I dropped hollow earth from the checklist since it didn't seem like there's too many movies.

What is everyone going to watch for the Drew Barrymore category? That struck me as a little odd since I think of her as a primarily romantic comedy actress. I can only think of a couple of SF films she's been in (ET and Firestarter though I think the latter is closer to suspense than SF.) Any recommendations aside from the two I've already cited?

Drew is in Donnie Darko. I'm going to just assume that it it would count as a starring role.

Here's where I pulled her from http://movies.toptenreviews.com/acto...tasy_actor.htm and she was number two on the list.

E.T
Altered States
Donnie Darko
Ever After
Batman Forever
Firestarter(she won a sci-fi, fantasy, horror award)

Looking at it now, it seems pretty limited. Any problems with swapping her out for Sigourney Weaver?

She also provided a voice in Titan A.E. (I'm not planning on doing the checklist so it doesn't matter to me whether she stays or goes)

Either actress would be fine with me, though I'd prefer Sigourney Weaver.

Shows what I know, she's already there.

There's loads of fun stuff on this 70's sci-fi blog, including vintage TV Guide covers and ads for Star Trek II video-game watches (only $19.99!).

Has anyone listened to the Kevin Smith commentary on "Donnie Darko"? Is it worth listening to?

It's actually the director and Kevin Smith (just as a fan, no involvement in the movie) and it is a great commentary. I highly recommend it.

Don't forget that Futurama started up again last night. If you wanted to save them for the challenge.

Planning on taking the 1st and 2nd off from work (and possibly the 6th). I have other plans for those days, but hopefully can find time to squeeze in some extra TV episodes as well.

I'm going to try to complete the checklist this year and I noticed in the past that people put the same movie in multiple spots. Is this allowed? And secondly, do TV episodes qualify in completing the checklist?

Yes to the first. You sneakily added the 2nd question after I hit 'quote', not positive on that one.

I might work on it this time as well, skipped the last several checklists, but I keep changing my mind on next month and might like the direction.

Nope. They all say "Watch a film..."

Wait...what? Has it always been that way? I just assumed you forgot to put watch a "film/show."

I guess I'm a bit surprised. There are SO many sci-fi shows that the sci-fi challenge always seemed to lend itself to a large mix of movie and TV watching and I, personally, don't see why the checklist would differentiate to only movies.

Just a guess, but if you use shows for the checklist, you only have to watch 30 or 45 min per category, as opposed to 90 min for a film.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

This Challenge, more than any other I think, lends itself to TV shows, even exclusively, so the checklist should probably be open to both, imo.

I think you should be able to count TV shows in the checklist if the same way you do in the challenge itself: watch 2 hours (with commercials) to count as one film.

I'm not hot on the idea that you can use one movie for several categories. I think that should be limited so that no one movie can be used for more than two categories. Otherwise I could watch T2 and put it into:

1990's
Watch a film which won an Academy Award
R rated
Cyborg
Cybernetic revolt
Time travel
Arnold Schwarzenegger

With a little digging I'm sure you could find a movie that would cover more than that too.

What does everyone else think?

I think you leave it up to the individual, allowing all.

All of the Challenge checklists have historically accepted multiple items per film, but some individuals choose to to only use a film once.

I always vote on the side of inclusivity.

Making the checklist more difficult just discourages people from even starting them. I'm 'the checklist guy' and a couple of the Challenges have had checklists too complicated or daunting for even me.

That's how I was thinking. If I were to allow TV episodes, you'd need to watch enough stuff that would count as one list entry to also make it count as a checklist entry.

You also wouldn't have to have the same exact list item to count for the checklist. Like if you watched 4 different episodes of something on 4 different day, they might all be different list items but you could group those together for one checklist item. How does that sound?

I allow multiple entries per movie but if someone wants to make it more challenging for themselves, that's up to them. Just doing the checklist takes up a good portion of what someone watches, even doing multiple entries per movie. I'd rather let someone be able to switch between focusing on something specific they want and at other times focusing on the checklist.

For the exploitation checklist, I decided to work on that about halfway through the challenge and I had to work on it the entire time just to finish at the very last minute.

That's a good point about not making the checklist too complicated. I agree that you don't want to scare people off. The more I think about it, finishing the checklist with fewer movies isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as you have fun. You could even give a shout out to the person who finishes the checklist with the most and fewest movies. It could be a fun challenge to fill it out while minimizing the # of movies you need.

There are quite a few MST3K episodes streaming on Netflix, including many that would qualify for this challenge. Here are the ones in my queue. If anyone discovers any others, feel free to post them:

The Indestructable Man
The Starfighters
The Giant Gila Monster
The Crawling Eye
Laserblast
Future War
Blood Waters of Dr. Z
Furst Spaceship on Venus
The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy

Here's my starting lineup of previously unseen movies:
Avatar
District 9
Star Trek(2009)
Children of Men
Stalker
Kin-Dza-Dza
The Man From Earth
Tanin No Kao
Moon
The Girl Who Lept Through Time
The Iron Giant
Sexmission
Serenity
Island of Lost Souls

I have everything setup except for Tanin No Kao, which I'm getting through Netflix.

Would the four Wallace and Gromit shorts (roughly 30 minutes each) count as one selection?