Thursday, March 1, 2012

Month 26 Status Report

Ah, February, runt of the month litter. How you vex me with trying to squeeze 25 films into your shortened time frame! Even with an extra day, you're still a pain in the ass.

Still, a good month overall. I'm now almost done with the silent films (just a small handful left) and most of what I watched in February was new to me, another positive. Just as important--actually more important in the big picture--is that I've located a few more unfindable films, and now have that total down to fewer than three dozen.

At current count, there are 475 films left to review. That still seems like a lot, but I've blown way past the halfway mark now. We're not into home stretch territory yet, but I feel like I'm hitting a nice stride, ready to knock out another 250 by year's end.

11 comments:

  1. Heh. Let's get through this one first.

    I might do all of the Best Picture nominees/winners because I'll have already covered most of them with this list, so it'll feel like a major accomplishment with relatively little work.

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  2. Congrats. I've started to watch a few films here and there that are in the book. In other words, actively knocking them off instead of just watching films and then later seeing in any were in the book.

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  3. I noticed you had a definite number for your "unfindables", and I was wondering what your list of the really hard-to-find films is, both the ones you've found and the ones you've yet to find. As a fellow and more recent addition to the 1001 Bloggers compendium, I'm naturally eager to get some of these out of the way as well, if I can find them myself.

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  4. A lot of it is library availability. My local library will not do WorldCat for me, which means I have to use my school library, and I really try to limit that, because it negatively affects my librarian's numbers. Anyway, the ones I'm having difficulty with are:
    117 The Baker's Wife
    139 The Mortal Storm
    203 Secret Beyond the Door
    289 Hill 24 Doesn't Answer
    362 Hanyo
    372 Lola
    379 Chronicle of a Summer
    398 Blonde Cobra
    399 The Cool World
    401 Pasazerka
    405 Flaming Creatures
    461 Report
    513 The Spider's Stratagem
    532 Red Psalm
    538 Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song
    552 Fat City
    572 Turks Fruit
    628 The American Friend
    666 Loulou
    678 Zu Fruh Zu Spat
    699 The Last Battle
    701 Utu
    703 The Fourth Man
    752 Peking Opera Blues
    756 The Horse Thief
    771 Red Sorghum
    797 Drowning by Numbers
    812 A City of Sadness
    813 S'en Fout la Mort
    856 The Actress
    885 Through the Olive Trees
    891 Deseret
    896 Safe
    977 Signs and Wonders

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  5. Two that immediately pop out at me, as I know where online they can be found, are Flaming Creatures and Report. I've reviewed Report, but have yet to get to Flaming Creatures.

    Flaming Creatures can be watched here: http://www.ubu.com/film/smith-jack_flaming.html

    Report can be found here: http://www.stickam.com/viewMedia.do?mId=192157747

    I'll see if any more digging on my part can locate any of the others. I've also seen The Mortal Storm, but that was on the cable channel TCM, so I dunno when they might air that one again.

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  6. Nice! I've bookmarked them.

    Anything you see on my site that says "internet video" is something I found online. If you're looking, just ask.

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  7. @SJHoneywell - The internet being what it is, especially recently, you may want to download the two streaming videos to save them in case those links disappear. Alternately, you may just want to watch them now. I just watched Report (less than 15 minutes) and the other is 45 minutes long (very grainy - I don't know if that's how it was originally in order to be "artistic" or if the copy uploaded was that deteriorated).

    Honestly, Report being in the book is pretty pointless, in my opinion. If they want something on the Kennedy assassination, why not list the Zapruder film instead? That certainly had a much larger impact than Report did.

    I'm amazed that Red Sorghum and Safe are not available. I remember reading postive reviews for both when they came out.

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  8. Yeah, that's sort of my problem at the moment. There are maybe 40-50 films I need to watch now because my only access to them is online. Expect to see a lot of "internet video" this month.

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    1. For what it's worth - I sometimes use Realplayer to play videos. It has a "download streaming" feature in it that I use to save off some things I don't have time to get to right away and that I'm afraid might disappear. (I used it for the 45 minute one.) If you'd rather not have to watch all those internet videos all at once you may want to look into this.

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  9. http://www.ubu.com/film/

    You will find "Flaming Creatures" as well as as "Blonde Cobra" and gobs of other experimental cinema. Don't get sucked into it. I've wasted days looking in here.

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