Now for the movie thing

Now that I described my book thing, I should describe my weird movie thing. My movie watching habits are often mocked by certain people who shall not be named. Here is the situation --- I was adding a ton of movies to Netflix but never getting through my queue. At the same time, a meme went around on what movies people had seen from the list. I started thinking about the AFI's greatest movies list. I decided that I wanted to see all of the movies that I had missed from the Top 100, Top 400 nominated, and the Top 5 in each category. As a result, my Netflix queue kept growing.

Then I started reviewing lists of top movies from IMDB and Roger Ebert's greatest movies. I like Ebert's list because it has more variety since it includes foreign films. I started feeling overwhelmed.

I decided to organize my queue alphabetically. I started watching all of the "A" movies. After I was mocked for including leading articles, I had to quickly adjust my "A" list. Rather than moving along to "B" movies, I decided to mix it up by switching every other letter. I am now on the "C" movies. It is nice and random to watch some classic that I never watched, along with a recent release that I missed in the theater.

Here is what I wrote on Facebook after finishing the letter "A". I am probably halfway through letter C, but the mini-series on Chicago will throw things off.

Best movies: Atlantic City was my favorite. Burt Lancaster was perfect. I also really enjoyed All About Eve and All the President's Men.

Least favorite: A Clockwork Orange (yes, the leading article thing. Because of complaints from fellow librarians, I dropped leading articles after this movie). I couldn't finish watching it. I also didn't really like All that Jazz. Yes, I thought Roy Scheider was excellent, but I am not a huge fan of musicals. It did give me a great line that I now randomly drop into conversations - "It's showtime" as I do jazz hands.

Surprises: Around in the World in 80 days. I really didn't think I was going to like this movie, but I found it a lot of fun.

Other movies I watched:
Alien (one review I read talked about the stillness that is almost unheard of in today's action films. I couldn't agree more)
American Splendor
A Streetcar Named Desire (yes, leading article thing. I am embarrassed that I never saw this movie until now. Marlon Brando? Hot)
Annie Hall (for some reason, I had never seen this Allen movie before. I eventually grew into my tired-of-Woody phase, but I loved him in this movie)
Anatomy of a Murder
Awful Truth
Adam's Rib
All Quiet on the Western Front (the political implications when this movie was released...hard to imagine what would happen now)
An American in Paris (I love watching Gene Kelly dance)
The Apartment