I like that idea. I'd be more interested in Musicals/Romance than Drama/Romance.

I think I like the Musical/Romance idea better too, and it fits in February well.

I wonder how many films that really aren't covered by any of the other Challenges? Obviously, they could all fit into somebody's May MYOC, but I bet most would fit elsewhere as well.

I don't see any obvious challenge homes for these from my personal library:

Black Snake Moan
The End of the Tour
Love & Other Drugs
My Blueberry Nights
Pay It Forward
Pure Country
Room in Rome

There are also a few where they qualify for the Oscars, but otherwise would be hard to match with an existing challenge, like Dangerous Liaisons or The Sessions.

This one although not a straight up comedy falls under comedy. According to imdb, allmovie, flickchart and wikipedia.

Remind me to use my editing privileges to revoke the comedy tag on Flickchart.

Seriously, though, I'll concede that one though when I think about it, I just think of it as a drama with a sense of humor more than as a comedy. Also, I never look at allmovie and whenever I do check IMDb or Wikipedia, I skip right past things like genre tags there.

A minor reach on Pay it Forward perhaps, but since it spawned a movement I'd think you'd have to allow it to count. Under zeitgeist perhaps? Thanks. Yes, there obviously are many films that don't fit any Challenge outside of May, but I bet there aren't as many as we think.

And interestingly, all three of your unrepresented films above would be covered by a Musical/Romance Challenge.

Yeah, I dropped the ball on The End of the Tour. I should have had that properly tagged in my DVD Profiler. I still haven't seen it, so just glancing at it didn't prompt me to remember it was based on reality.

But I am waiting to hear just how the hell Pure Country is historical. George Strait has been among my top three favorite artists for a long time now, and I feel like my rationalization skills are pretty sharp, but even I can't find a way to make that argument!

^ It's tagged as a western.

That's awfully lazy. I suppose anything that takes place in Texas is a Western, then? I could see counting it for Historical Appreciation under the sporting events clause since the love interest is a rodeo rider, but I always got the sense I was pretty much the only one who even remembered that clause existed.

Anything west of the Mississippi counts!

I still think of it as the War and Western Challenge to be honest, although I mostly watch the other categories under the fully realized implementation of the Challenge.

I agree that films such as Pure Country are kind of a stretch to count; but like the broad inclusivity we have overall.

I guess a Drama/Music/Romance Challenge would mean we then cover pretty much every possible film?

To me, adding Drama makes it less interesting. Drama is such a generic genre. You can apply it to almost anything.

I mean, look at the Drama listings at IMDB. It's on Horror movies like The Shallows and Stephen King's It, Action movies like The Huntman and Ben-Hur, and Family movies like Jungle Book.

http://www.imdb.com/genre/drama

Funnily enough, that's also my argument in favor of a Drama challenge; one that would be far more rigid and exclude content that has a clear, other genre-based challenge home.

Take My Own Private Idaho, which I happen to have just finished watching. It's eligible for the Criterion challenge (which is why I just watched it), but when else would it be an appropriate viewing selection? IMDb doesn't even have a second genre tag assigned to it. It's just drama. There are lots of films out there like this that haven't been selected for inclusion in The Criterion Collection (or haven't been nominated for an Oscar).

Those are the dramas that I believe deserve a challenge of their own.

I'll go along with not amalgamating it with Romantic/Musical, because I do agree that would be too diluted for a single challenge, particularly given my position that for a Drama challenge to really be worthwhile, it should be so strict. (I try to limit my public acts of hypocrisy!)

I can see both these arguments.

I think part of the beauty of the individual Challenges is that they appeal to a somewhat small subset of content. That speciality is a core value of Challenges.

It's true that we have expanded and now have 13 sub-genres, and that a very high percentage of all film/TV content is eligible somewhere (over 99%?).

Drama, in its broad classification, is way too broad for a Challenge in my opinion. So if we did one, I'd vote that it be strict and be for "pure" dramas, and not stuff that also qualifies elsewhere. But is there enough that really fits that definition? I doubt anyone could list 50 mainstream-ish films that would fit Drama only.

And, assuming anyone else agrees with my preferred stipulation there, does it warrant a full yearly month-long Challenge over a month of Musical or Musical/Romance? In my opinion, there'd be more support for Musical/Romance and that Challenge would be more in step with our historical choices for months.

One option might be to have Drama one year and Musical/Romance the next.

Overall, I still think we should leave February empty except for Academy Award, all these other options are best left for individuals to do in May, or fit into the other Challenges, but if we were to add another, Musical/Romance would be my vote.

Maybe a separate thread with poll options would be in order? And then perhaps it should be a two-stage process; an initial poll to see if people want to add a 14th Challenge, and if that passes, a poll to pick the genre(s)?

I know I'm in the minority on this one too but instead of the normal Criterion challenge, I'd like to see it changed to a different distributor each year (Criterion, Kino, Twilight Time, Arrow, Olive Films, etc).

Sounds good to me. I'd like to see if there's enough interest, and which genre people prefer.

Out of curiosity, which of the current challenges is the least popular? Maybe instead of adding a 14th challenge, it's time to give one of the current challenges a year off and try something new. Perhaps the "14th challenge" could be a rotating challenge, and each year one of the lesser challenges takes a break.

Actually, you could take it one step further. Each year we could vote on the genre for the "14th challenge". One year it could be "Musicals/Romance", the next maybe "Pure Drama", then "Foreign Films", and "80's Movies", etc. And then we vote on which current challenge gets the year off.

No clue on popularity, outside of Horror being far and away the most. What is popularity exactly though? Number of participants doesn't really say it all, as I imagine most of us at least have a list post pretty much every Challenge. Number of total viewings in those list threads? Number of posts in the discussion threads? Number of thread views?

It would take a bit of research to fully answer the question I think.

I like the continuity of having the same Challenges occur year in and year out, but am intrigued by your idea.

I think a better version of this might be to leave it up to the individual every September. The majority might stay with Criterion, but those more interested in other distributors/studios could join in. Make it a sort of Choose Your Own Distributer Challenge.

I hate to throw out too many new possibilities all at once, but this sort of reminds me of what we implemented in the Comic Challenges here. One month per year is a rotating publisher, and another month is the TBD Challenge, a to-be-determined subject voted on each year leaving us open for industry events and new ideas, and leaving us less locked in.

We could do that here making February a TBD Challenge, rotating years with our unused genres you list above or other ideas.

I would bet that Criterion gets the fewest number of viewings. That said, I don't think other niche distributors would be able to carry a month on their own. I have a number of Twilight Times I'd like to watch, but only a handful of Kino, and I don't really know how many Olives or Arrows I have. I could perhaps see keeping Criterion and adding a rotating studio slot to that month.

I like the idea of voting for which challenge to take a break each year, I definitely don't think we should just assume it would be done in February (obviously I am partial to the Academy Award Challenge though).

I'm coming a bit late into the discussion, but I'd partipate in a Romance/Musical challenge much quicker than a Drama/Romance one. If it was in February it'd make a lot of sense with the Romance/Valentine's Day connections.

That being said, I'd also be open to a rotating challenge. No one's mentioned (that I've seen) anything about using May (MYOC) for it. It might be the easiest to change as it is already so non-structured.

I was going to post pretty much this exact same thing. I like the MYOC but it is usually the one challenge I am the least committed to, mainly because everyone is doing their own thing.

Wait, what do mean exactly? I've mentioned May as to the reason why we don't need to change things or add still more Challenges. People who want to do Challenges of less popular genres or studios have May as their outlet. If you're seconding my idea then

If you mean changing May as in eliminating or rotating MYOC, then I strongly disagree. May is our best Challenge, and if anything we should add February as a second MYOC to give more space to these unrepresented subgenres.

Oh God! Please don't mess with MYOC! That's my favorite month! If there are some that are anxious for a Drama/Romance or Musical/Romance, or even an alternate studio month, can't they just use May for that? If 99% of these movies can fall into another category already, why force it on everyone at the expense of another challenge they may love? Isn't that really the spirit of the MYOC challenge anyway, giving everyone a chance to do something that everyone else may not be interested in? If it's because there is little discussion because of the lack of common themes, why don't the half dozen, or however many there are with that interest (maybe it's a couple dozen even), all agree to use that theme in May and then they can discuss to their heart's content, allowing everyone else the freedom to still come up with their own creative themes? That would actually pick up the number of participants in May anyway.

On another thought, do the months have to stay where they are? If there are 14 themes, can it not be on a shifting schedule? Leave Horror in October, Academy Awards in February, and holidays in December, but put the rest on a "flex plan", shifting them a month every year? Some might actually like that, since maybe they have trouble doing SciFi in July, for instance, since July might be a busy month for them for whatever reason. Well, next year it will be in August. Maybe that's too confusing.

The long and short of it is, I would hate to see another challenge affected for this, even if it is just to skip it a year. I would hate to wait 2 years before the next Drive-In challenge, for instance. That's a long wait. I could pick my least favorite to skip, which would be the Historical or Comedy challenge, but that's not fair to others that may love those challenges.