The March IMDB 250 Challenge - Half Way

So the month's challenge was to see the first 15 films on the IMDB 250 list which I hadn't seen. A challenge I wasn't really looking forward to doing, seeing old films just isn't my thing; that said I've loved every minute of it!

Paulette Goddard in Modern Times.

Never a Chaplin fan, always a big Lloyd fan; I have to  hold my hands up and say Chaplin was a genius. Apart from City Lights which was excellent, I also watched The Great Dictator and Modern Times, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. They also introduced me to the wonderful Paulette Goddard.

So far I've managed 10 films out of the 15, so I can't see myself failing this challenge. They have all been worthy films though, and ones I am glad I have now seen. 4/5 is the lowest score any film as acheieved from me, again showing the quality of these films, and why they are in the top 250.  My other films include 12 Angry Men, Schindler's List, Sunset Boulevard, M, Double Indemity, To Kill a Mockingbird and the infamous Taxi Driver. (Yep! I had never seen Taxi Driver). From these my favourites are 12 Angry Men, the Chaplin films, M, Double Indemnity and To kill a Mockingbird.

Alongside this challenge I've had a number of visits to the cinema, and picking up a couple of surprise personal challenges along the way; Broken City ended up being a film for my P.I challenge. Then Fire with Fire and Parker both went towards my righteous challenge. I also returned to Cloud Atlas because it was a film worthy of a 2nd viewing, if not even a third one; though I only saw it twice. It does contain my favourite score, there are some amazing pieces, the highlight being The Cloud Atlas Sextet. How this was overlooked for an Oscar is beyond me!

Talking of soundtracks - Rob has created a superb score for the film Maniac, I caught this again at Grimmfest with another film 247F which wasn't very good at all. Maniac was and I will be catching it again at Cineworld Bolton in the next week.

Stoker I was disappointed with and ended up sticking it on my watch again list, beautiful to look at, listen too and I enjoyed the performances but it lacked something; or I was expecting more. Another couple of decent cinema films were, Robot & Frank and Side Effects. Though the more I've thought about Side Effects the more I thought it was very good and not excellent; as I first thought. Robot & Frank is rather good though and well worth catching. One quick mention to the worst film I've seen this month and that's The Guilt Trip. For a comedy it wasn't very funny at all.

As for the rest doing the project, Steve has seen 4 films; 12 Angry Men, Taxi Driver, Once Upon a time in the west (on my list as well) and City Lights. Martin has managed 3 films; 12 Angry Men, Modern Times and City Lights. As for Tony - no idea!

A worthy project!

2 Month's and all is well!

February - The Romance of it All, a pretty easy and quite enjoyable challenge. Though the original consideration of Romantic comedies only may have proved a little more challenging. Yet somehow not as appealing, allowing a more general romance film paved the way for some more alternative watches. Wall-E and Top Gun for instance, yet it also allowed me to see the rather brilliant In the Mood for Love, one of my highlights of the month.

 

Considering it was the month of love, the cinema was relatively lite on the romance front, I managed 4 films. I give it a year, Warm Bodies, Beautiful Creatures and the musical Moulin Rouge. Moulin Rouge being the stand out film for me at the cinema for this genre. 
 

Yet I continued to look for more alternative romance films, Blue Valentine; Ryan Gosling and Michelle William’s whirlwind romance, marriage and breakup; not an easy watch. Yet as usual Gosling delivers a quality performance. So I would say well worth watching. 

Another interesting film was Daydream nation, having some strange plot lines and fighting against the typical romantic features, it proved quite an entertaining watch. The cast were all reasonable, and the script smart and funny. Yet it had a secondary plot that was out of left field! Watch it to find out.

    Though I had completed the challenge with a few days to spare, I wanted to see a few more films, with the aim of finishing it with The Princess Bride, after also watching Stardust along the way. Though I had 2 films I was really hoping to fit in and did were Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, with the 3^rd film Before Midnight getting rave reviews, this was a perfect time to see them.

    Both are superb films, I was transfixed by Hawke and Delpy for 3 hours! Brilliant! If you haven’t seen these 2 films, I urge to watch them.

I also had my Link film to watch – The Deer Hunter, tied to Close encounters by the cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. From The Deer Hunter I went to American Psycho, using the studio; Universal. From American Psycho; which I watched on the opening day of the month I can get rid of the song link; one link which was or could have proved quite tricky. The Song is Lady in Red and takes me to Dodgeball in April not the best but at least the link has gone!

 Again the film project is showing its worth; its design to lead me to films I may have missed, some I may never have seen is working. I have focus and a drive like never before, to boldly go where I have never been before!

 

March is going to be the true test of this; the first 15 films on the IMDB 250 list. I have to say it’s quite a shocking list. Films any film buff should have seen long ago, but not me and a major failing on my part; hating the word “classic” I tend to bypass these films. 12 Angry Men, Schindler’s List,Vertigo, City Lights and Citizen Kane, I could easily look the other way!

Yet March isn’t going to be easy, most films on my list are well over 110 minutes long, 4 or 5 well over 2 hours, 2 of them nearly 3 hours long, add to that a heavy cinema schedule plus the personal challenge films; that’s a lot of films this month! Seeing 3 films at the cinema in 1 day and none of them counting for a single challenge doesn’t help!

As they say Bring it on!

The February Stats

Here are the stats after the 2nd month of The Film Project.

Just about scraped in the 14 required Romance films for February (found here: http://boxd.it/3Rqy)

My personal challenges are going well (some more than others!!!)

Personal Challenges

Me, Myself & I 7/15
Point Of Entry 1/15
From Book To Screen 9/15
The One About Star Trek 4/15
The One About Paris 1/15
The Expendables 3/15
Documentaries 3/15
Real Crime 1/15

That puts me at 29/120

March could be the most challenging month, but it should be very interesting

My story so far - February

OK so we've now got through 2 months of the project and I've had another excellent month of viewing. The challenge was romance (14 films) and I did this but after a slow start ended up doing a few right at the end. My link challenge has stalled after it turned out my 2nd film (Leon) was not produced by Colombia, merely distributed so I've now got to use EMI studios instead.

I also got some more personal challenge films in, and now stand at 18/120 so just 2 behind schedule.

My stats are as follows:

Feb Challenge (Romance) 14/14

See all 14 on my Letterboxd list here

Personal Challenges

The Long Haul 5/15
Breaking Boundaries 1/15
Are we making a film? 3/14
Point of Entry 1/15
The One About Weddings 1/15
School Time 0/15
Final Countdown 1/15
Europe 6/15

The best films I saw in Feb are below (Not including re-watches, otherwise Skyfall would be there)

And the worst: