Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Lets All Go to the Movies!

Before you think that all I do is read I want to assure you that I also watch plenty of movies and television shows (via Netflix and Hulu). Yet my watching is regimented so I can continue to wave my snob flag proudly. I try to watch every movie that has been nominated for an Oscar. It does not matter what the Oscar was for – best costume usually has some of the most interesting and obscure films – as long as it was nominated. This opens up to me a number of foreign films that I would not watch otherwise, documentaries, and short films. I have organized the “Oscar Movies” by years.

I am also going through the American Film Institute (AFI)’s list of 100 best films from the last century. My list is a hybrid of the original list and the edited 10 year anniversary list. This is my second time going through this list and it is a joy to revisit some of these grand classics.

You will also notice two Ingmar Bergman films – this is something I am watching with a friend of mine… keep an eye out for a blog post on Winter Light.

Finally, the whole façade falls away with my “fun films.” Before you think I am a completely stuffed shirt notice that I watched both Kill Em’ All and Tai Chi Zero. I do allow myself to watch stupid, fun movies (or I have to take the kids to the movies and they don’t like the ones with all talking and no action). I am, after all, not a robot but a man with a heart, with feelings, with needs and desires and sometimes those can only be met with a great ass-kicking movie. So here is the list of movies (and television shows) I watched in the past year. Enjoy –

Television Shows:

Dr. Who (the recent reincarnation)
Archer
The West Wing
Sherlock
Family Guy
Mad Men
Portlandia
Breaking Bad
The Walking Dead
Luther
Friday Night Lights
Arrested Development

(The following shows I am not watching on Netflix, but instead on Hulu):
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
Brooklyn 99

Movies: total - 58

Oscar 2009
Slumdog Millionaire
The Baader Mienhof Complex
Hellyboy 2: The Golden Army
Defiance
Wall-E

Oscar 2011
The Wolfman
Unstoppable
Iron Man
Restrepo
Outside the Law
The Lost Thing
Waste Land
Let’s Pollute

Oscar 2012
Hell and Back
Hugo
Bullhead
Albert Nobbs
The Muppets
Drive
Real Steel
The Ides of March
Bridesmaids
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Adventure of Tintin
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
The Iron Lady

Oscar 2013
Brave
Beasts of the Southern Wild
The Master
Silver Linings Playbook
Amour
Zero Dark Thirty

AFI’s Top 100 Films
Chinatown
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Grapes of Wrath
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Maltese Falcon
Raging Bull

Fun Films For Kicks
Four Brothers
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
The Raven
Kill Em’ All
The Hunger Games
Tai Chi Zero
Now You See Me
Iron Man 3
This Is The End
Man of Steel
Despicable Me 2
Red 2
Solomon Kane
Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters
Parker
The Hobbit (Part 1)

Fun (in a different way) Bergman Films
Through A Glass Darkly
Winter Light


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