‘Academy Award for Der Fueher’s Face at the Walt Disney Family Museum’
courtesy of ‘Loren Javier’

Last week I shared with DC my intentions for watching all the Academy Award nominees before this year’s Oscars.

And I mean business.

After years of Oscar Watching I have a few rock solid strategies to try and catch all 50+ films that will be nominated for an Academy Award at any given year. I know that there are a few others out in The District that are also gunning for the gold, so here are my tips for a comprehensive Oscar Watch.

Start At Home: Amazon, Netflix, and Redbox

Just like emergency preparedness, a good plans starts at home. If you grab yourself a list of the nominees, you’ll see that a number of them are either already out on DVD or available for online streaming from rental sites like Netflix. Start rearranging those queues, you never know when a major snowstorm could leave you snowed in for a few days. Of course not all of the nominees are out on DVD, most Oscar contenders release their films close to the end of the year so that means you are also going to have to…

Hit The Theatres!

Not everybody is crazy like me to try and watch every nominated film, perhaps you want to just watch the 10 Best Picture nominees. In that case AMC’s Best Picture Showcase is for you. The theatre chain with locations in Georgetown, Arlington, and Alexandria are offering a way to see every Best Picture nominee through two options: a two-day marathon or a 24-hour moviegasm. Not to mention that at $60 for a two-day pass and $50 for the 24-hour pass, it’s a great deal on 10 quality films.

Second-run theatres like the Arlington Drafthouse gives you a chance to catch some of the nominated films that are in between wide-theatre run and DVD release. The Drafthouse also offers cheap tickets and beer served straight to your seats- and who doesn’t love that?

DC is lucky to have an abundance of Indie/Arthouse venues so you’ll be able to watch that obscure title in limited release.

Shorts! Shorts! Shorts!

The hardest films to usually screen prior to the awards are the shorts. Luckily the National Archives comes to the rescue with screenings of the Animated, Documentary, and Live-Action shorts this month. The screenings are free and are a very popular draw- so I suggest getting there extremely early and be prepared to wait in line. Last year I got there and couldn’t get a ticket- so I walked over to the E-Street Landmark Cinema where they were also offering screenings of the shorts (for the price of a ticket) as well. I expect them to offer similar screenings like they did the year before.

UPDATE: Josh over at West End Cinema just e-mailed me to say his theatre will start screening the nominees in the Best Documentary (Short) category starting on February 11th- bonus!

Catch The Foreign Film Nominees At National Geographic

The folks at NatGeo come to the rescue in another hard-to-catch category: Best Foreign Film. They will be screening the nominees for Best Foreign Feature Film on their campus this month.

Who else out there is trying to watch them all?

Patrick Pho

Patrick has been blogging since before it was called blogging. At We Love DC Patrick covers local Theatre, and whatever catches his eye. Patrick’s blog stories, rants, and opinions have been featured in The Washington City Paper, Washington Post Express, CNN, Newschannel 8 Washington, and NBC Washington. See why Patrick loves DC.

You can e-mail him at ppho [at] welovedc.com