REELQUEST: Countdown to Film
Personal goals. Most of mine are hardly worth blogging about: don’t eat an entire box of cereal every Saturday, take the effort to walk instead of drive when I can, and make use of the guitar that’s been sitting unused in my room for going on two years now. This new one, however, is fun enough that I figure sharing it here would be worth the while. That goal, or REELQUEST as I’ve so unnecessarily deemed it, is to watch more movies; specifically, watch more good ones and then write about it. Blogging, huzzah!
The plan is to cover the entirety of IMDB’s Top 250 Movies Of All Time, a mighty endevour indeed, but it seems to be the most comprehensive and current list that covers both classic and new films. Skimming it, I’ve seen roughly just under one-half of the full list, so I’ve got a ways to go (NetFlix in Canada is definitely going to help) but this is something I’m set on finishing, so here’s hoping I can stick to it.
To kick things off, I picked up the Criterion Collection edition of Samurai Seven by Akira Kurosawa, something I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time. While mightily expensive, it’s really quite an excellent set and comes with a bunch of cool ‘supplements’ that do add to the experience. Namely, there’s commentary (written and over the movie) from various professional critics and film academics that provide some fantastic insight to the film. Very cool stuff.
I don’t think I’ll do full reviews or separate posts for everything I watch, probably something more along the lines of a ‘progress report’ after every couple of films (I don’t want this to become a movie blog). Also, I think having an approximate finish date is going to help get things moving — March is the goal. So that’s three months to watch almost 125 movies. Doesn’t sound unreasonable, I don’t think. Wish me luck! REELQUEST begins now.
BONUS: I’m also interested in seeing how my list of all-time favorite (i.e. most enjoyable) movies changes as I conquer this list of supposed greats. My top ten, in no particular order, is as follows:
- Gattaca
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Sin City
- Princess Mononoke
- Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (if you judge, you haven’t seen it yet)
- Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
- The Princess Bride
- Being John Malkovich
- Munich
- The Matrix
- Back to the Future
So yea, not a whole lot from before the ’90s. Which is another reason I wanted to make my way through the list: broaden my movie-viewing horizons a little bit. Like they say, life didn’t start the day you were born.
(Editor’s Note: This is a repost from Gleboff’s personal blog.)
