I think that SF stands for San Francisco

Yeah, I guess that would have been too perfect. I was wondering how many sci-fi silents were out there besides Melies, but what do I know?

Yep, it's San Francisco. I was too lazy to look up how to spell "Francisco".

They will be showing the new Metropolis during the fest, so that should help.

I watched The Invisible Woman last night, part of the classic Universal monster series. I was pretty shocked to discover that it was mostly a comedy. The film opens with a guy tripping and falling down some stairs. It was then that I knew it wouldn't be a favorite of mine. It was fun spotting a lot of good 2nd banana actors. Margaret Hamilton was in it, just a year after playing the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz, and John Barrymore was the scientist who turned Virginia Bruce (John Gilbert's widow) invisible. It was fun, but not what I was expecting.

saw 'Metropolis' (the restored 145min version) at the Avalon theatre last night - wow!... wow!

is the live action version of Speed Racer considered 'fantasy'?

Somehow I've never seen anything Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I plan on watching my first for the checklist. Anyone care to make a suggestion on which to watch?

Mystery Science Theater 3000? What's that?

That Metropolis is incredible. I've been obsessed by that film for years, and to finally see it restored I had an emotional experience. It was the closest I've ever come to Stendhal syndrome.

+1 point to you for making me use google and learn something today. I think I was close to that syndrome the first time I was atop a real mountain.

Ashamed to admit that I don't think I've ever seen Metropolis. Been meaning to for the last year or two, but when I heard about the new found footage I decided to wait.

It's certainly something but it does count. I'd say more sci-fi than fantasy.

Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders or the prize of the challenge, Laserblast.

Couple of list observations from page 2 of that thread:

checklists - having them in spoiler tags really helps others read the list thread

takingchase - Love your format/graphics! But is the blue text of the title hard for anyone else to read? The white stands out well, but I have to really work to read your blu titles.

gfoots - Holy crap! Only halfway through the month and I think you already have the all-time record.

harpo787 - Love that picture!

Does It's Alive (or any of the trilogy) qualify for this challenge? I would think it would but it's only listed as horror and drama in the IMDB.

Seems sci-fi-ey to me I guess, the whole mutation thing, but it's pretty close.

A killer mutant baby definitely counts, IMO. The only bar in this challenge would be anything that is really horror that belongs in the Halloween challenge. The Ghost in Hamlet would be acceptable whereas the ghosts in Poltergeist would not, and vampires would be allowed as long as they had a scientific origin, a la a medical treatment gone wrong in Rabid and I Am Legend or alien vampires, as in Lifeforce.

Yes, I recommend that you do, though the payback is delayed until you get to the very end of episode 8 (Love, Honor, Obey). The big-ass reveal happens then and is the focus of episodes 9-13, which are all great.

Ironically, ABC's cancellation at episode 8 resulted in nobody seeing 9-13 until the DVD release, virtually ensuring that sales would be word-of-mouth only. I would strongly recommend sticking with it - I found it to definitely be worth it.

I find myself completely rethinking the ideas of Sci-Fi and Fantasy (especially Fantasy) while researching titles to watch. Who'd have given much thought to "Miracle on 34th Street" being a Fantasy film? In my mind it's *always* been a Christmas film and the fact that it deals with a real live Santa Clause completly escaped my consideration of it truly being a Fantasy title. Plus there's no doubt or justification about it being a Christmas title for the challenge list.

I'm also discovering that I have *lots* of truly bad Sci-Fi titles in those mega-title PD releases. Currently watching "Doomsday Machine" from 1972. Who'd have thought you could use La-Z-Boy type recliners retrofitted with seat belts as a cushion/restraint system in a spacecraft cockpit? This is perhaps the worst Sci-Fi film I've *ever* seen (and that's saying something).

There lots of fantasy films that we don't ordinarily place in that category. I've got one Shakespeare film on my list so far. A Midsummer Night's Dream has fairies and love potions--it's definitely fantasy. I'm probably going to get to Macbeth as well before the month is done. Hamlet counts as well.

Is this any easier to read? If so I'll go through and fix them all.

Looks much better to me. Anyone else? Don't change just for me, maybe I'm going color blind or something.

Haha it's cool, I remember thinking it was a little hard to read but in the end I went with it because it was close to blu-ray colors. Besides making the list can be just as much fun as watching the movies so it's no trouble at all.

I used to like the formatting until I had to spend three or 4 days unformatting every list to do the counts. The simplest ones were cussed at less by me. There's nearly double the participation in Sci-Fi and even more in Horror. It was balanced out by my appreciation for the comments on each movie. That was a pain to remove, but I liked that people took the time to write comments.mini-reviews.

I Just finished my masters degree and I'm starting a teaching job in August. Plus my girlfriend is out of town for the month so I haven't had a lot of reason to go out. I've been working on making some art and watching TV at the same time. Having said that, I'm starting to go a little stir crazy and went out today looking for a temporary job for the rest of the summer.

I wouldn't have even thought about Scrooge until I hit it in a Fantasy list which then opens up all those other Christmas films.

That's pretty much the way to go. On the other hand, It's Alive is clearly more horror than anything but it's a mutant baby, so I don't have a problem counting it.

There's things like Time of the Gypsies, which is one of the top fantasy movies at imdb. The only fantasy thing about it is the kid that moves a spoon 3 times the entire movie. I don't get why it gets a fantasy tag when other things don't but it shows how little fantasy or sci-fi something really needs to have to qualify.

My apologies then, for the sci fi challenge I really have no reason to format like this other than fun but the horror challenge has a best list winner.

I'm just using my own judgment. For instance, after getting frustrated with Ghost Hunters a couple of years ago for their complete lack of basic science protocol, I started watching it again. Technically, it isn't sci-fi, but it is on the sci-fi channel. It also isn't technically fantasy, but these guys live in a fantasy world. So I'm counting it.