Indy24LA

Watched the original Sabrina for the 1st time, what a delightful film. And it was quite apropos considering Bogie's marriage to Bacall.

Ash Ketchum

In his heyday, he was considered the most overrated actor ever.

Darkgod

This was my first time in this challenge and I did hit my goal of 20... but more inportantly I got a chance to watch movies that are considered classics that I never saw before.

"On the Waterfront"
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"
"Dr. Strangelove"
"in the Heat of the Night"
"One flew over the Cukoo's Nest"
"The Gold Rush"
"All Quiet on the Western Front"

gp1086

Wrapped up my checklist and goal of 20 new watches with Quiz Show last night.

shadokitty

Reached 17 last night. Only 3 more to go to hit my personal goal of 20 for the Challenge. Wish more of them had been first time views.

davidh777

Very nice! I'd like to add Waterfront to my first-time views but won't have time to fit it in.

shadokitty

Planning to watch The Green Mile tonight. That will be another first time view for me. Then I plan to revisit the original True Grit, a movie I haven't seen in years.

Indy24LA

Watching The Hustler, can't believe I've owned The Color of Money all these years and have never seen the The Hustler.

Mao

Deciding to call it quits for this year's challenge. Personal high of 30 features and 13 shorts. I usually watch a ton more shorts.

Between finishing with "Hugo" last night (got a chance to watch all nine 2012 Best Picture nominees within the challenge!) and cleaning and preparing for tomorrow's festivities (with a break tonight for the Spirit Awards), I feel I accomplished what I set out to do: focusing on Blu's I hadn't yet spun.

I have 20 left over on a list I wanted to get to...saving them for next year.

Hoping everyone has fun in the home stretch!

gp1086

Good work, Mao! This challenge was fun.

Thinking I'm gonna do a bonus rewatch of one of my favorites tomorrow. Just have to decide which title it will be.

orlmac

I finished the checklist last night (with no duplicates) with one day to spare. They were all first time views for me. I'm going to try to continue this philiosophy with the rest of the challenges that I do this year. I'm preparing my list of movies for the next challenge (Action/Adventure/Crime) now, I'll be ready to go come Thursday morning! I enjoyed the various comments this year, it gave me some good ideas for next year.

Trevor

Anyone else enjoying the Oscars?

davidh777

Watching and getting credit!

Trevor

Barely staying awake, but I guess we're almost done.

Looks like The Artist is set for the near sweep. I'll be buying that one soon.

BobO'Link

Watched - got credit. I also watched Funny Face in the commercial breaks since I'd started it a bit before they started. I thought it kind of appropriate to end with a Fred Astaire musical since I started with one.

gp1086

Enjoyed partaking in the challenge with everyone. Looking forward to it again next year!

BobO'Link

Thanks for hosting, The Monkees!

See some of you in The 1st Annual DVDTalk Action/Adventure/Crime Challenge!

Travis McClain

I kind of ran out of steam halfway through the challenge. Other than Batman Forever, which I didn't even watch with the challenge in mind, all my selections this were nominees in the 74th Annual Academy Awards (presented in 2002 for 2001 releases). I was disappointed by the lack of streaming availability of Moulin Rouge and Monster's Ball. In fact, I was prepared to buy the former with a $3.00 coupon from Fox but nobody has it in stock in stores!

Including previous viewings, I have now see 29 of that year's combined nominated movies. It's an interesting year because you may recall that was the year they omitted the red carpet ceremony in the wake of 9/11. I'm sure it has been discussed often in the last decade, but I got a strong sense this month of the impact that had on the voting that year.

For instance, Amelie, deservedly nominated in four major categories, failed to capture Best Foreign Language Film which instead went to No Man's Land. Without our troops in harm's way in direct consequence of a cultural war many of us found absurd in the first place, I suspect Amelie wins at least that award. Instead, it must have felt rather empty to wartime voters. I'm not saying No Man's Land isn't a well crafted film; the performances are solid and the narrative is rather taut. But it's also a rather cloying, obvious film that doesn't offer much in the way of surprise. (For my money, Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India was also better than No Man's Land.)

In the field of Best Short Film (Animated), I did see all five nominees this month. It seems to me that perhaps the Academy was either still awash with CGI love or already on Pixar-voting autopilot. For the Birds is certainly a decent short, but I found myself more entertained by Give Up Yer Aul Sins, in which a school girl offers a peculiar narration of the story of John the Baptist. Stubble Trouble was a much more primitive film in terms of technique, but its story of a hirsute caveman desperate to rid himself of his stubble in order to woo a hot cavewoman, is probably even more developed story wise than For the Birds. The laughing brachiosaurus cracked me up.

I obviously made very little progress on the checklist by sticking with nominees from a single year like that, particularly as I didn't even get to watch all the winners. But I can say that I found it an interesting way to approach this challenge and I think perhaps next year, I'll make more of an effort to organize myself so I have access to as many as possible from a single year. Maybe I'll go forth with 2002 for its 10th anniversary, or perhaps I'll reach back to my birth year, the nominees from 1978. I dunno. I've got a year to decide.

Anyway, it was a fun little distraction and I finally got around to seeing a handful of things on my To See list. And, as always, I enjoyed the discussion thread. Nicely done again, Monkees.

Gobear

I wouldn't say I was enjoying the Oscars, but I watched the whole thing. Get NPH to host next year!

davidh777

Thought about trying to fit in one more film but let the ceremony wrap things up for me. I did make a late surge yesterday with Moneyball and Midnight in Paris (both first-time views) and thought about trying to fit in Hugo today but didn't make it.

I definitely let some stuff on the table, but a lot of it I did intentionally because it will fit into the action/crime challenge, and I easily topped my last year's total of five.

Thanks, The Monkees and all participants!

Nice! After all the Fred and Ginger talk earlier in the month, I was inspired to finally watch Daddy Long Legs, one of the few Fred pictures I haven't seen. Not as good as the peak stuff, of course, but very enjoyable, and interesting how they accommodated Caron's ballet with Astaire's tap. Really all I knew about it was Leslie Caron and "Something's Gotta Give." They did try to angle the plot so Astaire romancing Caron wouldn't be creepy, but let's face it: There's only so much you can do with a 32-year difference. Plus, they kinda overdid it with the dream-ballet device.

Trevor

I also watched a film during the commercials, finishing up The Dark Knight, which I had started earlier in the evening.

The night before I had watched 2010, and it was interesting to see so many faces from those last two watched films appear throughout Oscar night. Morgan Freeman, Christian Bale, and Gary Oldham from The Dark Knight had prominent spotlights as I was watching them on BD during the commercials; and Helen Mirren and Bob Balaban from 2010 popped up as well. I'm forgetting at least one other as well I'm pretty sure.
Amen. Thanks as always TM! I doubt I'll ever watch as much as I used to watch, but I still geared all of my viewing to the Challenge and read the thread every day.

And yes, I'll see some of you in two and a half days for the start of our next Challenge.
That's a cool idea Travis. I may steal that some future year as well. Now that I'll perhaps never again have a month where I can watch 10 hours of TV a day for the entire month, I'll need to narrow my focus and come up with smaller Challenge projects.
It was quite mediocre this year. Not horrible imo, but I was hoping for a much funnier Billy Crystal, and perhaps a bit more pizazz. I was fighting to stay awake all night.

shadokitty

Real life took hold of me part way through the challenge for a while which kept me from getting the numbers I wanted, and I was so close to getting my goal last night, but I missed it by 1 movie. But I had fun. I made 19 movies when I was hoping for 20. I finished with Robocop and cot a couple of first time viewings in. Started watching the remake of True Grit, but turned it off, as I didn't think it was as good as the original with John Wayne.

Indy24LA

I had a blast this year, watched 35 films (personal best) with 31 of them being 1st time viewings. Thanks to The Monkees for a great challenge and congrats to all that enjoyed it!

Dimension X

This one's never been one of my busy challenges, but somehow I managed not to beat my pitiful total from last year (3 films watched). Still, I enjoyed what I watched (all two items), and I had a 50% FTV rate, so it wasn't a total loss.

MrTerrific

Enjoyed watching some first time viewing and old favorites. Always a great challenge!