popcorn

Is it weird to miss watching certain movies? This year, I did not watch two of my faves, The King's Speech and The Dark Knight, which I try to watch every year around this challenge.

My favorite first time watches this year were Giant and Gone Girl. I will be looking to purchase both of them in the near future.

shadokitty

I missed the LOTR trilogy, and Dances With Wolves, which I normally watch every year for this challenge. I've always loved Giant myself.

ntnon

I was trying to think of the last time I saw any of the Rings... and concluded that I may not have watched a whole one since seeing them in the cinema......

Ash Ketchum

Wow, how lucky you were! What city and what station was that? That's an amazing piece of history there, a pocket of uncensored film viewing in the middle of '50s America. I wonder how they even got the uncensored prints. I saw only the censored versions in New York. My local station, WOR-TV, was owned by RKO, so they were squarely in the corporate eye and couldn't escape scrutiny the way your station could.

pacaway

Thanks lisadoris! I'm in Canada, so exclude me from any prize draws.

I finished up by throwing in my Pixar Shorts, Volume 1 DVD and watching the 8 nominee/winners that are on there. So I reached 31 this year. Without those, I still beat last year by 3 films.

Highlights this year were finally seeing Chinatown and The Maltese Falcon, two classics I've been negligent not to see by now. For current nominees, I was surprised to like Wild so much, but was disappointed by American Sniper.

I managed to see 29 of this year's nominees before Oscar Night (not all this month, obviously), which beat last year's 19.

It's been fun, all!

Trevor

Ash and Bob (etc?),

Fwiw, thanks to your discussion on ~ great literature I've spent a couple hours examining my library and bought some kindle/audible versions of the classics discussed.

Ash Ketchum

And don't forget 50 Shades of Grey!

BobO'Link

This was the late 50'/early 60s (59-65 or so).

The station was WREC in Memphis, TN (then broadcasting from the Peabody Hotel in downtown). It was a CBS affiliate (the owner took CBS from WHBQ which then became ABC) but independently owned at the time (it's now owned by Tribune under the call letters WREG). It was originally owned by electrical engineer and radio dealer Hoyt Wooten (who had applied for one of the first television licenses in the country in 1928), along with WREC radio (AM 600, still WREC, and FM 102.7, now WEGR). The call letters stood for Wooten's radio store, the Wooten Radio-Electric Company, where he had founded WREC radio in 1922.

Throughout the 1960s WREC claimed to possess the largest feature film library of any television station in the United States. Based on the vast numbers of films I watched on that station growing up I fully believe this claim. They ran a movie *every* weekday morning and another late night before signing off (I saw all the Charlie Chan films late night). When they went 24 hours in the 70s they ran several movies per night *commercial free*. Until the early 70s, *every* Saturday at 1pm was a Tarzan/Shirley Temple two-fer which was followed by "vault" title (usually a Horror, SF, or Comedy) with newsreels and other shorts filling in the time. That's where I saw most, if not all, of "The Passing Parade," the Robert Benchley shorts, and many others. I'd *love* to have that programming again today!

During this same time "Fantastic Features with Sivad" (Watson Davis) ran on a competitor (WHBQ). That was a "horror host" program that started in 1962 with a single film Saturday at 6pm (yeah... I could watch movies from 1pm until 8pm every Saturday - a young film enthusiast's dream). It was *very* successful (frequently pulling in 50% of the viewing audience) and in 1966 moved to Friday at 10:30pm with a double-feature, later changed to a single feature when a Saturday double-feature was added. It ran until early 1972 when it was cancelled due to lower ratings and Davis' (aka Sivad) becoming tired of the weekly taping grind (although he would still don the costume to attend events and entertain).

In hindsight I really couldn't say just *which* station aired the uncut horror films as I recall both having the Universal ones in their libraries.

Here's the open for "Fantastic Features" (filmed at Overton Park in Memphis - the music is from Leigh Stevens' score from the 1950 science-fiction film Destination Moon):

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2QgwgDvq3t4?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It was truly a golden age for local TV.

Ash Ketchum

Wow, those offerings are even better than what we got in NYC.

The funniest thing in that opening is that the Dr. Jekyll lookalike has a southern accent.

What's also noteworthy is that it was all done with real props (a horse and carriage, a coffin, fog machine, costumes) on location. Today, the whole thing would be done on a computer and zip by in under 30 seconds.

Mao

Another awesome challenge this year and thanks to all who participated

I'm down to 2 finalists:

Gobear: A solid number of features (58 including this year's ceremony) from all periods and genres, also getting to many major nominees (how'd he do that? ), not a lot of padding with too many shorts, got through the checklist...an all around impressive list!

and

mrcellophane: Lots of full length features; with the added bonus of getting through 57 of this year's 60 nominees (lord, he made it through "Inherent Vice", which is not an easy task!), including all of this year's shorts!


So, I will let you all decide: You may either leave a vote here, PM me or send me an e-mail. Feel free to make a "write-in" vote, if you feel strongly enough!


I'd like to get these prizes out soon. Voting ends Wednesday night, 3/4....prizes will ship Friday morning, 3/6

Again, they are:

DVD Best Picture Winner/Nominee Prize Pack:

ALL THE KING'S MEN
CHOCOLAT
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
MY LEFT FOOT
ON GOLDEN POND
TOOTSIE

mrcellophane

Huzzah! I had a great time during the challenge, and I must say that I only got through 50 of the 60 films. It was a lot of fun and made watching the ceremony pretty interesting, though I will say that I don't think anyone really needs to see The Judge. As for Inherent Vice, I will neither confirm nor deny that I indulged in the main character's favorite pastime!

I was glad to finally see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Gladiator. I'm done to four Best Picture winners on my unwatched list! Thanks to everyone running the challenge! Had a blast!

Trevor

We had some really beautiful lists this year, as always. That said,

Write-in vote: random.org of all participants

Gobear

Thanks for the kind words. It's an honor to be nominated, but my collection is solid, so I yield to mrcellophane. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!... All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

mrcellophane

Like Gobear, I appreciate the kind words, and like Trevor, I think doing a randomized prize give away would be great!

Mao

Okay, decided to do a random drawing of all participants.

The random generator chose:

popcorn

Please PM me your mailing address and I'll get these out to you ASAP!

Congratulations to all for another great Oscar Challenge!

lisadoris

Congratulations popcorn! Thanks Mao for donating a wonderful prize package. Thanks to everyone that participated.

I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and has either moved on to the Action/Adventure Challenge or is already compiling their list for next year's Oscar Challenge.

shadokitty

Congrats popcorn.

mrcellophane

Congrats, popcorn! Had an awesome time with this challenge!

davidh777

Congrats to popcorn, and thanks to Mao for the prize!

popcorn

Thanks to all! I always enjoy doing this challenge. Special kudos to lisadoris and Mao for keeping it going. I look forward to next year!

Mao

Since this year's noms come out on Thursday, January 14th, I would recommend:

Pre-Challenge: January 14th - January 29th (where you can watch any nominee announced on the 14th until the challenge begins and have it count, or not)

Challenge: January 30th to February 28th (30 days, like last year)

or we could skip the pre-challenge altogether....thoughts?

And who's gonna take charge of things this year? lisadoris?

I have a few prizes lines up for this year already!!!!

lisadoris

I was a substitute teacher for last year's challenge but if no one else is interested I'll be happy to host the festivities again.

I don't have a horse in the pre-challenge debate because I'll have my hands full with the TV-on-DVD Challenge until the Oscar Challenge begins. I'll go with whatever the group decides if I'm the Challenge hostess.

Mao

I vote to scrap the pre-challenge this year and dive right into the challenge on Jan. 30. That way, there's not much of an overlap for the TV Challenge.

Trevor

Fwiw, I'd also vote for no pre-Challenge and lisa to run it. But we should probably stop bumping this old thread and use the appropriate thread.

shadokitty

Do we have a host for this Challenge yet? I looked up the date for the nominations, and they are announced on January 14, so we have less than 2 weeks to go.