won the 2004 award, etc.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I can't wait to start watching these great films and catching glimpses of cinema history at every twist and turn of our exciting project. Coming soon... Wings, starring Clara Bow!