caligulathegod

Cards isn't a sport because there's no chance for serious injuries.



After George Carlin

indy2003

What about the remake of The Manchurian Candidate? It's a conspiracy thriller, but focuses on veterans from Desert Storm (and features war flashbacks).

ororama

Wild Bill Hickok would probably disagree.

caligulathegod

Sure.

Ah, but back then you could get shot just for snoring. Read these and other tales in Time-Life Books Wild West, yadda yadda yadda.

Any who, cards is a game, but if one did want to count it, it would need to be a primary plot device, like Casino Royale.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

http://www.knifethrowing.info/throwing_cards.html

Gobear

Just watched Downfall (2004), a terrific film depicting Hitler's last days in his bunker beneath Berlin. I was confused however by the scene where Hitler complains about being kicked off X-Box Live, and bitches about Hillary Clinton not quitting the race, and losing his iPad.

Trevor

Some complain that they overdo those parodies, but I've only seen about 5 of them, and I lol every time.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I used to push for having goals of 100 movies for challenges but this and the make your own challenge is what finally pushed me over to changing that line of thought. Midway through the last challenge I switched over and the films I watched started being 2 hours or more. Watching something like that with a goal of 100 is madness. At most you'd only want, or be able to, fit in a couple at most.

If you check my list for this challenge, it doesn't look like I've done too much this week, other than Sunday. Appearances are deceiving as I've finished Spartacus(3 hours 18 min), The Sting(2 hours 9 min), and Fanny and Alexander(5 hours 12 min). I'm also halfway through Ghandi(3 hours 11 min), which I should finish tomorrow.

So that's 13 hours and 50 minutes for only 4 movies. That would ruin me on any 100 count challenges. If I was focusing on the count more than the movie, I'd instead be able to fit in around 14 movies in the same amount of time if I turn on my couch potato and marathon endurance modes.

I still like counting but I really wouldn't mind if challenges with a goal of 100 didn't just remove that goal altogether and instead focused more of a checklist type goal to push people out of their comfort zones and discover new things that they may end up really enjoying.

Giles

^ in the same vein, some of the movies tv shows I'm watching are quite long - 13 hours for 'I, Claudius' - how does that work for the numbering, when it's an odd number of episodes

I'd love to watch 'The Winds of War' and 'War and Rememberance' but they are both really long.

caligulathegod

I feel exactly the same way. Horror and Exploitation films tend to be short and fetishistic, so the 100 thing works, but all the other challenges tend to have longer films (even Sci-Fi and especially Fantasy) so the 100 movie challenge point is less attainable and in the case of this challenge less desirable. This challenge in particular I wanted to de-emphasize a goal so much as taking this month as an opportunity to watch some high quality longer films rather than just a huge quantity. These challenges have an interesting psychology to them. As you noted, we need to keep the counting, because that gives the challenges a "point", even if it is something as simple as just counting. The goal is less important than the journey. The rest of the psychology is about the boundaries. Oddly enough, having a month of watching whatever you want has less appeal than specifying a month of a certain type of film. The beauty of this challenge is that we have pretty well defined theme that allows viewers to focus on a particular genre and take a break and watch something else within the theme.

As much fun as I had during the Exploitation challenge, when it was done, I had the desire to watch some really good movies. MGMHD had most of the Dollars trilogy last month and I've had Once Upon a Time in The West on the DVR forever. I own Good Bad and Ugly on BD. This month they are showing A Fistful of Dynamite on MGMHD. I just acquired a copy of Colossus of Rhodes, so all I need is Once Upon A Time In America and I've watched all of Sergio Leone.

By the way, TCM and MGMHD have tons of westerns next several days and Rebel Without a Cause next week. This challenge, you could literally sit and watch two or three channels all month.

caligulathegod

I think it would be alright to have a final count of a fraction.

Dimension X

I have that in my "to watch" pile and I'm actually kind of worried that that scene may just ruin the film for me when I watch it.
I gave up trying for 100 for any of them except for the Halloween Challenge (and maybe the Drive-In Challenge since I watched over 100 this year and it didn't feel like a chore).

Rather than bump the MYOC thread where we were talking about it; here's my icheckmovies.com profile if anyone wants to take a look - http://www.icheckmovies.com/profile/johnny+dollar/

caligulathegod

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the SF/F but I never come close to 100 on it. Everything worth watching is over 2 hours, plus I want to watch them on my big TV with the good sound but I can watch Horror or Exploitation on my computer.

Trevor

Years and years of Star Trek, X-Files, Twilight Zone, and countless other TV shows; and most of the classic SF films (1950s) I can think of strongly disagree.

Doc Moonlight

For those of us who like to mix real life events with challenges. The US plays England in the World Cup tomorrow, so it's a good opportunity to revisit MIRACLE MATCH (aka THE GAME OF THEIR LIVES), about the 1950 upset of the Brits by a team of American "amateurs".

caligulathegod

Seriously? I wasn't talking TV and for movies I was using a bit of hyperbole. I'm not talking about every SF movie ever made or making an absolute statement. I'm saying, enough modern classics to make it significant that are worth watching, from Alien and Star Wars to 2001 and Lord of The Rings, are about 2 hours or longer. Horror tends to be shorter than Sci Fi, so it's easier to get more in, and this challenge has some 4 hour movies that are eligible.

Giles

oh goddamn it! Netflix has up and gone 'unknown' status on the rest of the 'I, Claudius' discs - grrrrr! thank god for the library which has it.

Trevor

Not sure what you mean by the 'seriously?'. If you're reading that I was at all bothered by your post, no, not at all. I was just making a lighhearted, and true (to me) statement that no sci-fi I think of as classic is 2 hours long. When I think of sci-fi I think of B&W films and TV shows, and little if any of it is long in length.

I understand what you were trying to say, that horror and exploitation films are shorter than sci-fi, and easier for marathon goals, I just completely disagree with it. But that's just me and what I think of when I think sci-fi, everyone else on the planet may agree with you.

caligulathegod

Sorry. That was just one of my buttons. I always hated that internet tendency where people pick apart every statement or even minor joke and find some exception somewhere to "invalidate" the whole statement. It's all cool.

Trevor

And I tend to go out of my way to take devil's advocate positions and push people's buttons, but very rarely am I ever super serious or even slightly upset by anyone here.

Love you signature countdown by the way, great idea that many of us could use, just for the random reminders of how much time we have left in each Challenge. I'll change mine once Pizza wins a darn contest.

MrTerrific

After re-watching "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" I have to say that I can't understand why it wasn't nominated for "Best Picture" at the Oscars. One of the best movies I've seen in recent years.

Trevor

It did have some stiff competition iirc, but I agree that it was one of the best films of the year. Will add it to my pile to watch this month, thanks for the reminder!

I forget if I mentioned it in this thread yet, but I just watched all three seasons of Deadwood, and heartily recommend it to any fan of westerns or HBO series. I had previously thought that nothing could ever top Six Feet Under for best ever dramatic series, but Deadwood may imo. I'm pretty pissed that they canceled it without a wrap-up coda of any kind, f'ing HBO bastards!

MrTerrific

Agreed. Eventhough I would replace it with any of the others(except There Will Be Blood) as a nominee.

Seconded on Deadwood. If you like westerns, it is a must see!

Gobear

Netflix has been doing this lately with movies in my queue, too--it's not like I Claudius is OOP, so why do they pull it from circulation?

I've mostly been watching biopics lately, but I need to branch out into more jidai-geki samurai films and Westerns in my library. I think Ran is on deck today.

Greg MacGuffin

One of the great films of the past decade.