New Movie A Day: First 90 days

This year I decided to set a New Year's Resolution of watching a new movie every day. I've always felt so behind in what I haven't seen, this is the way to try to get over that. There's been plenty of missed days, and a few days with multiple new films to try and catch up, but it's pretty hard to consistently find the time to watch a new movie every day, especially since I also spend time re-watching some classics for other things and classes. For the first three months (90 days) I watched 78 new films. Here are a few highlights.

I watched a lot of films from 2004 I've previously missed because I'm going to do a "Am I a Lover or Hater of Film" for 2004. Worst film I've seen this year comes from 2004. The Butterfly Effect. It fails as a film on so many levels. The story is awful, makes little sense and takes way too long to get going. The cinematography isn't that great, neither is the sound design (which uses some very un-creative sounds). Then the theme I think is just ultimately poor and wrong. Closer is a close second. I thought it was awful, pointless and actually really boring.

I also watched a lot of new films from 2013 to catch up on what I missed. Her was amazing, and my favorite film from last year so far. I was also a big fan of American Hustle, it had me engaged the entire time. Short Term 12 is a hidden gem from the last year. Gravity was pretty amazing as well.

There are also plenty of classics. As I go over the list there's one film I can't remember at all: Monkey Business. It's a Howard Hawks comedy, but after that I can't remember one thing about it. Another forgettable film is the Marilyn Monroe iconic film Seven Year Itch. Monroe is hardly in it, mainly it's following a married guy in the summer when his wife and kid are vacationing and he keeps running into his upstairs neighbor, Monroe. It sets up for a good comedy, but then keeps getting bogged down by the awful inner thoughts and monologuing of the dorky main guy. The most iconic part of the film is the subway air vent blowing Monroe's skirt up, but the film version is nowhere near as interesting as the still photos that are usually shown instead, which is a wider shot and shows all of Marilyn including the fun look on her face. The photo attached here is not within the film, but a publicity photo. In the film, we never see her face and the skirt blowing up in the same frame, or the guy looking on.

One of the most interesting classics I saw was the grandfather of zombie films: White Zombie. The film is about a white woman that gets taken under the spell of a...plantation owner or wizard or Count..who knows what he is, but he's super creepy. He turns regular people into mindless workers, aka zombies in the voodoo tradition. It follows in the tradition of classic horror/monster movies of fear of the taking white women and what could happen to them. The entire film has some very creepy sets and locations, including the opening countryside where zombies come out of nowhere at one part and in another the travelers run into a funeral taking place in the middle of the road.

Maybe the best film was Capote. It seemed before like just one of those biography films where it's carried entirely by the lead actor and everything else is sort of at the behest of just that, like Ray (a good film but nothing without the performance of Jamie Foxx). Capote is carried by Hoffman as Truman Capote, but the entire film is amazing, from the cinematography to the supporting cast. It can be hard for a biopic to move beyond just telling events to getting to the heart of the character, and even moving deeper than that to why it's so important of a story. Themes in biopics can be very shallow and sometimes unclear. Sometimes that's because they try to cover too much and that gets lost in the scope of a person's life and sometimes it's because looking at just one person's life isn't always as valuable as important events or fictional stories that become better metaphors than true life accounts. What happens with Truman Capote is almost symbolic of a society losing it's soul and heart with the type of violence and disregard for life being seen in America through that time period. The lack of color through the film really shows this dismal outlook. This film was interesting in so many ways, it was engaging and one of the best biopics ever made.

Frozen was pretty good too. The hype is mostly justified. Because of the kids, we ended up watching this film 3 times over that weekend, and many parts of it since. It reminds me of when we got Aladdin on VHS when that came out. We watched it every day for a week and it didn't get old. Frozen is just that classic Disney film that is so easy to watch and so easy to get stuck in your head. And there's nothing wrong with the film at all; it's a simple, easy story that doesn't offend (unless you have some weird anti-gay agenda that some blog is supposing). As well, it's actually interesting how the film turns normal fairy tale tropes on its head in a very "wink and nod" sort of way. "You got engaged to someone you just met?!?" "But it's true love!" 

Here's the total list of films, with the reason for seeing them

1. Jan 1 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - comparison to the original

2. Jan 2 - The Wolf of Wall Street - awards considerations

3. Jan 3 - The Philadelphia Story - AFI Top 100 list

4. Jan 4 - Maria Full of Grace - from the year 2004

5. Jan 6 - Butterfly Effect - from the year 2004

6. Jan 8 - American Hustle - awards contender

7. Jan 8 - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - I own the DVD 

8. Jan 9 - The Wolverine - just for fun

9. Jan 10 - Rise of the Guardians - on the dvr 

10. Jan 11 - Howl's Moving Castle - from 2004

11. Jan 13 - The Ladykillers - from 2004

12. Jan 14 - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - previous award considerations

13. Jan 14 - Fruitvale Station - awards considerations

14. Jan 16 - For Whom the Bell Tolls - from list of Hemingway films

15. Jan 16 - Justice League: Doom - just for funs

16. Jan 17 - Short Term 12 - awards consideration

17. Jan 20 - American Psycho - comparision to Wolf of Wall Street

18. Jan 20 - The Sea Inside - from 2004 (Best Foriegn Language film)

19. Jan 21 - Life is Beautiful - blaring hole for not having seen it

20. Jan 22 - The Butler - award's consideration

21. Jan 23 - Chronicles of Riddick - from 2004

22. Jan 24 - When Worlds Collide - sci-fi cultural comparision to Invasion of the Body Snatchers
23. Jan 24 - Mitt - I don't know

24. Jan 26 - The Color of Money - Scorcese film I haven't seen

25. Jan 27 - Journey to the Center of the Earth - comparison to other 1950s sci fi

26. Jan 29 - Captain Phillips - awards contender

27. Jan 29 - Resident Evil - glaring hole in pop culture reference

28. Jan 30 - Her - awards contender

29. Jan 31 - Monkey Business - a Howard Hawks film

30. Jan 31 - Blue Jasmine - awards contender

31. Feb 1 - Monsters University - own the DVD, with kids
32. Feb 3 - Don Jon - awards contender

33. Feb 5 - The Manchurian Candidate - from 2004

34. Feb 9 - Being Julia - from 2004

35. Feb 12 - From Here to Eternity - classic film on AFI list

36. Feb 12 - 48 Hours - to study the sequel Another 48 Hours

37. Feb 14 - Closer - from 2004

38. Feb 14 - Admission - for Valentine's Day!

39. Feb 15 - Gravity - awards consideration

40. Feb 17 - Dogville - from 2004

41. Feb 19 - Kung Fu Hustle - from 2004

42. Feb 20 - His Girl Friday - for feminist film theory

43. Feb 20 - Vera Drake - from 2004

44. Feb 21 - The Spectacular Now - awards contender

45. Feb 22 - Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters - pop culture reference 

46. Feb 23 - Das Boot - unseen classic, and DVD was on the shelf

47. Feb 26 - Ender's Game - pop culture and awards contender

48. Feb 26 - The Lady Eve - feminist study

49. Feb 27 - Spirited Away - huge pop culture gap

50. Feb 28 - All the President's Men - on AFI list, unseen classic

51. Mar 5 - Rush - awards contender

52. Mar 7 - Dallas Buyers Club - awards contender

53. Mar 7 - The Bling Ring - pop culture

54. Mar 8 - I Don't Know How She Does It - with Betsy 

55. Mar 9 - Sanjuro - unseen Kurosawa film, and I own it

56. Mar 11 - Play it Again, Sam - unseen Woody Allen film

57. Mar 11 - Inside Llewyn Davis - awards contender

58. Mar 13 - Monuments Men - for class

59. Mar 14 - She done Him wrong - classic film, feminist study

60. Mar 14 - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence - unseen classic

61. Mar 15 - An American Werewolf in London - with Boopie

62. Mar 16 - Girl Most Likely - I love Kristen Wiig

63. Mar 17 - The Exorcist - unseen classic

64. Mar 18 - Yesterday - from 2004, nominated for Best Foreign Oscar

65. Mar 19 - Man With a Movie Camera - unseen classic

66. Mar 19 - Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom - awards contender

67. Mar 21 - White Zombie - unseen classic

68. Mar 21 - Baby Boom - feminist study

69. Mar 22 - Frozen - with the boys

70. Mar 23 - Monsters - interesting concept

71. Mar 24 - Born into Brothels - from 2004

72. Mar 24 - Oz the Great and Powerful - pop culture

73. Mar 26 - The Seven Year Itch - unseen classic, feminist study

74. Mar 27 - Jules et Jim - unseen classic

75. Mar 28 - Red Dawn - pop culture

76. Mar 29 - Capote - past awards contender, relates to book on Cold War culture 

77. Mar 30 - Written on the Wind - Douglas Sirk film, feminist study

78. Mar 31 - Paranoia - a student's research paper