Blog Archives
April Showers, 117 Films, One Film Festival and Finishing Off Woody Allen
This month was a bit of a slow month for me. Lots of subbing and I spent the last few days at the TCM Classic Film Festival, so I had less time to watch films than previous months. You can see my month-in-review for January, February and March here. I watched a lot of great Ray Milland films this month (thank you TCM), some “Classic Cerebral Foreign Films” (or, that’s what Netflix calls them), as well as several of Georges Méliès short films. Last month I saw films from 11 different decades, this month I trumped that and saw films from all 13 decades that there have been films! I mean by that, at least one film from the 1890s-2010s; see the following list for a breakdown by decade. Oh, and I also (finally) finished watching all of Woody Allen’s directorial filmography. Starting in May I’m going to do an extensive look at his body of work leading up to the release of his 43rd feature Midnight In Paris.
March Madness, Or How I Watched 144 Films in 31 Days
Somehow, despite subbing more in March than in January and February combined, I watched more new-to-me films than those same two months. I also read 2.5 books, but that’s another story. TCM’s star of the month was Jean Harlow, so I watched every film of her’s they showed (except the two I’d already seen). Via Netflix I saw some real essentials (I only have three films left from the combined AFI 100 Years…100 Films list; 123 films in all); you can see Oscar Vault Monday links to two of them below (I also included links to some films I reviewed for YAM Magazine). Also, for the first time ever, I have seen at least one film from eleven different decades. That’s a feat I hope to duplicate often. All and all March was a great month for me and films. As per usual, after the cut there is a full list of all the new-to-me films, as well as five favorites.
I Watched 131 Films in 28 Days. How Was Your February?
So I guess I saw 20 more films in February than I did in January, even though the month is shorter. I would blame this almost solely on TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar (which still has two more days to go), but I watched a number of other films as well. As I did last time, after the cut I’ll list all 131 films, as well as a breakdown by decade and list my five favorites. I’d also like to point out that I watched a number of foreign films this month. I try to watch at least one foreign film a month, but I think I watched 14 in February (and they weren’t all in French!) As much as I wish every month were 31 Days of Oscar (because zomg I watched so many Best Picture nominees in the last few weeks, you don’t even know), I’m kind of looking forward to not having a million films on my DVR looming every morning.
111 New-To-Me Films in a Month? I Don’t Call Myself A Fanatic For Nothing.
As I’ve said many times now, I work as a substitute teacher. But I’m only called in to work an average of 3 to 6 days a month. This leaves me A LOT of free time. I also recently got a DVR, which allows me to tape TCM (the best channel in the world) while I’m sleeping. So now it doesn’t matter when a film is being shown, if I want to watch it odds are I’ll watch it. Which brings me to my whopping new-to-me count for January. 111. Triple digits in one month. I’m pretty sure I’ve had some years where I didn’t even watch that many films in twelve months. I just really love film, okay? And I would love to watch every movie ever made. Well, maybe not every movie, but lots anyhow. After the cut I’ll post the entire list, as well as point out a few new favorites and do a breakdown by decade (spoiler alert: it’s mostly pre-70s films).
the diary of a film history fanatic 