On deciding what to watch

[repeat]

By the way repeat, I haven't seen Super 8 myself yet but your mention of spinning off into 'clearing out 2011 stuff' and finally seeing it making you excited to watch certain other films got me wondering if you have seen Beyond The Black Rainbow? That seems very early 80s sci-fi inspired.

No I haven't unfortunately, it flew by all the festivals in my radius of action. I'm not crazy about this pastiche stuff, I'd always rather watch/listen to something actually from the era - but my problem with Super 8 wasn't so much with the way that was handled (in fact that was maybe the best part) - I just felt disappointed by how formulaic the actual film underneath it was, and that disappointment made me want to watch some more engaging action/adventure films in general...

One of the things I like best is when I happen to catch on cable (or someone lends me) something that I would never have thought of putting on any sort of watchlist myself and it turns out to be great, but that only happens very occasionally and can't really be forced: one of the absolutely worst movie months this year was when I had free access to some VOD movie channels and, feeling compelled to take the most out of them and in hope of stumbling across something great, just ended up watching dozens of totally unremarkable movies within the space of a few weeks Sure was nice to get back to the kevyip after that self-imposed ordeal.

[dad1153]

I tend to watch movies with loose connections between them. For example, I'll watch a movie and then my next movie will be from the same cinematographer...

I just came from a packed midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in Chelsea (2nd time, previous time was back in '94) and, for all the audience participation and lunacy on parade, seeing Peter Suschitzky's name in the opening credits makes me want to see "Dead Ringers" so bad... :)

[Matt]

I'm feeling particularly oppressed by my kevyip right now, so I'm making an effort to work through it as much as possible and avoiding new purchases, trips to the theater to see something new, and renting. The B&N Criterion sales have just about killed me, as I've purchased everything of even the slightest interest to me and feel I haven't adequately gotten my money's worth out of a Criterion title unless I watch the movie and all of the supplements. This has taken some of the joy out of watching movies (the A Man Escaped Blu-ray has felt particularly like a chore with its 3 hours of supplements, good though they are), but I imagine I will feel so liberated when I'm done.

If only it were as easy to work through my book kevyip. I am a sloooow reader.

[Mr Sausage]

If only it were as easy to work through my book kevyip. I am a sloooow reader.

I have the same problem. Sometimes the thought of my book kevyip makes me force myself to speed up and I get a lot of less out of the book. But if I really like a book, I can slow down to the point that an hour will go by and I'll notice I've only got through ten pages, which doesn't seem like a great option, either. No such problem with my DVD kevyip: I can clear out a good chunk of it over a weekend, although I don't push myself to go through the extras.

[jindianajonz]

Yeah, books have been my bane of late- I went on a bit of a history kick a while back, and currently have six or seven 800 to 1000 page books in line to read, and not nearly enough time to finish them. Somebody here on the forum recommended a book on Japanese history to me, and I think I'm going to tackle that next simply because it's the shortest of the bunch!

Which is actually a strategy I use for my movie Kevyip- when deciding between a number of films, I'll often pick whichever one is shortest simply because it'll allow my to churn through my backlog more quickly. It also means things like Shoah or Carlos will likely sit on my shelf unwatched until the end of time.

[zedz]

Which is actually a strategy I use for my movie Kevyip- when deciding between a number of films, I'll often pick whichever one is shortest simply because it'll allow my to churn through my backlog more quickly. It also means things like Shoah or Carlos will likely sit on my shelf unwatched until the end of time.

I might have mentioned this already, but last year I started feeling so guilty about a number of extremely long films that I'd been putting off viewing that I created a viewing project in which I grabbed the five longest and five shortest films in my kevyip and alternated them (starting with the longest (The Mahabharata) and shortest (probably something by Alfonso Arrietta)). It seemed to work, and so I continued until I'd knocked out everything over two and a half hours (and everything under 85 minutes). In terms of content, this made for an extremely random assortment, which made it easier to get through.

[knives]

Usually I'll just watch whatever is the furthest from when I purchased it. Though considering I'm still working on stuff I had gotten over a year ago that probably isn't the best strategy. On the extras though I usually don't bother to watch everything in one go. Usually I'll watch the film and maybe an interview and then on some other day the commentary and another interview or something like that. It actually frees things up pretty well.

[Black Hat]

My film kevyip is unfortunately in the hundreds. I've taken to grabbing five off my shelf as to not confuse myself too much but inevitably I wind up finding something on hulu, netflix or a discussion about a film here or somewhere else leads to me watching something else all together as the original five continue to collect dust on my desk. Now with the Rohmer set, the Marilyn Monroe blu package, the Forbidden Hollywoods, the Busby Berkley and a few MOCs all on their way I feel like a complete idiot but at least I'm a happy idiot.

Matt, Sausage I'm also a painfully slow reader but a little more than a year ago I reluctantly gave an ereader a try and it's made a world of difference. I reckon I read an ebook 2 or 3 times faster than a paper book. Maybe it has to do with being so used to reading electronically that our brains process it faster? I know not every book is available electronically but enough I'm sure are so if you haven't tried it I'd recommend it.

[accatone]

My current kevyip is about 3 incl. OUT 1 and never more than 5 discs. With more I would feel embarrasssed. With books its about 10-15 but in a steady flow of finished to new ones. I have seriously no idea how anyone could handle these qntys unless somehow handicapped from real life…

[Gregory]

For years the decade list projects have been my way of systematically getting through what I've bought, borrowing a few library discs, and getting around to repeat viewings of films I've liked in the past. Runtime is definitely a factor because I often don't begin a film until after 9 p.m. The '70s list project has finally given me the impetus to watch MoC's DVD of the long cut of Edvard Munch, and I'll admit to having broken it up into two viewings. Things that aired as TV miniseries seem amenable to that, as do long documentaries. I used to be a die-hard about marathon viewings, watching films like 1900 (317 min.), La Commune (345 min.), and Sátántangó (432 min.) in single sittings with a 5-10 minute intermission or two. I was telling a filmmaker friend about this once, and he just said, "You're insane." I rarely feel any desire to do marathons that long anymore and risk having exhaustion intrude on the experience. The only think I'll probably try it with again is my next viewing of Fanny and Alexander, and the difficulty in finding the right time to do it is the reason the blu-ray has sat in my kevyip for two years. Films that are about 220 min. or less I will usually never break up into separate viewings, and it can be hard to find the time for them.

[zedz]

Did you actually get through the Mahabarata, Z?

I had the grave misfortune to see Dame Peter Brook's three night long live UNited Nations casting company production of this ordeal at a disused brickpit in the Adelaide Hills many Festivals ago. I got a sore arse, piles, a very bad cold, was nearly beaten to death by hairy legged lesbians with their wretched screaming infants in hessian backpacks pushing me out of the way to get onto the special bus to take us back to town, and I then sadly realized these were 15 hours hours of my life I would never get back, all to watch some piece of shit which was basically the Hindu Leviticus.

Well, the film version is only five and a half hours, so I got off lightly. At the end of it, I felt liked I'd brushed up on my Hindu lore but hadn't had much of a cinematic (or dramatic) experience. In many respects it felt like the world's most lavish school pageant.

The real-life theatrical experience it reminded me of was an amateur dramatic production that I only went to because a friend had a small part in it. It was an operetta in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, based on a faux-Wildean subject of the composer's invention, and the composer was the musical director of the amateur troupe. And it was dreadful: paragraph after paragraph of arch, self-impressed, desperately unfunny recitative, drawing out a lame plot to numbing lengths. The only detail I haven't blocked out was that one of the characters was called 'Lady Fandemere' for the simple reason that at some point, somebody was going to make a passing reference to 'Lady Fandemere's Win'. You could see this pun coming like a penny farthing in the desert, and when it finally arrived, everybody on stage stopped dead, as they'd been carefully instructed, so that we could bask in the author's genius (he turned around with a twinkling smile to make sure we knew who was responsible, and probably would have taken an ovation then and there if one was in the offing). Anyway, after two and a half excruciating hours, the thing shuddered to a halt. . . for an intermission. I ran for my life.

[colinr0380]

Can I recommend the 94 part (about 70 hour) TV series of the Mahabhrat to you both?

[Props55]

Who would have thought after clicking on this thread (sheer boredom while waiting for a jpeg file to download) that I would be entertained by some of the most sidesplitingly hilarious tales of musico-theatrical horror since the last time, many moons ago, I spent an evening with old acting chums from college (all) early rep/touring (for them) days.

Thanks David and Zedz for a roaring good laugh on a cold, grim, thoroughly miserable January day!

[Props55]

PRISCILLA! Now there's a title I need to get back to! Haven't seen it since the ratty old VHS days. Stamp is really a wonder isn't he? How he's managed to hang in there and still show up and give vital and entertaining performances long after his matinee idol days (and with those self and industry imposed longuers) is a real testament to perseverance. Heard an hour long interview with him on NPR sometime last year and it was mesmerizing.

Not NYC, Mr. Hare but south Georgia, a mere 13 miles from the Florida line where the high today reached a scorching 49! While you've been experiencing record summertime highs that threaten to throw a boomerang into the tennis schedule the "lower 48" here stateside have just been treated to a polar blast that set records from the 49th Parallel to the Gulf Coast. Last week gave us three straight days of lows under freezing and weekend thundershowers have ushered in more of the same. Don't know how I ever managed to survive outside on wintertime location shoots but I couldn't possibly do it now. I feel as if the marrow in my bones were freezing!

[knives]

PRISCILLA! Now there's a title I need to get back to! Haven't seen it since the ratty old VHS days. Stamp is really a wonder isn't he? How he's managed to hang in there and still show up and give vital and entertaining performances long after his matinee idol days (and with those self and industry imposed longuers) is a real testament to perseverance. Heard an hour long interview with him on NPR sometime last year and it was mesmerizing.

Not NYC, Mr. Hare but south Georgia, a mere 13 miles from the Florida line where the high today reached a scorching 49! While you've been experiencing record summertime highs that threaten to throw a boomerang into the tennis schedule the "lower 48" here stateside have just been treated to a polar blast that set records from the 49th Parallel to the Gulf Coast. Last week gave us three straight days of lows under freezing and weekend thundershowers have ushered in more of the same. Don't know how I ever managed to survive outside on wintertime location shoots but I couldn't possibly do it now. I feel as if the marrow in my bones were freezing!

Except sunny California where it is so hot the dogs are scalping themselves at noontime.

[Props55]

And between these (bi)polar blasts and the industry-threatening fungal blight in Florida you'll soon have the only oranges as well!

[knives]

Finally we're good for something!

[colinr0380]

PRISCILLA! Now there's a title I need to get back to! Haven't seen it since the ratty old VHS days. Stamp is really a wonder isn't he? How he's managed to hang in there and still show up and give vital and entertaining performances long after his matinee idol days (and with those self and industry imposed longuers) is a real testament to perseverance. Heard an hour long interview with him on NPR sometime last year and it was mesmerizing.

Priscilla is a really great film, featuring the best use of ping pong balls in cinema, and of course Stamp's brilliant line to a homophobe mockingly shouting "Fuck me!" at the group: walking up, kneeing the guy in the crotch and intoning in the way that only Mr Stamp could "There...now you're fucked", before tossing his hair back and walking off!

It also features the best end credit song too! (Slightly undermined for me, but amusingly so, by being the soundtrack to the Bisto gravy granule commericals around the same time!)

[GaryC]

PRISCILLA! Now there's a title I need to get back to! Haven't seen it since the ratty old VHS days. Stamp is really a wonder isn't he? How he's managed to hang in there and still show up and give vital and entertaining performances long after his matinee idol days (and with those self and industry imposed longuers) is a real testament to perseverance. Heard an hour long interview with him on NPR sometime last year and it was mesmerizing.

Priscilla is a really great film, featuring the best use of ping pong balls in cinema, and of course Stamp's brilliant line to a homophobe mockingly shouting "Fuck me!" at the group: walking up, kneeing the guy in the crotch and intoning in the way that only Mr Stamp could "There...now you're fucked", before tossing his hair back and walking off!

It also features the best end credit song too! (Slightly undermined for me, but amusingly so, by being the soundtrack to the Bisto gravy granule commericals around the same time!)

Funnily enough I watched Priscilla on Monday morning, for the first time since its cinema release. I've been watching a film a morning before work this week, as homework for a podcast I'll be participating in to be recorded this coming Thursday. The other three were three Ealing Australia productions on DVD (The Overlanders, which I hadn't seen since watching it on TV over thirty years ago, and Eureka Stockade and The Shiralee, neither of which I hadn't seen before). And then The Castle, which I never saw in the cinema but saw on VHS in the late 1990s. All quite doable, especially considering they're all 100 mins or fewer.

That's one way to get the embarrassingly large kevyip down. Taking a reviewing sabbatical of a few months (starting March) will certainly help.

[Props55]

My complements on bringing our entertaining diversion full circle and smoothly back on topic. Well done, Gary!

[colinr0380]

Is it a podcast about Australian film GaryC? If so I would highly recommend checking out The Long Weekend!

[GaryC]

Is it a podcast about Australian film GaryC? If so I would highly recommend checking out The Long Weekend!

It is, being recorded on Thursday in time for Australia Day. Thanks - I've seen Long Weekend a few times and reviewed Umbrella's DVD way back in (good God) October 2004. I haven't seen the 2008 remake.

[domino harvey]

Does anyone else struggle with the dilemma of rewatching a known favorite or film of interest versus making your way through the unwatched pile at all costs? I'm starting to reevaluate my freewheeling days of too much disposable income and too many interests, which has left me single-handedly filling the hole left by Blockbuster Video's demise. At what point does a film become good enough (or of enough interest) to merit revisits? I mean, I own well over a couple thousand Blu-rays and DVDs of films I enjoyed, but I will never have time to revisit all of these-- where do others draw the line for their own collections? I guess what I'm saying is, I am starting to see the grim prophecies of kevyip come to fruition...

[FrauBlucher]

How many are currently in your unwatched pile?..... I've come to the point where I don't buy everything that I think I want. I'm more selective than I would've been, say twenty years ago, when it comes to buying media. Even now I'll resell stuff I don't think I'll watch again with intent. Currently I don't stream, so I'll keep films that have very little chance of being played on TV. I do still get DVD/blurays from Netflix. And when I get DVD screeners I discard them after watching them.

[matrixschmatrix]

I have two constant struggles- one, whether to watch something new or rewatch something, and two, whether to watch something that will require my full attention or to put something I can mostly watch while occasionally puttering on my phone or computer. The temptation of the latter is pretty strong when I am, as now, trying to watch at least one movie every day, which means I'm often dead tired and starting at 10 or 11- and obviously, it's much easier to say of movies I've seen before whether or not they'll require my full attention. That said, quite a lot of the time I'll just get absorbed in the movie anyway, and any intention of multitasking or splitting my attention fades, but I think the habit has been rather to the detriment of movies I've rewatched and decided weren't quite so good based on a degree of laziness.

As much as I have more than I'll ever be able to revisit, though, I keep buying for a few reasons- 1.) it's not like there's a good alternative for a lot of these; I loathe streaming for a few different reasons, and I hate bootlegging even more, which means that if I'm going to watch something, I need to buy it or borrow it, and the options for the latter are limited (and anxiety inducing- when I own something there's no deadline on watching it.) 2.) There's a curatorial aspect, both in the sense that I can lend them out to people (though that theory is pretty strained for Region B locked blus) but also in that nobody can take them away from me, so I have visions of working my way through my collection over fifty years. 3.) There's a tremendous flexibility to owning thousands of movies- though sometimes that breadth of options is overwhelming and kind anxiety inducing, and I wish someone would force me to watch something.

Of course, I also often revisit stuff because right now I watch roughly four times as many movies as my girlfriend, and anything that's really important to me is something I want to share with her- so it goes on the 'we have to watch this together sometime' list.