watch 75 films this year

Okay, so I only made it to 46. I was going strong up until September, and then things really petered out. If I had been counting seasons of TV shows, miniseries, and/or rewatches of movies I’d seen before, I can safely say I would have kicked this goal’s ass.

It was interesting to have something like this to work on – usually when I set a year-long goal for myself, I always stop working on it at some point. I definitely went out of my way to watch movies I had no interest in, for the sheer experience of it (The Exorcism of Emily Rose comes to mind). I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it was an interesting experience.

This was… kinda… huh. I don’t know; in some ways it was an interesting look into the life of a Venetian courtesan, and in some ways it was wanky and over-blown. The romance didn’t feel realistic, and if they would have canned that and just made it be more about Veronica’s life, it would have been one million times more interesting – and probably would have got the recognition it visually deserved as a period piece. As it stands, it’s more like a tawdry romance novel with an unattractive cast. (Seriously. I’m not going to bother looking up who played the male lead, but that was fuglier fug than ever fugged before.) Candle-lit heterosexual sex scenes can only take a film so far, and the same goes for field-frolicking montages set to dreamy instrumental pieces. Mnngh.

I don’t know how I managed to never see this one, either. I really enjoyed it, and thought it played well both as a black comedy and just a general “this could be next” apocalypse film. Some of the humor fell kind of flat, which I think it is the nature of watching political satire forty years later, but it wasn’t distracting at all. Our precious bodily fluids!

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT I HAD NEVER SEEN THIS? I don’t know. But of course it was wonderful. Usually when I see a really famous movie, I am always a little bit disappointed that it wasn’t more awesome – but this one didn’t leave me that way. I really, really wish that someone else had played the part of Kay, though, because Diane Keaton was (and is) just very, very… blah.

I actually first watched this months ago, but forgot to mention it here. I have never been quite so surprised by a movie; every time I thought I figured it out, something totally random happened that left me going WTF. But in a good way! Definitely visually stunning. ♥_♥

I only saw this because I wanted to see the Goblet of Fire trailer on the big screen. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, but in mood it shared a lot with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which (as I wrote in this space a few months ago) I really loathed. If they would have cut out all the comedy, it would have done better – goth humor just doesn’t play that well.

I was really hoping for something better than this, although the mystery was convoluted enough that it was hard to figure out what was going on ahead of time. The eventual resolution felt kind of cheap (how could anyone balance that kind of plan on the POSSIBLE reaction of Jodie Foster’s character? isn’t that just a little too risky?), but as action/dramas go, it was okay.

This was really, really interesting. Several people in the theater I was in got up and walked out halfway through – I suppose they were anticipating an action-filled hitman movie – but I think that even if you sink down in your seat at the gritty, embarrasingly realistic sex scenes, you will understand them a lot better if you make it to the end. It’s a drama about the realities of trying to give up a life of crime, not something that glamorizes what it is to live a life of crime. Definitely unlike anything I’ve seen.

I tend to be really fond of dramas, but I found this to be a little… too… dramatic? It was interesting, but you can only wallow in someone else’s grief so long before you start to feel numb to the sorrow. I didn’t feel bad spending the money on the ticket, but it’s one of those films I couldn’t possibly imagine sitting through again.

Holy WTF. Admittedly, I was not previously familiar with this play & some of my reaction is due to that, but still: holy WTF. I loved the way they married a bunch of different time periods – it was visually awesome and it made the fucked up plot even weirder. From what I can understand, most Shakespeare fans dislike this play, but I think it’s really rather brilliant. The bit with the cut-off hand and two heads being sent back to Titus? I have so felt what he was feeling at that point. I mean, not quite on the “why did I just cut off my hand?” level, but very nearly. The crazy blackpower!Moor was pretty awesome, too.

For added entertainment, I love how Jonathan Rhys Myers plays the same role in every movie he is in. And that if there is a bizarre cannibal scene in a movie, Anthony Hopkins is so there.