The Brians

Each year, people analyze the quality of the field vying for movie awards. They proclaim whether it’s a “good year” for The Oscars.

I think 2012 will go down as one of those years which people will say that the field for The Brians – my yearly awards for the movies I see in the theater – didn’t have a lot of depth, but it had plenty of quality.

Seven movies have qualified for the 2012 edition of the awards, five fewer than last year. The nominees are “Argo,” “Skyfall,” “21 Jump Street,” “The Lorax,” “Wreck It Ralph,” “Fun Size” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days.”

As you can tell, the majority of my movie attendance came with my daughter, not my wife, in 2012. I don’t really know why. I guess we just had a busy year and never found huge motivation to see the many movies we considered, but didn’t seem worthy of a night out.

Looking back at the 2012 releases, I think “Lincoln” really ranks as the only regret. Probably “Ted” as well, but everything else we considered didn’t push my buttons. Far too often, we simply figured we could watch the latest romantic or stupid comedy on Netflix.

I guess that makes this year’s winners even more special. They had that quality which convinced my lazy and cheap self to actually go outside and interact with other people.