Twofifty, take 2

At the start of last year, I wrote a post that listed a whole bunch of films that I was going to watch in 2011. The list came from twofifty, an application on Facebook, where you mark off which films you have seen from the IMDb top 250, and you can filter which ones you have or haven’t seen.

I found having a list really useful. When going to the local video store to hire movies, I spent less time choosing. Even though I love spending time choosing. But I digress.

Doing two Honours courses and teaching dance classes and preparing for the move overseas meant I didn’t get to watch all of the films on my list. But I did get to see some of them. Most. Some.

I learnt a few things:

• Arsenic and Old Lace is one of my favourite films now. [I also discovered that Shadow Of A Doubt is my favourite Hitchcock so far, but that is by the by]
• There’s a reason that I haven’t seen the 3-4 hour epics. Das Boot was wonderful, but I don’t think I’ll have time to watch it again. (Not looking forward to Barry Lyndon and Fanny and Alexander for that very reason.) Also, The Deer Hunter. Glad I saw it. Glad I don’t have to see it again. AN HOUR FOR A WEDDING SCENE????? Seriously Cimino? Seriously?!?!?
• Manhattan is one of my favourite Woody Allen films. (Also, Midnight In Paris is one of his best.)
• There were a few films that I had seen before: Superbad, Amorres Perros, Dial M For Murder. I suppose it’s worrying that I can forget that I’ve watched a film in its entirety. (Or not, considering how many films I watch.) I had either forgotten most of Singing In The Rain or not seen all of it. But I loved watching a 35mm print on the big screen at the Wellington Film Society.
• Superbad is not my sense of humour (probably why I forgot that i watched it).
• 35mm prints on the big screen included Singing In The Rain at Paramount (Wellington) and Akira at the Prince Charles (London). Special thanks to Phil for screening a 16mm print of Dial M for Murder at his movie halfathon.

So, here I go again, with a list of films that I intend to see this year.

Now, the films from last year’s list that I have yet to see are…

• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
• All About Eve (1950) (08.04.12)
• All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
• Barry Lyndon (1975)
• Beauty and the Beast (1991) (22.04.12 – Thanks, Fi)
• Ben-Hur (1959)
• Castle in the Sky (1986)
• City Lights (1931)
• Duck Soup (1933)
• E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
• Fanny and Alexander (1982)
• Festen (1998)
• For a Few Dollars More (1965)
• For the Birds (2000) (11.05.12)
• In the Mood for Love (2000)
• Into the Wild (2007)
• King Kong (1933)
• Mary and Max (2009)
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
• Network (1976)
• Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
• Paths of Glory (1957)
• Persona (1966)
• Ran (1985)
• Rashomon (1950)
• Rocky (1976)
• Roman Holiday (1953)
• Sleuth (1972)
• Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring (2003)
• Talk to Her (2002)
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
• The Elephant Man (1980)
• The Gold Rush (1925)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
• The Sting (1973)
• The Third Man (1949)
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• The Wild Bunch (1969)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
• Unforgiven (1992)
• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
• Yojimbo (1961)

I’m really looking forward to Network and All About Eve. I also know that some of my friends will tell me off for not having seen A Nightmare Before Christmas, Rocky, and ET by now. (Well, I’m working on it, okay?)

Between you and me though, I don’t think they’re actually using the IMDb Top 250. Some of those films really shouldn’t be on there. But, I can’t really check against IMDb; if you go to their Top 250, they say ‘These are the films you haven’t seen’, without giving you an option to say ‘I have seen those! Look! I’ve given them ratings!’

Anyway, twofifty updates all the time. So the films that I have missed have changed. Here are the films that are new to this year, which I am adding to my list.

• “Dexter” (1969)
• “House” (1969)
• Despicable Me (2010) (13.05.12)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) (13.05.12)
• Ikiru (1952)
• Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)
• Persepolis (2007)
• Rain Man (1988)
• Sherlock Jr. (1924)
• The Fighter (2010)
• The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
• The Kid (1921)
• The Killing (1956)
• The Night of the Hunter (1955) (08.04.12)
• The Wages of Fear (1953)
• Warrior (2011)
• Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
• X-Men: First Class (2011)

Thoughts?

Yes, I missed the final Harry Potter on the big screen. I’ll get to it. I’ve also heard good things about Despicable Me.

What? I have to watch X-Men? Man, I swore I wouldn’t after seeing the other X-Men films at the cinema. (That’s right, I paid to see X-Men 3. What. Was. I. Thinking?* I didn’t even like the second one. Or, come to think of it, the first one had to grow on me.)
*to answer my own question, I thought “the second film in a trilogy is normally bad, and the third is not-as-good-as-the-first-but-better-than-the-second and it’ll-have-action-that’s-worth-seeing-on-the-big-screen”, so I saw both sequels in the cinema. I used the same thinking for Pirates of the Carribbean. Lesson Learnt.

I have no idea what the first two are, or why they’re in quotation marks. Normally that would signify a TV show, non?

I’m really looking forward to The Night Of The Hunter.

So, I’ll update this post by crossing out the films once I’ve seen them. If you’d like to keep track or make comments, subscribe to this post, and I’ll let you know when I update it.