This is a grassroots campaign

I decided to start this blog because I'd really like to see Kathryn Bigelow's film "The Hurt Locker" get nominated for and win the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2009.

I don't know what effect this blog will have on the Academy Award race, if any at all. I'm not an actor, writer, director, or producer; as such, I'm not a voting member of the AMPAS or MPAA or whatever it's called, and therefore I have no direct effect on the nominations for Academy Awards or the ultimate winners.

I'm not directly connected to the film in any way. I didn't work on it, and I don't know anyone who did. I don't have friends of friends who were peripherally involved. I don't have anything to gain from the movie receiving a Best Picture nomination or winning the award.

I'm just a passionate moviegoer who saw the film and loved it. It was the most riveting moviegoing experience I've had in a long time, and I want to see that rewarded somehow.

Now maybe this is just tilting at windmills, but sometimes you just want a crusade. Sometimes you need something to wake you up. "The Hurt Locker" woke me up.

This is a movie that was made (as nearly as I can tell) largely outside the Hollywood studio system, on a comparatively small budget, by artists and craftspeople who believed in the material and the power of the story.

I fancy myself to be a bit of a storyteller, albeit a blocked and sometimes (frequently) self-handicapping one. Maybe this effort will help something break lose and get some long-gestating projects in motion again.

Time will tell. Maybe over time this blog with change and mutate and grow to encompass other ideas. But for now, it's focused on tracking the 2009 Academy Awards and analyzing the chances of "The Hurt Locker" to be nominated for and to bring home the big prize early next year.