It has been brought to my attention that I have bad taste in films. Apparently, the fact that I love the Twilight movies but hate Nosferatu, that I worship M. Night Shyamalan but disdain Francis Ford Coppola, that I have an abiding love in my heart for Keanu Reeves but just don’t get what’s so great about Dustin Hoffman are black marks against my judgment, my discernment and my upbringing -- nay, my very being. If the cinema intelligentsia -- the cintelligentsia -- are to be believed, anyone who can find merit in Battlefield Earth yet none in American Splendor (dude: it feels about a decade long, and NOTHING happens) must have a drastic failing in their fundamental DNA and be in immediate need of intense therapy.

Certainly, I have an extensive and appreciative knowledge of Mandy Moore’s body of work. I have seen (and enjoyed) every Pauly Shore movie ever made, from Encino Man to last year’s Opposite Day. I am well-versed in -- and generally well-pleased by -- every piece of schlock, drek or utter nonsense produced under the Syfy (or Sci-Fi) imprimatur; love anything with Meg Ryan in it; count both Howards the Duck and Hawk among my all-time favorite flicks; and just adore the High School Musicals.

Okay, I get it. I’m like the anti-film geek.

But why, I wonder, do I suffer from this alleged lack of refinement and discrimination when it comes to the world of film? I mean, my tastes in television and literature, while often running to the ridiculous, also encompass the sublime: I love Jane Austen at least as much as I love Jeffrey Archer; The West Wing a good deal more than Wings. I’ve seen almost every episode of E! True Hollywood Story, and have even watched Inside the Actor’s Studio enough that I think I can actually pinpoint the exact moment when James Lipton starts picturing himself naked on his knees in front of that week’s guest--so clearly, I know movies. But, somehow, it is a vanishingly rare event that I am on the same page as the critical majority about any given film. I Know Who Killed Me? An underrated masterwork. The Shawshank Redemption? Tedious in the extreme. Waterworld? A thought-provoking exploration of environmental calamity (with pirates!). Citizen Kane? Just awful. And Speed Racer? One of the greatest movies of all fricken time. Come on, people, what is wrong with you?

Or is something perhaps wrong with me?

A cursory look at the list of the Best Picture Oscar nominees over the past 82 years reveals that I have seen very few of them indeed. Oh, sure, I’ve seen the more epic or accessible ones, your Titanics and Shakespeare in Loves and -- ugh -- English Patients, but otherwise, unless it’s a musical, stars Robert Redford, or was directed by Spielberg, then I probably haven’t given it a shot. Often, I haven’t even heard of it. Finding myself to be so deficient in this area, I could not help but wonder: is this lack of filmic discernment under which I apparently labor all my own fault? Have I just not worked at this hard enough? I know I’m not alone in my ignorance -- the scarcity of blockbuster Best Picture nominees in the last few decades highlights the gulf between what is considered worthy and what people actually want to watch -- but I don’t want to be one of the mindless majority, I want to be in the elite minority! I want to join the cintelligentsia! But how to go about it?

There was, I realized, only one way: extensive and exhaustive research. Maybe, by exposing myself to what is -- by all accounts – Good in film, I will learn to appreciate the value of people like De Niro and Pacino and Brando. Maybe I’ll even realize that my profound and unconditional devotion to Bruce Willis is misguided in the extreme. (Though I am hoping this doesn’t turn out to be the case: if I am not a Bruce Willis fan, then who am I?)

And so, accordingly, and beginning this very day, I shall watch (and, herein, deliver unto you my thoughts upon) every movie to have been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar since the Academy Awards’ inception -- ah, now there’s a film we can all agree on! -- in 1929. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences shall play Henry Higgins to my own Eliza Doolittle (hey, I’ve seen that one!) as my education in Quality Cinema is doled out across 474 pre-recorded, often hard-to-find, seminars... and counting. Class goes into session tomorrow, at the 1927-28 Awards. And the first film is silent.

Wish me luck!

  -- Rachel Hyland