Wesley Lovell

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Wesley Lovell

I was born, raised and still live in Springfield, MO. Movies were seldom more than a passing interest to me until 1989. I hadn’t ever heard of the Academy Awards and when my favorite movie of the year, Driving Miss Daisy, was selected Best Picture, I was delighted and entranced. I was 14.

I graduated college in the autumn of 1999 with a Bachelors degree in Communications/Mass Media with an emphasis in Film Studies. It wasn’t a prestigious university, but it gave me the foundation I needed to further develop the website I started in 1996. I launched my own website discussing my passion: the Academy Awards. Using the free site GeoCities, I found a place in their Hollywood district and founded The Oscar Guy in 1996. In its early incarnations, it was a simple affair with very minimal content. Most of that content surrounded my Oscar predictions and other aspects of the Academy Awards. Over the years, my site grew and after I registered the cinemasight.com domain, a name I had taken early on to describe my interest, my ode to the Oscars was sufficiently in place.

In 1997 or 1998, I formed a message board. The Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board, which was originally housed on the now-defunct Inside the Web, became a hot bed of Oscar discussions and I met many people, including Peter and Tripp, whom I would be a lesser person had I not met.

Also in 1996, a banner year for me, I formed two organizations. The Online Academies (Online Motion Picture Academy, Online Television Academy, and Online Music Academy) and the Internet Film Critics Association. The IFCA faltered within the year, thanks mostly to my admittance into the Online Film Critics Society. The Online Academies, however, have been giving out awards for over a decade now. The group’s name was changed to The Online Film & Television Association and continues to thrive to this day.

I joined the OFCS in its inaugural year and have served on the Governing Committee for twelve of the last 18 years. To this day, I’m as proud of that organization as I am of any other accomplishment. I feel as if I’ve grown and matured as a critic thanks to and along with the group.

However, as a meager internet-based film critic, I don’t make money off the site or films I see. I still watch and review because that’s my passion. I would never trade it for all the world. I worked five years in telecommunications (customer service) and have spent the last 16 years working as an insurance underwriting assistance. That’s how I stay afloat while maintaining my websites.

The Oscar Guy site has been my baby for many years and though I’ve gone through many adjustments, changes, and redesigns over the years, I will never forget why I started it. I love the Academy Awards (even when they make poor decisions). I love movies. It’s that adoration that has kept me motivated when I could have given up on everything. I also thank all those message board posters for keeping me grounded in reality. These have been an excellent 27-plus years of my life and I hope to make it last for many more years to come.

Facebook: OscarGuy
Twitter: OscarGuy

Member of the Online Film Critics Society
Member of GALECA

Facebook: OscarGuy
Twitter: OscarGuy

Member of the Online Film Critics Society
Member of GALECA