Once again I find myself in the position of having a bunch of films around me, but deciding not to end the year on a review. I said last month (I think) that getting to 230 left was doable, and I've missed that goal by two--I stand at 871 films reviewed and 232 to go from The List. Not bad.
As it turns out, December was still a massive month for me, and one in which I did complete a lot of goals. I've now watched all of the films on The List longer than three hours (actually, everything longer than 170 minutes). I've watched the first 200 (actually, the first 204). I've also watched all of the new additions. Pretty good.
All told, I put up 307 List reviews this year, which is more than I thought I'd do. I put up 29 other reviews, too, for a grand total of 336 reviews. With other posts here and there...that's a lot of writing.
All of this means that, barring serious incident, I'll finish in 2013, and this blog will head in a new direction. Stay tuned, folks--there's interesting stuff ahead.
I'm curious to know what you will do after you finished the 1001 films, Steve.
ReplyDeleteIt's an impressive feat. I've been tempted to try the longest films thing myself, cos my backlog of unwatched stuff has quite a few titles on it over three hours (including things like Satantango and Out 1), but I fear burning myself out on massively long films... and with my total backlog currently standing at well over 800 titles, that sort of burnout is the last thing I can afford if I want to try and bring that number down to something marginally less stupid by the time this new year is over.
ReplyDeleteEven if I were to focus solely on the 1001 list at my own blog, it'd still take me probably a couple of years just to catch up on all the ones I've seen in the past but haven't reviewed before, and that'd be without seeing anything else new.
David--there are a few possibilities on what I'll do next. Oscar films and Criterion are the two main contenders.
DeleteJames--With a lot of the longer films, I watched episodically. Shoah came on four discs, which made that easy. Riget was four episodes, The Decalogue was 10, as was Les Vampires. Makes things much easier when there is a specific way to break them into more manageable chunks.
you are a very busy man, Steve, or a very fast writer. This is quite an achievement.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on being able to keep up your pace on watching and reviewing one of the 1,001 movies almost every day. I'm honestly impressed by it. Since starting my blog two years ago I kept up the review-a-day pace for a couple of several month stretches, but I had to back off for a while each time. At the moment I am more in a review every couple days mode.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on achieving all the goals you set for yourself in December. I'm also hoping to complete the 1,001 Movies list in 2013. I've got the advantage over you in that I don't usually write a review after each one, but the ratio of bad movies to good among the ones I saw in 2012 was not encouraging. (It's around 5 bad to 1 good). I think the half I had seen before actively working on the list were already most of the best films. The number of bad films I've been seeing from the list has been wearing on me some. The Oscar and AFI lists actually provided some welcome respite with more than half of those being ones I liked.
So again, I'm impressed that you've been able to continue to work very steadily on the list with few other movies for more than three years now.
Keep it up, man. Keep it up. You're an inspiration, and I really mean that. Like others, I'm interested to see where you go. Oscars/Criterion would both be interesting directions, and ones I myself would like to explore someday.
ReplyDelete@TSorensen--I wrote professionally for a dozen years, so I type fast and have learned a sense of what I want to go where. A typical review takes me about 30 minutes.
ReplyDelete@Chip--You were a big part of as far as I got this year, and a bigger part of finishing up. Thanks for all of your assistance.
And yeah, there are some serious duds on the list. I have to keep reminding myself that it's never been the best movies ever made, but the important ones for some reason or another. I admit, though, that there are times when I struggle to see that reason.
@Sio--Thanks. I'm continually inspired by everyone pursuing this list, however they choose to pursue it. It's a community I'm proud to be a part of.
I'm looking forward to eventually new direction as well, but it is also a testament to your commitment that your actually going to review 1001 films. Do you already have number 1001 in mind?
ReplyDeleteThe full list is now 1103, and with perhaps another dozen added this year, the final tally will be between 1115 and 1120.
DeleteI think I'd like to end with either The Last Picture Show or Week End, which ends with the phrase fin de cinema. There's a particular sense of closure with both of those.