What is Oscargasms?

I'm sure to a typical individual, it's hard to fathom how someone could worship a statue to the extent that I do. But it wasn't always that way. I was a precocious little boy growing up, always inexplicably drawn to old Hollywood movie stars, the glamour of Los Angeles, and IMDB movie trivia. At a young age, I noticed The Academy Awards Handbook by John Harkness at a Borders bookstore (RIP) and asked my dad to buy it for me. It all went downhill from there…

This was the cover. One of those lead performances I quite enjoy. The other...not so much.

The book and I were practically attached to the hip. Whether at home or while waiting for my parents to finish their errands, I'd plow through the pages of the book, reading up on each Oscar year’s individual summaries and sets of trivia. Soon enough, I’d read the content over and over again to the point where the pages turned brown…and the next thing I knew, the tidbits of information from within the book had become ingrained in my head—I knew Katharine Hepburn had won 4 Oscars, I knew that Bette Davis was snubbed for Of Human Bondage, I knew that Marlon Brando had first won for On the Waterfront and had rejected his second win for The Godfather, I could tell you which films a certain actor was nominated for, and I could tell you a surprising amount of nominees from certain years…all these precise and seemingly useless details swirled around in my head at the tender age of about 11.

So that was how my love affair with Oscar originated. It continued onwards, and each year I'd be increasingly invested in the awards. Daniel Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard dazzled the hell out of me with their winning performances in 2007, but the passion for Oscar was taken to the next level in 2008 when I was finally old enough to trek out to the theaters and see R-rated nominees—allowing me for the first time to see every single contender...thereby also allowing me to form my own opinions on each and every one of them and to root for my personal favorite throughout the awards season. From there, I was able to experience utter joy when my personal favorites won or utter rage when my personal favorite is defeated. 

2008 - a turning point! 

And then came 2010—perusing through movie blogs led me to Nick Davis's site, where he was blogging about the final 50 Best Actress nominees he had left to see...As much as I had loved the Oscars, the actual idea of watching all 80+ years of a certain category’s nominees never crossed my mind. It was then that I learned I also thoroughly enjoyed reading other people’s opinions on Oscar-nominated performances as well. After all, "Oscar-nominated Best Actress performances" is an extremely niche interest and I'd always assumed I was the only one who cared about that sort of thing...so what a delight it was to know I wasn't alone, that there are enthusiasts out there just as crazily devoted as I am. 

I then snooped around on the internet looking to see if anyone else was out there doing the same thing. To my surprise, there were! So I decided I was going to join in on the chaos. I too was going to blog. I too was going to share with (and prove to) the world my love for the Oscars! 

Two Best Actress-nominated performances that were pivotal in shaping my Best Actress obsession.

So I did just that. I came up with the concept of beginning with Oscar’s first year and going ahead chronologically. At first it was extremely hard to find some of those earlier titles. However, in a few years time I noticed that many of the titles I could not originally find were all up on the internet or available on DVD (the beauty of the Internet)! And so, beginning in 2013, I hopped back on the blogging train again, this time with a much more devout determination. The overarching goal and idea of Oscargasms is simple: to watch all the Best Actress and Best Actor nominees (for what it's worth, I decided to pick up Best Actor as well because I'm such an obsessive-compulsive completist), vomit out my opinions, rank 'em, choose me some winners. 

So follow me as I navigate through 90 years' (and counting!) worth of films and performances. Some will be mind-blowing, some will be awful, and many will be middle-of-the-road. Whether you’re a film enthusiast, a fellow Oscar psycho freak, someone who accidentally got here while looking up info on a certain celeb or film, or a combination of these reasons, I welcome you.