Starting on October 29, I'm going to start doing weekly themes. I want to avoid themes like "films directed by Peter Weir" and go more the route of stuff like "films directed by actors" or "Monsters, makeup, and mahem" or even something like The Onion's AV Club Underrated Movie List. Any suggestions out there?
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
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13 comments:
I would like to propose the following as potential weekly themes:
1) Films in which something cute kills stuff.
2) Films with absolutely no kissing.
3) Films in which a genre actor plays against type.
4) Films made by directors working in a non-native language.
5) Films that Roger Ebert hated and Gene Siskel loved.
6) Films made by obscure-but-talented directors who suddenly made it really big with one movie and then made another movie after that (the latter being the one to review).
7) Films that feature songs by ELO.
A couple of geeky math themes:
1) Shapes (e.g., Sphere, Cube, The Octagon).
2) Numerical relationships (e.g., Singles, Duets, Threesome)
Also, films featuring stars from a favorite ensemble cast, as when my wife and I watched "American Beauty," "Billy Madison," and "The American President" in honor of "The West Wing".
Also, in honor of this site, perhaps a series of "it happened one day" films like "Before Sunrise", "One Night On Earth," etc.
Sorry if my suggestions limit the abstract potential of the themes -- that just occurred to me.
This is probably a really boring suggestion but it would give you a lot of movies to choose from. Perhaps choose movies with a common setting (City, Country) but in different eras. For example movies set in Paris from many different decades. Or alternatively, choose movies with a particular city's name in the title. Paris would again be an easy choice to get a good selection of titles.
Ehhh, boring I guess.
You have a noble goal to reach. One movie a day! I hope to return to read more.
http://oprahbookclubfan.blogspot.com
Me parece muy bien
I wanted to post a quick comment here before going on to my adventure of catching up. When I attended Southwest Texas State University, back in the late '80s, I took a course called Film and fiction, taught by a well-versed English professor named rebecca Bell-Metereau. The basis of the course was to read a book, then comment and compare to the film adaptation of it. Time constraints being what they are for you in this endeavor, you wouldn't have time to start at the beginning, but perhaps if you have read books that were adapted to film, you might draw on that. Barring that idea, my choice would be a distopian theme. There are plenty of choices to draw on there (A Clockwork Orange, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and thats just the cream of the crop).
How about a week of Critically Loathed Movies? I often find I can learn a lot about something by seeing a really bad example of it.
In other cases, some awful movies have brilliant moments that don't make the film with it overall, but still stick out in your memory.
Finally, it seems like there are movies that no critic would ever endorse, but that are universally loved by at least some segment of the audience. Maybe you could explore why something was wildly popular and yet not really liked?
Hey, if you do go the "critically loathed" route, I sincerely recommend "Hudson Hawk." This film is not for everyone, but was much more universally slammed than it deserved. Feedback I've gotten since I discovered that I adore it suggests that some people just didn't get it, which is not entirely the film's fault. Not, I hope, to spoil too much, but I believe that, in a post-"Da Vinci Code" world, this film would have gone over a lot better.
How 'bout movies that became tv series. M*A*S*H comes to mind.
How about movies that are good? You seem to be avoiding those.
Ash: I'll be watching Robocop 2 later this week.
ash,
Hm, movies that are good? Like "Kingdon of Heaven"? Or the newest re-make of "Phantom of the Opera"?
Oh, wait, I know: "Toolbox Murders." THAT kind of good.
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