Great Films, Nearly Great Films, and a Return.
Yes, it has been an exceptionally long time since I’ve posted. Perhaps one day I will get into the details on why, but it’s a long and painful story that I’ll probably just leave untold. I have decided to start writting again for an irregular series of Great and Nearly Great Films.
I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I don’t follow film much any more, most of what I see I’m not a huge fan of, or completely forget about in a couple weeks. But there are so many movies that I watch now that I’ve seen dozens of times, and can watch pretty close to once a month for a year straight.
I’d like to go over and examine them in more detail and try to point out what I think makes them Great Films. Nearly Great Films I’d like to consider as well: movies I watch all the time but don’t quite enjoy as much, or realize their flaws but watch anyways. This could also include films that I haven’t seen as much but continue to return to with curiosity with somewhat of a regularity. There will be restrictions for what films fall into which category.
Great Films must be movies that I’ve seen at least 6 times, and are at least 4 years old. I figure that with the viewing limit I can prevent myself from improperly categorizing films that I’m still new to. The age restriction is just to make sure that I don’t categorize something that I enjoy due to it’s contemporary nature more than its quality.
Nearly Great Films I must have seen at least twice (though, this won’t be an issue due to some upcoming requirements) and can be of any age. I imagine that I’ll use this for many purposes: new films that may wane with age, an otherwise outstanding director’s less than fantastic outings, campy films that have a certain flare, or good films that have a critical flaw.
Now, in order to do this right I’ll watch the film again before I go over it. Hopefully I’ll track down original art, and also be able to take screen caps. The screen caps may not be available for everything if I only have the film on blu-ray or if my capture’s just being a pain in the ass, but I will provide entertaining things to look at… probably.
Anyways, I’m hoping to highlight both classics, and films that continue to capture my imagination and passion after multiple viewing, as well as delve deeper into films that pique my interest. I have over 700 films in my collection, and I’d say I could probably easily cover a third of them in this series. This doesn’t even come close to the library of films on netflix available to me.
I’m going to start with my own collection though, I find that if I’ve spent money on a film I usually have a deeper commitment to it. I don’t have a planned end for this, I’d like to try to keep it up for as long as I can before runing out of steam.
I’ve mostly decided to start doing this to get myself writing again. I’ve been slacking in that department and hopefully someone still has this blog hidden in their rss feeds some where…







