A movie a day...
Monday is about movies, sometimes TV. Today, the amount of movies and Limited Series' I've watched, so far, this year.
About a year ago I wrote a newsetter documenting one weekend’s watching…
I really went at it!
A colleague was borderline-disgusted with that effort. She reckoned it nearly as many in one weekend as she might watch in a year. (I was borderine-disgusted with her effort).
I’ve always consumed a lot of media — well, dur, I write a minimum of three newsletters a week documenting my consumption of media. It didn’t just start when I started this newletter, nor when I blogged for 13 years ahead of that. Somewhere there, in my high school years, I started collecting VHS tapes. And watching almost whatever I could.
All through university, and then on from there, with occasional assists by working in a video store, in music stores, and in bookshops too. Staff discounts, review copies, and an insatiable urge to find things, connect dots, complete sets. It’s both a blessing and a curse, I guess.
Every now and then, I step back a bit from it.
About a month ago, I wrote saying I was hoping to take a break from ‘pointless’ watching; you know where the TV is on in the background. You’re watching some Netflix film with your phone as a buffer between you and the screen, you’re watching a true crime series that manages, somehow to squeeze a 70-minute story into four hours of television!
It was less a cry for help, more a celebration of spending a bit more time in the communal room in our house that doesn’t have a TV. And I’m still feeling that, and still very much trying to embrace that. This week I’ve mostly listened to records, thanks to a new turntable, a new space for some of my vinyl collection, a new love of listening to old records and hearing them anew. I bought Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ on vinyl. My first time owning that, and first time hearing it right through in years — amazing, the album now 60 years old, and sounding both fresh, and as if it was 100 years old also.
But I also watched a few episodes of season three of The Bear, and the start of the final season of Cobra Kai. I watched a three-part, nearly four-hour completely unofficial YouTube doco about The Velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison (and I reckon you should too!) and comedian Sam Morrill’s latest special (You’ve Changed — it’s on Amazon Prime). Finally, I caught up with the movie Civil War — and loved it. I also watched a new true-crime doco (They Called Him Mostly Harmless) even though I’ve sworn myself away from them, but in my defence this was actually a single 84-minute film. And not a Netflix (formula) production.
Not a big week of watching at all — but still ticking over several hours, right? Maybe that’s more than you, but it’s certainly a whole lot less than some other weeks for me. And I know this, not just because we have a new puppy, as well as a new turntable (not great timing, I know), but also because I keep a list.
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Lol.
Yes! I am that nerd.
I’ve been on Letterbox’d for a few years, and I love it — but it doesn’t cover all things, and I watch a lot on YouTube that is not ‘official’ or isn’t technically a movie, as well as some obscure titles that just don’t turn up on Letterbox’d (as thorough as it mostly is).
So I started a folder in my To Do List of everything I’m watching this year — it’s both a wishlist, and a catalogue of what I’ve covered, crossing things off as I go.
We are 204 days into 2024 and I’ve watched more than 220 short films, movies, limited series’ and concert-videos. Okay, so I go on my splurges and watch a half dozen Tool concerts, or a dozen Smashing Pumpkins gigs and video collections. I watch short films and comedy specials, but I also watch four-hour documentaries and long feature films. So it all balances out as being simply “movie watching”.
But maybe it’s obsessive movie watching?
I do know that at the start of this year, I was home alone for a few weeks and I had several days in a row of watching four and five and six movies — so much so that I had to get out and touch some (more) grass. Funny thing was I was geting heaps of exercise, and loads of fresh air as well! I was just getting up early, and staying up later than normal, and I was powering through the films. Catching up on almost everything.
And so I got a big head start.
Anyway, it’s a lot. Even if I stop watching altogether today, I’ll still have watched more movies this year than many of you. I’m sure. And though it’s not a race, nor a competition, and none of this matters, I think you all know me well enough — simply if you’ve read this far — to know that I’m now making it my goal to clock 365 films this year! LOL.