Sunday, January 6, 2013

Listomania: Will's End of 2012 Listocolypse


A great philosopher once said, “2012 is gonna be hell” but it was alright for my movie viewings.  My total was 344, up from last year's total of 308. I’m trying to make a concerted effort to watch stuff I’ve never seen before and think I did alright.  283 were films I had never seen before and 61 were revisits.  Of course, we know folks who were getting in 600+ viewings in a year, so I feel like a slacker.

First film seen in 2012: THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957)
Last film seen in 2012: POPATOPOLIS (2009)
Films seen in theaters: 10 (same as last year)
Best film seen theatrically: LOOPER (2012)
Worst film seen theatrically: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)
IMAX viewings: 2 (PROMETHEUS & THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN)
Double features in theaters: 0
Biggest surprises in 2012: FANGS (1974) and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING (2012)
Biggest disappointment in 2012: KILL LIST (2011)
Oldest film seen: SH! THE OCTOPUS (1937)

Video Junkie Moment of the Year:

I know I will sound redundant, but I’m still an extremely proud papa of the “Never Got Made” series.  This year I made a more concerted effort to contact filmmakers and ask them about the projects that got away.  Mid-way through the year I had an absolutely astonishing breakthrough on one of them.  I haven’t even posted it yet, but it was such a rewarding experience that I thought, “This is really worth doing.”  Especially since every magazine I offered this work to rejected my stuff.  2013 will have some fantastic new entries, I promise.

Video Junkie “What were we thinking?” Moment of the Year: 

Every time I do a framegrab nowadays, my wrist will twinge with pain.  I did the comparison of the theatrical and TV versions of TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976) and grabbed over 60 shots to highlight the differences.  It proved to be a popular post (who knew the movie had so many fans?) that I decided to test my limits and finally do the EARTHQUAKE (1974) comparison I’d been planning for years.  I took even more framegrabs there; to the point I shaved a few years off my life.  I actually had a third one planned (Chris Poggiali from Temple of Schlock hooked me up with the TV version of THE CONCORDE…AIRPORT ’79) but that proved to be even more complex so I put it on the back burner for a while.

Most in one month:
October: 39
Least in one month:
July: 23

Films watched more than once:
-EARTHQUAKE (1974) - twice
-TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976) - twice
-RUBY (1977) - twice
-THE CONCORDE...AIRPORT '79 (1979) - twice
-COURIER OF DEATH (1984) - twice
-DR. STRAIN, THE BODY SNATCHER (1991) - twice
-FOXFUR (2012) - three times

Directors most watched (individual films):

-Nick Millard (6)
-Anders Nilsson (5) - the Swedish Johan Falk movies
-Shusake Kaneko (4) - GAMERA trilogy & a GODZILLA film
-William Malone (4)
-Takao Okawara (4) - GODZILLA films

Best films that I saw for the first time in 2012:

-CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHO CAT (1968)
-THE OUTFIT (1973)
-FANGS (1974)
-HARRY AND TONTO (1974)
-TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976)
-DEMON SEED (1977)
-CROSSTALK (1982)
-THE SCARECROW (1982)
-THE QUIET EARTH (1985)
-TEN & VENUS (1991)
-THE ROLY POLY MAN (1994)
-THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS (2011)
-WIN WIN (2011)

Worst films that I saw for the first time in 2012:

-SILVER BEARS (1978)
-QUINTET (1979)
-NECROPOLIS (1987)
-PLUTONIUM BABY (1987)
-IN THE NAME OF THE KING II (2011)
-REC 3 (2011)

Best “the kind of cinema I live for” I saw for the first time in 2012:

-SH! THE OCTOPUS (1937)
-THE INSTRUCTOR (1983)
-DEADRINGER (1985)
-BEYOND THE 7TH DOOR (1987)
-BLOOD HANDS (1987)
-CURSE OF THE BLUE LIGHTS (1988)
-DRUG RUNNERS (1988)

2 Reactions:

  1. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought KILL LIST was kind of disappointing considering the hype. And yes, CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHO CAT is extraordinary.

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  2. As I just apologized to Tom, sorry it's taken me so long to get over here and "react."

    First off, thanks for the shout-out. Last year was insane, but even more insane was that the grand total was *less* than the year before. Not sure how that happened...

    Onward and upward!
    How odd that my top horror flick (along with FATHER'S DAY) should turn out to be your biggest disappointment. I came out of the theater thinking, "Wow, that was really good, but that ending...? Hmmm." Fast forward about a week where I couldn't stop thinking about it, which is what pushed it over the top. We've already discussed our difference of opinion over [REC]3 - I had a good time with it.

    Clearly I need to check out FANGS (1974). Awesome that you finally caught up with QUIET EARTH and DEMON SEED.

    I kind of love that I have never heard of any of the titles on your "cinema I live for" list.

    Shuseke Kuneko's GMKG is frickin' *amazing*. Has the big G ever been scarier?

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