Week 33 August 20, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Editorials, progress reports, 2007 , add a commentAs of this week, the blog is genuinely in sync with the entries on deviantART [but not yet with FilmJournal, clearly]. I will switch to individual film entries here at some point [not til 2008, as it turned out], as mentioned in the introduction, but for the time being I’m going to stick with these compendiums. I expect I’ll either switch at the start of year two [which I did], or with film number 101 [which I didn’t]. Which, as you shall soon see, may not be so far off…
The biggest news this week: I’ve passed 90! 90! Only ten films to go til I hit the final aim — I think I can manage that in 19 weeks, to be honest. Anything after that… it’s all a bonus, and something to aim to beat next year!
Anyway, on to the business of the films themselves. The first one up this week is an odd’un, but I’ve gone ahead and justified that in the review itself. Elsewhere it’s the usual mixed bag of filmic delight and despair. How I’ve fit it in whilst also watching nearly all of Neon Genesis Evangelion I do not know.
Week 31 August 6, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Editorials, Genre, Star Ratings, progress reports, 2007 , add a commentMy quest to see 100 films I’ve never seen by the end of 2007 passes the three-quarters point this week, and we’re not even two-thirds of the way through the year!
This is the first single-week entry since week 14. As well as a concerted effort (such as three films on the Friday!), it’s helped by a lessening in the amount of TV I’ve been watching — last entry’s list of 19 on-going programmes has shrunk to 13 by the end of this week. Some might say I watch too much TV… Nonetheless, I’ve moved from about two films per week average over the last 16 weeks, to a total of eight films this week.
As well as a Week Of More it’s a bit of a Week Of Quality. Three of this week’s films are ones I’ve been dying to see for ages, and the rest follow not too far behind (OK, maybe I wouldn’t've put the likes of Kinky Boots or Confetti on a list of films I was dying to see, but I did want to). There’s also a fair few awards and nominations, and no small amount of critical acclaim, across them.
One could also argue that it’s a Week Of Variety. To be honest, I suspect there’s always a fair bit of variety in my film choices, but this week it’s especially pronounced — straightforward British comedies stand by low-budget intellectual sci-fi; complex teenage faux-film noir sits next to epic trilogy-starting Russian fantasy/horror; American gangster thriller lies beside classic British romance… And, while most were made in the new millennium, there’s a spread of over 60 years between the oldest and the most recent. All within the space of seven days, too!
Perhaps because of all these reasons I’ve found choosing the final rating for every film here quite tricky; all of them have some malleability, either up or down.
Weeks 27-28 July 16, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Editorials, progress reports, 2007, statistics , add a commentMy quest to see 100 films that I’ve never seen before by the end of 2007 rolls on into its second half. I’ve done really pathetically in the last couple of months — my average number of films per week has dropped from 2.7 for weeks 1 to 18 to just 1.5 for weeks 19 to 26! I ain’t gonna get to the end that way… actually, I’d hit exactly 100 by the end of the year if I carried on that way! But still, reaching ‘only’ 100 when I was more on track to hit 150 does seem like a slight disappointment.
Anyway, things do continue, and I think I’ve seen a pretty respectable number of films for these two weeks. Will the giddy heights of six films each in weeks 8, 12, 13 and 14 ever be reproduced? (And, by-the-by, that’s six films on average across 12 and 13 — the exact number from 13 was higher, but I can’t remember what it was. Though I’m sure no one else cares for such boring information…)
A couple of Oscar-winners crop up this time round, as we move through the first few weeks of July (the 2nd to the 15th, to be precise).
Weeks 24-26 July 4, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Editorials, progress reports, 2007 , add a commentIn case you’ve forgotten, and can’t work it out from the title, I’m trying to see at least 100 films that I’ve never seen before by the end of 2007. That’s an average of eight per month, donchaknow; or two per week. I’m well on target.
And, I’m halfway through! For anyone who can’t remember how many weeks there are in a year… well, there’s 52; and half of 52 is 26; and the week of June 25th is week 26 of 2007, meaning that July 1st is just about halfway through the year (though, to be precise, there’s actually 52 weeks and one day in a year… well, actually, 52 weeks, one day and a quarter day… anyway…)
I passed the numerical halfway point (i.e. 50 films) way back in week 19 — clearly I’ve not been doing as well in the past 7 weeks! At all. Oh dear oh dear… Exams may be long over and holidays may be on, but combine the odd bits of good TV filling days and evenings with a commitment to completing Script Frenzy and you wind up seeing less films than you might expect. A lot less, as it turns out — just three in three whole weeks! Still, I’m currently well on track to pass 100 by the end of the year anyway. Shiny.
And as has become standard practice, I’ll handily remind you that this entry is covering films seen between 11th June and 1st July.
Weeks 21-23 June 11, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Editorials, progress reports, 2007 , add a commentThis time I do see Spider-Man 3! But not Zodiac, mainly because I can’t be bothered and I’m quite happy to catch it on DVD. Plus, Pirates 3 is long out now, and if you think I’m going to be foolish enough to brave the cinema to see a film of that popularity in its opening week when that week is also half term then you’ve got another thing coming! This period is also affected by exams and the beginning of Script Frenzy.
Talking of exams, I had my film exam on May 30th, which should in theory have meant a glut of films from the course or related to the course just before that. Well, there’s Chinatown… and there would’ve been Only You but the sound wouldn’t play… on my Mac anyway… and how about Die Hard and Once Upon a Time in the West (seen them before)… or connected films such as The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, Easy Rider, The French Connection, The Godfather, Jurassic Park, Predator, Dirty Dancing, The Fifth Element, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Star Wars or Once Upon a Time in America? Well, I can tell you for nothing that I’ve seen some of them before. As for the others… you’ll just have to see… or not…
Actually, this section has wound up covering a longer period than I initially thought (though not as long as it nearly did). Mainly cos it turned out I didn’t (and haven’t) watched many films since those pesky exams finished. I’m not sure why, to be honest. Still, I’m slowly making my way past the halfway mark in numbers, and slowly heading towards the target in time.
This period covers the three weeks from May 21st to June 10th.
Weeks 15-18 May 8, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Editorials, progress reports, 2007 , add a commentAfter a glut of movies during the middle of the holiday things have slowed down a tad again. I say “a tad” — you can see how much by the sheer volume of weeks included in this entry and the relatively sparse number of films! (To be technical, the average-films-per-week in this entry is 1.75, compared to 2.72 overall and 6 (yes, 6!) last time.)
Nonetheless, things are progressing, and overall I’m still on track to make it well past the 100 mark. That’s from the overall average mind, not from the one for this period. From that I’ll make it to about 90. Maybe I should worry… except that summer movie season is on the way! Plenty of new films there. Plus all the ones I’ve recently missed out on DVD.
Well, that sure is shiny.
This week (these weeks?) I break my self-imposed rule about the length of reviews to witter on about Hidden for double the time. I also didn’t watch a single new film in week sixteen (Three Colours Red fell right at the end of week fifteen, Hidden a little way into week seventeen). And I’ve nearly hit the halfway point, a third of the way through the year. Oh my!
For anyone who may be trying to keep track, this period covers nearly all of April — from the 9th to the 30th, in fact — plus pretty much the first week of May (up to the 6th). That’s basically a month. Well well well…
Week 14 April 9, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Editorials, progress reports, 2007 , add a commentMy quest to watch 100 films I’ve never seen before by the end of 2007 continues toward the halfway point. However, this week I’ve hit an exact average of three films per week — if that were to continue I’d easily pass 150 films by the end of the year! It’s really beginning to seem that 100 is a rather easy mark to cross, while 150 would be more realistic… though only if I kept this rate up, and if I slipped I would fail. That’s never fun.
So, my indecisiveness shall continue. Probably until I actually reach 100 and decide if there’s enough time to see another 50 films. Oh well, they say gambling’s bad anyway.
As noted last week, week fourteen means we’re now over a quarter of the way through the year, and so on the path to the halfway point (which, by-the-way, would be about July 1st, which is the Sunday at the end of week twenty-six). I’m also still on holiday, so once again I’ve seen a fair few films this week, and six of them new to me. Here they are…