I love movies. I grew up watching a lot of movies, probably because my mom loved watching them. When we were little, I think kids’ matinee tickets cost 25 cents, so Mom would pile all four of us into the car and we’d go to see pretty much any Disney film that was playing. She’d carry in a big knitting bag like it was her purse, filled with popcorn in a Tupperware container and bottles of Pepsi. It was great fun.

Before multiplexes were the norm, we watched our Disney films in style at a fancy old-style theater with a balcony, velvet curtains across the screen and big pipe organ that rose up out of the floor. A man in a uniform stood at the door to gather our tickets. He would tear them in half and hand the ticket stubs to my younger brother saying, “The gentleman always carries the stubs.”

Now it’s hard to even imagine that up until my late 20s, the only way I could watch movies was in a theater or on one of the broadcast television stations, which could only show movies that had been around for a while. We basically had five channels to choose from: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and PBS. Cable TV existed, but I don’t think we had it till our son was in middle school. If you couldn’t go to the theater when a film was showing or you missed it when it was on TV, you just missed it.

When video rental became a thing and VCRs were easy to buy, I was in heaven. We could watch movies at home when we wanted, go back to old films that we’d always wanted to see, with no need for a babysitter. Perfect. I bought a big movie guide to help me find quality films to rent and would bring home a stack of videos each weekend – many of them in black and white and/or with subtitles. My husband and son jokingly called it my “film school.” Then Netflix appeared and I could have DVDs mailed to me with no due dates, just mail them back when we were done with them. No more late fees and no need to chase my toddler daughter around Blockbuster anymore. Even more perfect.

Now that streaming is so readily available it’s easier than ever to watch almost any movie we can think of – which is amazing – but as soon as we became empty-nesters, free to go out to the movies whenever, we found outselves a nice theater with a wait staff that brings food and drinks to our seats. (Usually the same seats every time – on the end of the first row behind wheelchair accessible seating – kind of like first row balcony.) We go often enough that we get a lot of free tickets through the theater’s rewards program, plus some staff members recognize us and ask what we’re seeing. I’d say it’s a fun night out, but hey, we don’t like staying out late so it’s more like a fun afternoon out.

We’ve always enjoyed watching the Oscars, and decided it would be more fun and interesting if we were actually familiar with more of the nominated movies. So over the past several years, my husband and I have made an effort to see as many likely Oscar nominees as we can before the presentation of the awards. I follow the buzz about likely contenders, we assess the films for ourselves, try to predict nominees and winners, as well as choose who we think should win.

We usually don’t go out of our way to see all of the animated feature films, and we don’t bother with documentaries. We don’t really care about films that are nominated simply because they have one good new song, though we do care about original score. And if there are any films that we just don’t want to see for whatever reason, we skip them. We used to ignore all of the short films, but I recently discovered that for the past 20 years, ShortsTV has packaged the Oscar-nominated short films for release in theaters, so this year we decided to check them out. We attended two showings – five animated short films and five live-action short films.

This year the Oscar nominations are spread across 50 films, which includes 15 short films. (And not including whatever science and tech awards they give out ahead of time.) So, how many films did we watch to get ready for the 2025 Oscar ceremony?

• We’ve seen 35 of the nominated films
• We skipped 5 films due to lack of interest, as well as all 10 documentary films
• Plus prior to the nominations, we watched 23 films that we thought might be considered

So after putting in all that time, my own private Oscar race will take place over this coming week, as I work to gather my thoughts and post some observations about the nominated films before the awards are handed out at the Dolby Theater – which is housed in the Hollywood Boulevard shopping mall pictured below.

It’s likely the whole block presently looks a lot more like my pre-Oscars photo from a few years ago as they glam things up for the big night:

I’ll close this intro to my Oscar observations (Oscarvations?) with my favorite fact learned during a tour of the Dolby Theater. A lot of the nominees – especially those favored to win or who are at least sure to be on camera lot – get ready at the theater. So they get dressed, get hair and makeup done, get in a limo at the back of the mall and drive around the block to be dropped off at the red carpet.

And the nominees are….. (to be continued)