still wondering what’s next

A few days ago, I noted that I felt like running a continuing series of films to watch and write about. Right now, I post a weekly roundup of films I’ve seen during the week … these are normally just a paragraph long, although I’ve managed to go on a bit longer for occasional movies. I’ve also started including a weekly “Creature Feature”, but the truth is, most of those movies are awful. I have a soft spot in my heart for them, but I suspect what they really represent is some barely-hidden need for a film series. This all began when I was asked to take part in the Facebook group where we chose our fifty favorite movies. It was too much fun to leave behind. I’ve been reposting those movies on the blog, but next Saturday will be the last of them.

I listed various possibilities in my earlier post, before deciding that the best idea might be to take the movies that barely missed the cut on my Facebook list, and call it “Fave 51-79”. One person liked that idea. In the comments, I noted that I rarely included a movie from later than 1974 in my FB list. Since this blog is more than ten years old now, I’ve had a chance to write about many 21st century movies. So perhaps I should do a list of my favorites from 1975-2000. Another person liked this idea. Yet another comment let me know that folks might have individual requests, and I’ve always got a couple of movies people recommend that get lost in my Netflix queue, so I said, partly in jest, that I could do “By Request”. Soon after, I got an email from a friend who liked that idea.

I don’t know what I’ll decide, but the “request” idea is intriguing. The main problem is getting requests … I know there are people out there reading, but I also know they number in the tens, not the hundreds or even the dozens, and I’m not sure I’d get enough requests to keep me going. Having said that, I have a short list of requests I could start with: Lagaan, Ace Ventura, Semi-Pro, and This Is England. I could add my list of picks Phil and Jeff included amongst their own FB faves that I haven’t seen (I still have 12 to go).

Or I could just keep on doing my weekly thing, with the addition of one longer piece in each of those posts. The movies I watch are drawn primarily from three sources. Two are from the same website: I’m always looking to watch movies I’ve missed from the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They “All-Time Top 1000” and “21st Century Top 250” lists. The third source is MovieLens, a recommendation site. I’ve entered 1525 ratings into their system, and any movie they suggest I will rank 4 stars out of 5 (or higher) goes into my Netflix queue. Between these three, I have just under 100 movies on my “watch list” … I add movies throughout the year, then start over in January or so.