Over on my main blog, I wrote about the recently-announced nominations for the Academy Awards in the area of feature documentaries, and I got to thinking that in our “winner-take-all” culture, we sometimes forget to revisit the worthy nominees who DIDN’T win in previous years. With that in mind, here’s a companion piece to that blog entry.

The following are the non-winning nominees in the category for the past few years. I’ve put an asterisk after the ones that I’ve seen as of today. I’ve also included the winner in white text (select with your cursor to see it) so you can quiz yourself to see if you remembered who actually won the Oscar:

2005

• Darwin’s Nightmare (2004)
• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)*
• Murderball (2005)*
• Street Fight (2005)
• Winner: March of the Penguins (2005)*

2004

• The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003)
• Super Size Me (2004)*
• Tupac: Resurrection (2003)
• Twist of Faith (2004)
• Winner: Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids (2004)*

2003

• Balseros (2002)
• Capturing the Friedmans (2003)*
• My Architect (2003)
• The Weather Underground (2002)
• Winner: The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003)*

2002

• Daughter from Danang (2002)
• Winged Migration (2001)*
• Prisoner of Paradise (2002)
• Spellbound (2002)*
• Winner: Bowling for Columbine (2002)*

2001

• Children Underground (2001)
• LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (2001)
• Promises (2001)
• War Photographer (2001)
• Winner: Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001)

2000

• Legacy (2000)
• Long Night’s Journey Into Day (2000)
• Scottsboro: An American Tragedy (2000)
• Sound and Fury (2000)
• Winner: Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000)

After February 25, another four worthy losers will join the list of films above. Why not track some of these down and let me know what you think?

A while back, I wrote about Paul Collins’ excellent book, Banvard’s Folly, which was a collection of “Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck.” Now, Paul’s fascinating blog has pointed me to a potential motherlode of similar stuff.

The Athanasius Kircher Society, based in Brooklyn, New York, is dedicated to the same sort of esoterica and historical curiosities. In fact, they will be hosting their inaugural meeting on January 17 in NYC. Alas, tickets are now sold out.

If anyone finding their way here was lucky enough to be in attendance, I’d appreciate a report.

Historical Note: The society is named for Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), a Jesuit priest who, in addition to being a professor of mathematics, could speak dozens of languages and wrote about astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy and many other subjects. He was also an early scholar of Egyptology.