After years of contemplating this whole speaking-out-to-the world thing, it was this year’s Oscars that finally pushed me from ruminating about starting a movie blog to actually doing it. It wasn’t just the fact that Moonlight won Best Picture, but the very act of literally uncrowning La La Land and replacing it with Moonlight—on stage in front of a live audience both present and on television—that really bothered me. I kept replaying that moment in my mind, disbelieving 1) that such an egregious mistake could be made on live TV (sorry, Steve Harvey); 2) that just such an error happened only during the show’s (and the year’s) biggest honor; and 3) that what I saw as a reaction of fear to the #OscarsSoWhite campaign tipped the scales for what film would win, thereby bringing into question the legitimacy of what is arguably the preeminent awards show and a greatly significant moment for our culture. Without getting too far into all the politics of this year’s Academy Awards (at least for right now), suffice it to say that after years of thinking and planning and discussing and plotting, a victorious Moonlight has led to this blog making a longstanding dream my new reality.

I have a theory about movies.

Almost twenty years ago, when I was just starting high school, I was sitting in a doctor’s office flipping through a magazine—Time, I believe—trying to keep down the nerves that always tried to choke me when I was at the doctor’s. In a tiny box at the bottom of a page near the end of the issue, I skimmed over a small picture of a gigantic ship, all lit up, half sunk in a dark body of water. Something jolted the obsessive historian in me; and after studying the picture a few moments more, I read the short paragraph that accompanied it. It told of the upcoming release of a film by James Cameron (didn’t ring a bell) about the sinking of the infamous Titanic (that did ring a bell). The movie would very creatively be called Titanic and would be released in December 1997.

From that moment on, I had to see Titanic in all its tragic glory. Stealthily (or so I thought), I tore out the tiny article, pocketed it, and survived the doctor’s appointment with a little more pep than usual. Months and months later, Titanic was released to unprecedented box office success and non-stop social chatter. Since I was pre-driving age and couldn’t persuade my parents to take me to my favorite movie that I had never seen, the days and weeks crept by during which Titanic’s success soared and I devoured every TV special, news story, periodical article, book, etc. that I could find on either the historical event or its Hollywood counterpart.

And the music. If I was in love with the movie without actually seeing it, I was more obsessed with James Horner’s score. Even before the soundtrack was all over the radio, Celine Dion’s video for “My Heart Will Go On” was a frequent feature on VH1, which my parents failed to notice was my go-to channel. How sad and glorious it all was! And even more splendid was the moment when I opened a brand-new Titanic soundtrack on cassette tape that Christmas! From then on, every night I refused to sleep until I had listened to the entire album at least once on my Walkman.

Then came the Academy Awards in March 1998. That show would prove to be the fateful moment, the de facto start of this blog that many years ago. It was the 70^th Academy Awards, and what would a good awards show be without a montage or two? (I LOVE montages!) I devoured all the clips and hype about Titanic—and even the jokes at its expense—but the few minutes that resonated the most with me were introduced by Dustin Hoffman and were set to the music of DragonHeart (of course)—a montage of all the movies to have won Best Picture up to that point in time. Some films I had seen already (Ben-Hur, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady), some I had seen in part (Schindler’s List, Braveheart), some I had heard of (The Godfather, The Silence of the Lambs), and others I was completely ignorant about (The Broadway Melody? Marty?). I was fascinated…obsessed, is probably an applicable moniker as well. If Titanic, the 70^th winner, was spectacular, what riches did the rest of the BPs hold?

Little did I know that the tiny scrap of an article on the making of Titanic that I had found would lead to my first Academy Awards broadcast and then to a quest to watch all the Best Picture winners before I died. Since then, I’ve seen many of them. But, in the last few years, I’ve modified the watch-before-death plan to view the BP winners in order, connect them to their times, and evaluate their meanings and messages, as well as their effects on culture and on myself. For, as I mentioned earlier, I have a theory about movies.

Our media-saturated culture glories in its technology, in making non-reality seem like reality, in leading us to lose ourselves in activities and entertainments that allow us to escape from the mundane, and often painful, day-to-day of life. However, just as authors never write anything without a purpose and no book fails to project a message to its readers, movies are not benign escapism. Rather, they are one of the leading influences on our culture today. So, it’s a pretty ludicrous idea that we consume them with no effect on ourselves!

Likewise, film does not exist in a vacuum. The issues and events of its times shape a movie’s content as well as its theme. For instance, does Casablanca foresee an end to World War II? How does In the Heat of the Night’s Mr. Tibbs fit into the larger Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s? Is Gladiator a commentary on its culture’s preoccupation with violence? These questions are emblematic of the issues that movies ask us to address. Furthermore, how one approaches and answers these questions reveals much about both oneself and one’s culture. In essence, then, the study of film is really the study of ourselves.

And where better to begin such a study than with the films that hold the title of Best Picture Winner, the movies that have been honored as the superior achievements in film-making for their respective years? Following the Best Picture winners, the plan for this blog is to move on to their fellow nominees, movies that were tapped for the industry’s highest honor but did not receive the Academy’s vote. Each week a new film will be discussed, and my hope is that we can graciously delve into these classics of film as we would into the classics of literature—examining the art and its context to discover its messages, meanings, and significance. Perhaps we can also find ourselves along the way. Will you join me?

Oh, and by the way, in case anyone was wondering about the conclusion of my Titanic story, I’m fairly certain I was the last person on earth to actually see Titanic in the theater. But it was everything I had hoped it would be, and seeing one of the highest grossing films of all time in the theater was truly a moment of triumph for me.