Sunday, June 14, 2009

2009: 150 Films


I'm not really one for resolutions, yet I know there are things about myself that I should strive to change or enhance. That's the nature of growing up, I guess, and I'm still working on it. I'm using 2009 as a gauge for the future and I'm using it in many ways. Given that this is a film blog, I've decided I'm going to set a goal for myself: 150 films I've never seen before by December 31st. Obviously, I'm six months into the year, but I've traced back the ones that I've seen in the theater or through Netflix from the beginning of the year to this point and, by my estimations, I have exactly 100 more to go. This isn't going to be the easiest goal to reach for myself. A lot of my film-going pals set goals like this twice as much as mine, but since I tend to lighten up the load for myself come college football season, I figured this would be a solid number to achieve. Challenging, yet attainable. This means that if someone calls and asks me to go see a film I wouldn't normally see, I shall throw caution to the wind and see it (with a few exceptions, of course). I will be updating the list, publicly, every fifteen films or so. For now, I will leave you with the films I have seen so far, this year, in no specific order.

Frost/Nixon (Howard)
Doubt (Shanley)
Revolutionary Road (Mendes)
Milk
(Van Sant)
The Visitor (McCarthy)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Fincher)
I Love You, Man (Hamburg)
Angels & Demons (Howard)
Terminator: Salvation (McG)
Up! (Docter)
The Hangover (Phillips)
The Taking of Pelham 123 (Scott)
The Wrestler (Aronofsky)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Allen)
Rachel Getting Married (J. Demme)
The Watchmen (Snyder)
Frozen River (Hunt)
Chop Shop (Bahrani)
Man Push Cart (Bahrani)
Mr. Death (Morris)
Vernon, FL (Morris)
Wordplay (Creadon)
Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show (Sandel)
Seizure (Stone)
Grizzly Man (Herzog)
Waking Life (Linklater)
Sullivan's Travels (Sturges)
Jesus Camp (Ewing)
Saved (Dannelly)
Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)
Burden of Dreams (Blank)
Cape Fear (Thompson)
Letters From Iwo Jima (Eastwood)
Red River (Hawks)
Saraband (Bergman)
A Decade Under the Influence (T. Demme, LaGravenese)
Walkabout (Roeg)
Secret Honor (Altman)
Written On The Wind (Sirk)
The Hunting of the President (Perry)
Hearts and Minds (Davis)
Don't Look Back (Pennebaker)
Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders: The Movie (Pennebaker)
The Making of 'Dark Side of the Moon' (?)
Tom Dowd and The Language of Music (Moormann)
Dark City (Proyas)
This Film is Not Yet Rated (Dick)
Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore? (Popper)
Tokyo Story (Ozu)