We’re now a few days into January, which means a few different things- everyone returns back to work after holiday gluttony, we all make a million goals and resolutions we may or may not keep, and the motion picture awards season hits full force.

Between nomination schedules and award shows the season can be a bit dizzying. However, most major nomination lists have been announced, the Globes air on Sunday (which I skip half the time… but Gervais is always good for some fun) and Oscar nominations are smacking us next Thursday morning. The time has at last arrived for my annual Academy Awards tradition.

Watch all the movies.

Alright, not all of them, but as many as I can gather. In the previous two years that I’ve been subjecting myself to this 4-5 week viewing binge, I’ve tagged everything nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress and Actor. I’ve gotten close on supporting roles and writing, and several other technical categories, but the primary objective is the Big Four.

I generally wait until the actual Oscar Nominations have been announced, but this year I’ve been lapping up the newswire for all of the other awards being handed out, and I think I can get a slight early start. I’ve seen several of the bigger-name films already – Mad Max, The Martian, and despite sitting next to a man who snort-laughed at nearly every word that came out of Walton Goggins’s mouth, I enjoyed a screening of The Hateful Eight last night. Granted, that movie is probably not getting much as far as the Big Four goes, but Jennifer Jason Leigh has been having a good run for supporting actress and Tarantino and Morricone are in the screenplay and music races respectively.

Actually… scratch my comment on seeing several films already. I’ve seen… three. That’s really not much at all… I have a lot of work to do!

Seven weeks isn’t unreasonable though. The first year I managed in 11 days, though that was a depressing lot of films to hit back to back. 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club, Philomena, Blue Jasmine… that put me in a really bummer mood.

Anyway, I’m hitting up The Big Short and The Revenant in the next few days. Carol, The Danish Girl, Spotlight, and Brooklyn are all screening near me, and a handful of others will pop up on various On-Demand services soon. Of course, when the actual nominations hit my strategy will be a little more focused, but I can speculate well enough for now.

My reading habit might need to share some of its time in the next few weeks, but let the tradition continue!