shadokitty

Welcome to this year's Historical Appreciation Challenge. Time is counting down. Challenge runs Dusk on May 20 - Dawn on July 5 2019.

Movies and TV content about an historical figure, event or period are eligible. Genres also include Westerns, War Movies, Biographical films and Period Films.

Documentaries of any sort.

Zeitgeist Wild Cards. These are for films that aren't technically period films, but are time capsules of their era. Films like Rebel Without a Cause, Easy Rider, Saturday Night Fever, Valley Girl. They might have been contemporary when released, but they forever represent their time periods. We have three on the checklist, but the actual amount is unlimited.

Total counts really aren't as important in this challenge. Most of the eligible films tend to be rather long, so go ahead and watch Lawrence of Arabia or Barry Lyndon. You can count however you wish. Each episode can count as a single entry rather than the standard 2 broadcast hours equals an entry. If you have specific questions about a film's eligibility, then please ask in the thread. .Don't abuse the Zeitgeist Wild Card. We're talking the type of film you would consider dressing up as at a theme party. For instance, Vanishing Point takes place in the 70s and is dated, but you wouldn't say it represents what we think of as the 70s, compared to something like Billy Jack, with its 70s era hippies/Kung fu pseudo-spiritualism cheesiness.

I'm allowing in time travel fantasy as long as the time travel is just an element to get the character to the past. Examples would be A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Voyagers!, Outlander, Life on Mars, Quantum Leap, and the like. We're not talking something like Doctor Who, but programs where the protagonist is put back to previous time period and has to deal with it in a non sci-fi way. Fish out of water type stories or those with strong history elements. You can back load these on the final day so they can count for the Sci-Fi challenge but you are welcome to watch them whenever you wish for this challenge.
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JOE29

I love to do this every year. The Historical challenge and also the horror challenge are the ones for me. It also inspires me to look for and grab more DVD titles in that category.

With that being said. With this being the 12th year, there are new challenges, not of tv viewing in nature that take me away from the viewing process. They seem to get larger and larger every passing year. So I will do the best that I can. Might not be a whole lot of titles, but, well see.

JOE29

Started things off with a bang watching Centurian. A good film featuring the Roman army vs the tribes of Great Britain. Had a good fast pace throughout.

shadokitty

Sounds like a pretty good movie Joe29. I was sleeping earlier, so didn’t start till today, but started off with an episode of Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World. The episode was about the drawings that can be seen from the air. I’ve got quite a bit that I can watch this month, spread across documentaries, movies and tv series.

Travis McClain

I completely missed this and the list thread. I kinda got sidetracked this month and forgot to say something in the Challenges thread about hosting this year. I wanted to see the return of the checklist, which I believe give challenges helpful structure. If it's all the same, I'd like to use the checklist on my own. Also helpful would be if the OP's in this and the list thread included links to one another.

EDIT TO ADD
Timely enough, I just saw that Deep Discount is running a War and Western Sale. The discounts vary by title.

BobO'Link

I've been going very slowly - finishing my MYO challenge and watching Gunsmoke as filler. It counts here so I may include it - not sure.

Travis McClain

I didn't realize this challenge was even starting so early. The last I remember, we'd agreed to start over Memorial weekend, not the weekend before Memorial weekend. There have clearly been changes since I last hosted. As it is, I'm still focused on my MYO, too, although my theme is generic enough I can easily double-dip. I'm just doing an actor daisy chain. Looks like I've got some that count here since Friday. Does anyone have any thoughts about whether RED 2 passes the sniff test? They are highly trained operatives and get caught up in a national security matter, but it also feels like such a generic action movie my first thought is that it's really more in the spirit of that challenge than this one.

shadokitty

That was actually a mistake. I put the wrong date when I made the thread.

Giles

for folk who get HBO Max and 'Friends' fans, you HAVE to watch the 'Friends: The Reunion' special - there's a lot of great stories and recollections on the making of the series.

JOE29

Picked up Drum Beat last night. Yes it's an older Calvary vs Indians movie. But I really enjoyed it very much. Charles Bronson plays Captian Jack to a tee.

davidh777

The date surprised me too, but I happened to watch a qualifying film the first night so I rolled with it. The Little Stranger is a post-WWII sort-of-ghost-story that wasn’t all that distinctive, but I like Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson.

I then watched Cinema Paradiso—such a sweet film. I had the theatrical cut on digital, but I may have the longer cut on disk somewhere, and I want to watch it after reading the summary.

JOE29

How many Three Stooges short features would equal 1 viewing ? They usually last about 15 minutes an episode.

Travis McClain

The standard is 2 hours = 1 feature, so 8(-ish).

mrcellophane

I opened up the Audie Murphy Collection that I purchased during a Kino Lorber sale earlier this year and rewatched The Duel of Silver Creek which is a fun little film. It's a standard western with some fun choices. Stephen McNally's narration and Faith Domergue's femme fatale character gives it a noir feel. Audie Murphy's Silver Kid ensemble wouldn't be out of place at a LGBTQ+ Halloween party: black hat, black leather half-jacket, and black handkerchief knotted around the neck with Pink Lady flair.

I've been in a weird place with movie watching during the pandemic. I've noticed that, with the exception of the horror and science fiction / fantasy challenges, I tend to peter out mid-challenge and abandon my list or my ambitions to really get some viewing done. We'll see if I can keep going through the rest of the month.

BobO'Link

I finally finished my rewatch of the new Battlestar Galactica and have officially begun watching material for this one...

To that end, I finally opened my BR of The Pacific (that I purchased almost 5 years ago!) for a viewing. I absolutely love Band of Brothers but this one has just never resonated quite the same. I'm curious how I'll feel this time as it's been over 5 years since I last watched the series.

Since it's the anniversary of D-Day I may also watch The Longest Day later.

JOE29

Judging by everyone's list, including my own, nobody watched The Longest Day on D-DAY today. Just something that I was looking at. I would of done it but it's such a long movie and just didn't have the time to watch it straight through.

shadokitty

I would have, but I spent a lot of time working outside yesterday, so didn’t get much tv watching in at all.

JOE29

Me too. Spent a lot of time outside doing yard work and things. I did manage to get in one movie though. 100 Rifles. Would of loved to get in the Longest Day yesterday. But it didn't happen. There's still time to do it. But I missed the Anniversary of course.

BobO'Link

I watched it but haven't updated my list yet. Yes, it's long, but it's also very good. The rear screen stuff often kind of takes me out of the movie (always has) but the rest makes up for it.

BobO'Link

I finished another viewing of The Pacific miniseries a few minutes ago. There are parts that are very, very good but they're contrasted by lengthy departures into leave, promotion, and other things that, for me, just make it a lesser product than Band of Brothers. I'd have preferred them following a single Marine unit through the Pacific arena instead of splitting it between three men in three different outfits. The final episode was quite a slog.

Doc Moonlight

Watched TEVYE,THE MILKMAN yesterday from Kino's "The Jewish Soul" set. Really interesting in that it has some of the same characters as Fiddler On The Roof, but is totally different in tone. It's very dark, somewhat melodramatic, but very well done. I was expecting a light comedy, but this was intense. Highly recommended!

JOE29

Yes it is a long movie but I agree with you it's a great one. I tried to view it on the 6th but it didn't happen this year. When I do finally get to watch it I'm going to blast it on the 5.1 surround.

Giles

currently watching 'Allen vs. Farrow' on the Max and all I have to say at this point: "...ewwwww" (what a skeez ball).

shadokitty

I was just watching an episode of Drunk History on MTV 2 about Halloween and the final story was very interesting. It was all about Vlad the Impaler, the real life inspiration for Count Dracula.

Giles

Shame Comedy Central cancelled this, yes I'm aware this was decided last August, but still ... so annoying since this show was extremely funny. I somehow missed the last season, will give it a watch on Hulu.