Two years ago precisely, I set out to test myself, as a student and lover of cinema. I ventured to utilize the spare moments of my day and put them towards experiencing new films, movies I'd never seen before, or at least not in their entirety. My initial aim was to see this endeavor through to a full year, without a day missed.
Needless to say, things didn't go as planned...
Oh it certainly started out well enough. First a month went by, then two, and my vow remained unbroken. Heck, I even managed to construct daily critiques of the films I came across. But, as is its want, life happened, and in regretfully mundane ways as well. A day skipped, with the promise of a doubling down to compensate, then an obligation or higher priority removing me from my quest for as much as a week. Hearty efforts were made to remount my movie-viewing steed, but the nag just wasn't having it. Such became my truancy that I was ultimately forced to raise the ceiling on my cinematic debt, extending my endeavor a further year, with the additional 360 odd days masking my discrepancies most handsomely. For a time, at least.
Now here it is, the eve of the anniversary of that first fateful venture, and I find myself with but *a relatively paltry 492 films under my belt. A respectable number, perhaps, certainly in the eyes of those who first prompted my initial drive; those who were aghast at the simple prospect of my watching two films a week mandatorily for school, never mind recreationally; those who called me M.a.D. in the first place (or at the very least implied it). Still, as much as my wanting may be rationalized, I can not allow it to go denied. Call it pride on my part.
With the new year laying ahead of me, what is to become of this pursuit? Shall I seek to further the futility of my prior enterprise? Rather, shall I set off anew, to fill a fresh calendar with its own curriculum of screenings and experiences? An appealing prospect to be sure, but not one I will consider without a sum of tidying (mother would be so proud). So it is that I write here, for you and for me, of my prior attempts of a year in film, of a Movie a Day, and of an experience unfinished but not wasted.
Although, seeing as the time left to me is barely feature length as it is, perhaps I'd be well served to be quick about it. To that end, we have here a key and a list, with allowances for reminiscence where they arise.
Red: Those films for which I possess an equal passion.
Blue: Those I especially don't.
Green: The passing of a sequence most... um... okay, just movies that contain favorite scenes of mine (goodness, I can be full of it, can't I?)
Night of the Demon - Right off the bat, we have one of the best horror films I've ever seen. Special thanks to Caleb and Liz Jones.
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Singin' in the Rain
The Night of the Hunter - In exchange for Night of the Demon, I'd later turn the Jones onto another of the greatest horror films I've ever seen.
Shoot the Piano Player
True Grit (2010)
M. Hulot's Holiday - No film so perfectly encapsulates and embodies the experience of a pleasant vacation.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
The Exterminating Angel - As acidic and haunting a final scene as anything I've ever encountered.
Best Worst Movie
Withnail & I
32 Short Films about Glenn Gould
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Simon of the Desert
Shadows
Crumb
Helvetica
Pi
Irma Vep - When people refer to art as seductive, this is what they're talking about. I could watch it again right now.
The Blue Angel
The Conversation - 70s Coppola was good while he lasted, and this marks one of his best efforts.
Mary and Max
Punch-Drunk Love
The Parking Lot Movie
This Film is Not Yet Rated
Bottle Shock
The Graduate
Youth of the Beast - And so began my love affair with Seijun Suzuki.
Under the Volcano
Life is Beautiful
Dinner for Schmucks
Dimensions of Failure (a student film)
The Murderers are Among Us
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Raging Bull
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Yojimbo - A cornerstone of cinema, whose influence you can still feel to this day. Never mind the fact that it's infinitely entertaining.
Sanjuro
Ghost World
A Town Called Panic - How is it that one of the zaniest pieces of cartoon slapstick I've ever seen would also have one of the best romances I've ever seen in a film?
The Green Hornet - A surprisingly underrated buddy-flick with a pretty thrilling third act and a single shot camera trick I'm still wrapping my head around.
The Secret of Kells - All the Academy Award nominations in the world won't blind me to this film's flat characters and surprisingly unengaging animation / art-style.
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Midnight Cowboy
The Art of the Steal - While it starts strong, the movie ultimately loses sight of that which it ardently sought to defend in the first place.
Wild Strawberries
Kiki's Delivery Service
Eraserhead
The Leopard - The Italian Gone with the Wind. Friggin' love this movie.
Le Samourai - A "cool" film, certainly, frequently for lack of human warmth.
Blue Velvet
Night and Fog
Three Kings
Manufactured Landscapes
I am Comic
Angels and Demons
Black Sabbath (American edit)
District 9
Summer Wars - So you say you don't watch anime? Then in this case, you're missing one of the best family films since the "Amblin 80s."
Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death
The Searchers
Un Chien Andelou
Cat People (1942) - Who goes into the pool all by themselves at night? Who does that?
Harlan Ellison: Dreams with Sharp Teeth
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe - A flying dwarf tackles an old lady. That is a thing that happens in this film.
Trouble in Paradise
Kikujiro
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
The Godfather: Part II - I'll say it: I liked the first one more.
San Soleil - The most perplexing, grotesque, beautiful and delightful travelogue ever made.
Winter's Bone
J.F.K.
Fargo
Memories of Murder - While I still consider The Host one of my favorites, Bong Joon-Ho's previous film is pretty much a perfect movie, from start to finish.
The Nasty Girl
The Rocketeer
Chop Shop
The Band's Visit
Elevator to the Gallows - 15 minutes of what could have been a taut, Hitchcock-esque thriller gets drowned beneath insipid teenage angst and insulting female characterization. An utter waste of a film from an otherwise surprisingly good director.
Closely Watched Trains - Turns out they've been making teen sex comedy's since the Sixties, and this one, at least, is absolutely wonderful.
Persona
Throne of Blood
The Spirit of the Beehive
Wings of Desire - When Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Peter Faulk aren't even the best things about your film, you know you've got a classic on your hands.
Harakiri - All I can say is, this may be the best film I've ever seen.
The Grand Illusion
The Man Who Wasn't There
The Rules of the Game - So I pretty much adore European high-society dramas. You wanna fight about it?
Cropsey
Plan 9 from Outer Space
Run Lola Run
Micmacs
The French Connection
Le Million
The Long Goodbye
Miller's Crossing
Rango
Imaginary Witnesses: Hollywood and the Holocaust
Stripes
The Pawnbroker - The pain in this film will live with you for years. It has with me.
Leon: The Professional - How did this film ever get the reputation it did? Mediocre at best, in my book.
Pierrot Le Fou - I still haven't finished Bonnie and Clyde, mostly because this film filled the gap nicely.
Source Code
The Big Sleep
Delicatessen
Thor
The Duelists
F for Fake
Double Suicide - Sometimes, a brilliant premise is enough. Other times, it's a brilliant framing device that does the trick
The Hidden Fortress
The Sword of Doom - I was less than overwhelmed upon first viewing (so just "whelmed," I guess), but now I just really want to watch it again.
Fall Guy
Insomnia (2002)
The Atomic Cafe
Salt
Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor
Last Man Standing
Zero Effect
The Five Obstructions
Shock Corridor
Kung Fu Panda 2
Dog Day Afternoon - Can we just acknowledge that this is a classic and a great film? I've got a lot more comments to get through.
The Illusionist
Despicable Me
Bridesmaids
Dead Man - Further proof that my mother and I have, at times, irreconcilable tastes in movies.
I Am Number Four - For a Twilight clone, it's actually not bad.
The Vanishing (1988) - A thriller as gripping as it is relentless in its exactitude; essentially a police procedural from the perspective of the criminal.
L'Age D'Or
Sword of the Beast
Ikiru - The Japanese It's a Wonderful Life. Pure magic.
Midnight in Paris
Crimnal
Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto
Out of Sight
Fantastic Planet - Pikmin, the movie.
High and Low
Suburban Knights (a Channel Awesome serialized feature)
The Moustache
Sherlock Jr.
Tropical Malady - Apichatpong Weerasethakul might just be my favorite director of all time, and his first feature film is breathtaking.
Solaris (1972)
The Wild Bunch
Syndromes and a Century - You will believe that a single, long shot of an air-vent will hurt your soul.
If...
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)
Arsenic and Old Lace
13 Assassins
Samurai Rebellion
The Hole Story - A surprisingly affecting tale of one man's descent into obsession and madness.
Smiles of a Summer Night - For those who thing Bergman only makes stuffy, artsy dramas, feel free to revel in this absolutely delightful comedy of manners.
The Virgin Spring - The second you see the father approach that tree, you think, "Oh yeah, this is some all-time Iconic stuff right here."
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Incredible Hulk
Pygmalion
Samurai Spy
Kill! - While Harakiri represents the heights of artistic aspiration, this chanbara flick is as fun as they get.
Knife in the Water - Wasted potential, the motion picture.
Iron Man 2
La Dolce Vita
Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple
Capturing the Friedmans - Some crimes are unforgivable, and some judgments are unjust. This documentary reveals what happens when the two collide.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Rififi
I Walked with a Zombie - It's a crime that Jacques Tourneur isn't more well known. Seek out his work immediately.
Kagemusha
Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island - My initial viewing of this trilogy was marred by a shockingly bad print, from Criterion no less! Perhaps the blu-ray will allow this series's true worth to shine.
The 7th Victim
In the Mood for Love
The Leopard Man
Ran - Two of the greatest storytellers to ever live, Shakespeare and Kurosawa, come together in one of the best films I've ever seen.
Fitzcarraldo - Herzog makes great films about hubris. This is one of this best. Nuf said.
Vernon, Florida
Chungking Express - If Tarantino caught the romance bug, you'd get something like this absolutely lovely film.
Cronos
Pitfall
The Killing
Fireworks - For a film that literally out-Taxi Drivers Taxi Driver, I found myself wanting to see more of the wheelchair bound painter guy.
Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back - A fantastic dark counterpoint to the Beatles A Hard Day's Night.
Sugar Hill
Murder on the Orient Express
Objectified
North by Northwest
Trollhunter - In my estimation, the best "found footage" movie yet, or at least the most entertaining.
The Battle of Algiers
The Last Picture Show - Bogdonovich's tale of a dying town's last breaths is starkly stunning. One of my absolute favorites.
Crimes and Misdemeanors - The best Woody Allen film I've seen yet, and one of my all-time favorite dramas.
My Dinner with Andre - Yeah, all they do is talk. And of course I loved every word.
Man Push Cart
Targets - Over four decades before Cabin in the Woods had the final word horror films, this Peter Bogdonovich flick viscerally captured the disparity between classic horror and the emerging modern horror film, with a climax that's as shocking today as it was then.
The Hit
Tron
Easy Rider
The Thief of Bagdad
The Beaches of Agnes
The Sky Crawlers - Like if Ingmar Bergman made an anime.
Amarcord - Fellini at his most fun and lovely.
Mon Oncle
The Taste of Tea - The first 3 minutes almost lost me, but the 140 that followed were a miracle.
Drive
Tale of Tales
Ashes and Diamonds - The final, tragically romantic final act of Wajda's brilliant War Trilogy.
La Bete Humane
Quiz Show - The rare film that both entertains and convicts you.
Black Dynamite
A Generation
Foxy Brown
5 Easy Pieces
Kanal
The Tree of Life
Midnight Run
One False Move - The police-tailing scene is an all-time great moment of cinematic tension; a standout scene in a thoroughly solid neo-noir.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed
The Great McGinty
Catch Me If You Can
Santa Sangre - A year's worth of W.T.F. wrapped up in a single film.
Suspiria - A blind man takes his dog for a walk. Suspensful perfection ensues.
My Neighbors the Yamadas
Planet of the Apes (1968) - Eschewing the cliched scenes, if I may, I'll have to go with the courtroom sequence as my favorite moment. That's just me speaking for myself.
Downfall
Island of Lost Souls
The Call of Cthulu
Gates of Heaven - Proof that a quirky topic does not a fascinating documentary make.
Rosemary's Baby - If the ending felt like a bit of a let-down, it's only because everything before it was so masterfully spellbinding.
Duck Soup
Vampyr
Hukkle - One of the most brutally naturalistic films I saw all year.
Tokyo Drifter
Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers - you'd think the title would lead you to expect the climactic encounter of this deliriously campy "not-a-porno." You'd be so wonderfully wrong.
Trick r Treat
L.A. Confidential
Tattooed Life
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Infamy
Dark Star - Beach-ball with flippers > Jar-Jar Binks.
Playtime - The whole restaurant sequence, roughly a third of the film's 2+ hour running time, represents easily one of the greatest feats of visual comedy ever put to film.
Branded to Kill
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale - A modern Christmas classic. About a killer Santa Claus. Yes.
Attack the Block
Eyes without a Face
The Apartment
Repulsion
All that Jazz
The Atomic Submarine
La Strada
Cleo from 5 to 7 - And so began my love affair with Agnes Varda.
First Man into Space
A Fist Full of Fingers
The Innocents
Corridors of Blood
The Haunted Strangler
Equinox - It was only afterwards that I learned this atrocious loss of 80 minutes was a studio mandated reedit of a much shorter (read: concise and appropriately paced) indie film.
Kwaidan - The tale of a blind storyteller is the epitome of eastern mythological storytelling, a raptly fantastic sequence.
Blue
Your Highness
White
Red - The climax to a powerfully beautiful trilogy, and just barely the best of the lot.
Stray Dog
The Manchurian Candidate - It's always great to be reminded of how modern classic films could be.
Nosferatu the Vampyre
The Hurt Locker
Goodbye Lenin
Woman in the Dunes
The Face of Another
Bellflower
Ace in the Hole - Billy Wilder's darkest film, and my personal favorite.
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset - The most romantic movie I've ever seen.
Slasher
Carnival of Souls
Super 8
Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown - A surprisingly subversive yet earnest look at the nuance of addiction. Who would've thought?
The Invisible Man
La Pointe Courte
King Kong (1933)
The Haunting (1963)
The Red Balloon - A film that teaches that most timeless of lessons: the vast majority of children are sadistic sociopaths.
Schizopolis
The Girlfriend Experience - As astute a film on economics and business as I've ever encountered.
Schultze Gets the Bluse
Pulse (2001)
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Hokusai
Ikebana
Tokyo 1958
Ako
A Propos de Nice
Zero de Conduite
Isle of the Dead
Bride of the Monster - Not as good as you've heard. That is to say, not as bad as it's reputation.
Diary of a Chambermaid - Have I said how much I like Luis Bunuel films? Cause I do. I really do.
Sullivan's Travels - The first scene with the movie execs. left me with overly high expectations when I first tried to watch this film years back; now, I can appreciate this terrific Hollywood comedy in its entirety.
That Obscure Object of Desire
The Lost Weekend
Double Indemnity
Lost in La Mancha
The Steamroller and the Violin
Land of Silence and Darkness
Umberto D. - Who says Italian Neorealism has to be depressing? Well, okay, pretty much everyone, but this one's still uplifting.
Koyaanisqatsi
Powaqqatsi
Who's Camus Anyway? - An ending sequence that made me reconsider what cinema is capable of. Utterly fantastic stuff.
8 1/2
Yi Yi - The first hour's as good as it gets; unfortunately, the rest of the film suffers in comparison, focusing on characters considerably less interesting as the father, wife or young son.
Divorce, Italian Style
Naqoyqatsi
The Milky Way
The Phantom of Liberty
A Christmas Tale - The one without a killer Santa. Still a must-see.
Scrooge
Wag the Dog
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
The Body Snatcher
Flying Deuces - One probably doesn't approach Laurel and Hardy films looking for surrealism, but the ending is wonderfully absurd. Absolutely recommend the whole thing as well.
Great Guns
Safety Last - Yes, the now famous building-scaling scene is every bit as intense and amazing as you've been led to believe.
Animal Crackers - Duck Soup gets all the acclaim, but this is hands-down the best Marx Bros. film in my book.
College - You broke my heart, Buster Keaton! You and your tone-deaf, strangely racist and utterly unfunny slog of a film broke my heart!
March of the Wooden Soldiers
Taste of Cherry
Fire and Ice
House on Haunted Hill
The Navigator
The War Game
Seven Chances
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchterr
The Ice Storm
Hausu
Gabriel Over the White House
The Man Who Came to Dinner
Belle de Jour
Le Bonheur
Blow Out
Pool Sharks
The Golf Specialist
The Dentist
The Fatal Glass of Beer
The Pharmacist
The Barber Shop
Strings
Saphead
The High Sign
One Week
Red vs. Blue: Season 9 (a Rooster Teeth serialized feature) - see my Tintin comment.
Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva
Tangled
Horse Feathers
Please Vote for Me
Fighting Elegy
Tootsie
Gummo - This is an ugly, ugly film, and I was transfixed by every second of it.
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
La Jetee
I Like Killing Flies
Office Space
Faces - I may never watch another Cassavetes film again, but I'll always be glad I watched this one.
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (an episodic online film)
The Guard
Contagion
A Chinese Ghost Story
The Adjustment Bureau
Wheels on Meals - I'll always take slapstick Jackie Chan...
Supercop - over faux dramatic Jackie Chan.
Cold Weather
The Adventures of Tintin - All I can say is, when it comes to motion-captured, single shot action sequences, Red vs. Blue: Season 9 did it first, and Red vs. Blue: Season 9 did it better.
Winnebago Man
Mother
Godzilla (1954) - Ignore everything that came after, this standalone film is a captivating human drama with some truely beautiful imagery.
The Magician
Vagabond
The Eel - There are family films, and then there are films about finding a family. This is a wonderful instance of the latter.
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame - Like Game of Thrones meets Sherlock Holmes, with more over the top action sequences.
American Psycho
Contempt - As... well, contemptible as the characters can be, there's an omnipresent respect for cinema (from Lang especially) all throughout this dark romance drama.
50/50
Pulgasari
Hesher - Josef Gordon Levitt is terrifying, hilarious, and heartwarming, sometimes simultaneously.
Traffic
Broadcast News
Decasia - features easily the single most haunting image I've ever seen in a movie. You'll know it when you see it.
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Moneyball
Courageous
The Secret World of Arrietty
Certified Copy - "It's not slow, it's deliberately paced." - me to my sister after viewing this great film together.
Martha Marcy May Marline
Cedar Rapids
Margin Call
Antonio Goudi
Re:Generation
Young Adult
Hugo
The Skin I Live In - So yeah, get ready to wince... a lot.
The Muppets
The Descendants
Gamera: Guardian of the Universe
Highlander - There can be only one... guilty pleasure entry (better than The Terminator by any measure, in my book).
Gamera 2: Attack of Legion
Kiss Me Deadly
The Lady Vanishes - An early peak in Hitchcock's career, possibly my favorite of his.
Shut Up Little Man!
Mystery Team - Anyone else miss Community?
Up in the Air
The Golem
The 39 Steps - While not as bad as I felt it was at the time, it's still hard to separate this film's invention of the tropes from the cliches those tropes have become.
The Raid: Redemption
The Cabin in the Woods
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris - Let this serve as an honorary placeholder for the full Gamera Trilogy, which serve as a brilliant dissection of the Kaijin genre as well as a surprisingly human drama.
Marwencol
Bill Cunningham New York
Ink - I have a nasty habit of stopping a film just before it starts getting really good. With Ink, I ended up missing out on a surprisingly satisfying and exciting climax for far too long.
A Man Escaped
Down by Law - Where A Man Escaped left me indifferent, this film skips the jailbreak altogether, and is all the more beautiful for it.
Into the Abyss - Herzog makes great documentaries. This is one of his best. Nuf said.
Another Earth - The majority of the film is too detached for its own good, but the final image raises some provocative questions that will keep you thinking.
Fish Story - Even now that the threat of apocalypse has passed, this 2012 "what if" tale offers up a wealth of joyful entertainment and life-affirmation.
Pickpocket
My Winnipeg
In the Loop
Landlocked
43 @ 43
Mascots
Nowa Cumig: The Drum Will Never Stop
Haywire
Burden of Dreams
Better Off Dead
Tampopo
The Avengers
Made in China
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Rampart
Mishima: A life in Four Chapters
Birdemic: Shock and Terror
Moonrise Kingdom
Under African Skies
Three Outlaw Samurai
21 Jump Street
Take Shelter
The Dark Knight Rises
Casa de mi Padre
Junkopia
Margaret - Yep, it's a great film, alright. And I can totally understand how many people could hate it.
Detention - Contains the absolute best parody of Cronenbergian body-horror films ever made. And you can take that to the bank.
Anatomy of a Murder - Why aren't there any great courtroom dramas anymore? It's not like people have stopped committing crimes.
The Royal Tenenbaums
A.K.
The Shark is Still Working: The Impact and Legacy of Jaws
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Woody Allen: A Documentary
Kill List
Bernie
A Separation - Okay, yes, I'm sure it's "absolutely horrible living over there," now can we please talk about how great and beautifully human this film is?
Paranorman
I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
Observe and Report
The Three Stooges: The Movie - I'll admit it, I was invested in Moe's emotional arc throughout this film. Is that a crime?
Urbanized
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Jiro Dreams of Sushi - I ache for how good this documentary is. Positively hypnotic.
Real Steel - While Spielberg only produced it, it's a remarkably effective evocation of the director's own brand of family oriented entertainment. Give it a watch next time you get the chance.
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia - Yeah, I'm a sucker for lighting tricks, but this is still a marvelous movie.
The Arbor
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of Toynbee Tiles
His Girl Friday
In the Realms of the Unreal
Out of the Past
The Wages of Fear - Said by some to be a precursor to the modern action flick, there are few I know of that are this gripping and brave.
Sweet Smell of Success
Capricious Summer
The Joke
Daisies
A Report on the Party and Guests
The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
Kuroneko
Flash Gordon
To Boldly Flee (a Channel Awesome serialized feature)
The Terminator
Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry
2001: A Space Odyssey
Devils on the Doorstep
Frankenweenie
Skyfall
Wreck-It Ralph - I will, nay, must always love this film for how it returned me to the joyful exhuberance of my childhood moviegoing experiences.
Charade
A Cat in Paris
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Brothers Bloom
Whisper of the Heart
It's late now. I'm tired. What will tomorrow bring? What will the year? Now comes sleep. Then more.
Sweet dreams.
