Besides baseball, Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and, of course, my dear wife, I love the movies. In our crazy, hectic, lives I look forward most to Saturday date night which almost always includes dinner and a movie. When the Academy Award nominations are announced, we make it a point to get to all of the nominated films that we haven’t already seen.

I’m not a lovey dovey movie fan. In fact, if the preview even remotely suggests chick flick I fake an injury and pull myself out. The wife, although not a true chick flick fan herself,  takes her mother or goes with a girlfriend while I enjoy a good sporting event on the television. As a fan of my blog, you probably already know my favorite kind of movies are original, thought provoking dramas or comedies. This year’s crop didn’t disappoint.

In fact, I really liked “Her.” OMG, what an original story. Spike Jonze outdid himself and I surely hope he takes home the Oscar tonight. Joaquin Phoenix was in every scene of the movie and his performance was incredible. I am shocked he wasn’t even nominated.  Popular sentiment has Matthew McConaughey and Leanardo DiCaprio as Best Actor but Phoenix had to carry the picture all by himself and did an outstanding job. Frankly, he made the story.  After all, story is all about characters.

But, “Her” wasn’t best picture this year. That distinction goes either to “12 Years a Slave” or “Gravity.” While “12 Years” was incredibly difficult to watch (how can anyone not think so?), “Gravity” was equally  spellbinding but in an other worldly sort of way. Sometimes to me the story seemed a little too far fetched. How could any astronaut, let alone a scientist, survive that ordeal?

I have my father to thank for my love of movies and my wife to help sustain the passion. Story telling has been a part of our daily lives since Adam and Eve. When I’m sure Eve asked the proverbial question, “Adam are you listening to me?” as she relates the tale of her day cleaning the cave, gathering berries, and being chased by a wooly mammoth. I just love stories, don’t you?

I really don’t think the movies are an escape. Rather, I look at the 130 minutes (i.e. the average movie length in 2013) as an opportunity to hear, watch, and feel something new. A good story touches me in a way like Jessica Gomes in a bikini – all my senses come alive. I look for the meaning, the learning, the moral if you will of the story. Stories teach us something about ourselves. They are by their very nature depictions of life.

So, let’s take time out tonight to be entertained by Ellen DeGeneres and guess along with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences on who we thought gave us the best performances, the most original stories, the greatest art. Other than a major sporting sporting event, like March Madness, this is my favorite night of television.

We have dear friends coming over to the house and with a $1.00 bet on the line, we’ll fill out our ballot like critics. It isn’t so much about the $5.00 pot as much as it is about telling the story afterward about how you won.