2014 - 419 Films

When people see my film collection, i always tell them that's it's lot easier to acquire films, than it is to watch the films you acquire. I can buy 10 films in 5 minutes (and have more times than i can count), but i still need to find 2-3 hours if i actually want to watch a film. Between work, things around the house, and family/social commitments, that time isn't always easy to find.

Last year I challenged myself to watch 400 films. As I've said previously, i feel like i started to truly appreciate film later in life than most, so i felt i was behind on seeing films i wanted to see. Mostly classic, art house, and foreign films were the ones i was short on, since i had spent my life watching modern Hollywood films. I gave myself a few parameters. I wanted to make sure that 90% of what i watched were films that i hadn't seen previously, and i didn't want more than 10% of the total number to be short films. I believe short films are valuable and wanted them to be part of the equation, but too many felt like "cheating" since their length is is a bit easier to get through. I ended 2014 watching my 419th film (which randomly ending up being The Making Of The Shining), so the project was a huge success.

Of course, watching 419 films in 365 days means you have to watch a lot of films when you are not in the mood to watch a movie, it means you don't always have the time to really savor of think about the film you've just seen. It also meant that frequently i was watching 2-3 films a day on weekends when i didn't have other plans. It was something i had to discipline myself to do. I'm glad i did it, but I'm also glad I'm not doing it again this year. I'm still watching a lot of films, because i love them, but this year it's at a much more natural pace. This morning i watched #182 for 2015, which i imagine would put me at around 250 for the year. That seems like a good number moving forward.