omike

I've been going back and forth on whether to do this challenge or not and just what to do. First I was thinking Asian Movies and TV shows since I have lots of those unwatched. Then The All Challenges Challenge almost got me -- that's an excellent idea. I finally settled on American Movies of the 30's, 40's and 50's since I've always loved films of that vintage and I watched several poverty row movies for the Exploitation challenge and was reminded of how much I like those sometimes silly, sometimes creaky little gems. So I'm probably going to start with more poverty row and see how far that takes me. The main rule will be that all DVDs must be first time viewings, although its OK if I've seen the movie before in another format.

gp1086

As with others, my "May Mix Up Challenge" (originally full alphabet) was a fun way for me to go through my unwatched films from my Netflix disc queue (180 titles), Netflix instant queue (125 titles), DVR (15 titles), and owned DVDs/blu rays (15 titles). Gave me a lot of leeway in choosing different genres to mix it up depending what I'm in the mood for, while working through all these titles. My main focus was getting through the DVR and owned physical media. As such, there will be fewer watches from Netflix as part of the challenge.

coyoteblue

Wasn't going to indulge, but changed my mind. Nothing too ambitious, though. I'm going to watch at least one movie for each animal on the Chinese zodiac:

Rat
Ox
Tiger
Rabbit
Dragon
Snake
Horse
Goat
Monkey
Rooster
Dog
Pig

The name has either got to be in the title or animal has to be a star/co-star of the movie. Bonus points if I can watch a Chinese movie that qualifies. Like I said, nothing that amibitious. I'll go ahead and count any TV/short films that I can find that qualify, too.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I think you should get bonus points if you find non-Chinese movies that qualify. Off the top of my head, you could finish that list with about a half dozen kung fu movies.

coyoteblue

I've already though of non-Chinese movies for most of them.

for instance:
Rat - Of Unknown Origin
Ox - Tall Tale
Tiger - Winnie the Pooh
Rabbit - Night of the Lepus
Pig - either Babe movie

You get the idea.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Knock a bunch out with Animal Farm.

SterlingBen

For Goat; Revenge Of Billy The Kid is a must.

gp1086

Challenge is officially underway for us on EST in the US. Happy viewing all. Unfortunately too tired to get started tonight.

coyoteblue

Sweeeet! But it's out of print and what's available is pricey.

Whiskey Warfield

On movie #4, L'Age d'Or. Since I'll be gone most of the day, I'm knocking out as many short films as I can.

Ash Ketchum

There's a Taiwan martial arts film called TWELVE ANIMALS (1990) in which someone on a quest has to identify 12 people who embody each of the animals in the zodiac and has powers or characteristics of those animals and recruit them for a celestial mission of some kind.

Here are excerpts from a review I found on the web:

coyoteblue

It sounds familiar; maybe I've seen it. I'll have to poke around when I get home and see if I have the disc. I'm thinking Uproar in Heaven and/or A Cold Night's Death for Monkey.

Ash Ketchum

Try these, although ox and goat have stumped me:



Rat: WILLARD (1971) or its sequel BEN (1972) - Ben is the name of the rat, Willard is the name of its owner
Ox: I'm stumped.
Tiger: A TIGER WALKS (1964), HARRY BLACK AND THE TIGER (1958), to name two/also THE JUNGLE BOOK, the Sabu version and the Disney animated version. I've seen plenty of jungle movies where the hero or heroine has a pet tiger, just can't recall the names right now.
Rabbit: NIGHT OF THE LEPUS, HARVEY, anything with Bugs Bunny
Dragon: SWORD AND THE DRAGON - a great Russian fantasy film
Snake: MADAM WHITE SNAKE, GREEN SNAKE, anything based on the classic Chinese story/plus there's a horror film called SSSSSSS and one called STANLEY, about a guy who collects snakes
Horse: Any Roy Rogers western with Trigger: MY PAL TRIGGER, TRIGGER JR. and my favorite, THE GOLDEN STALLION/or any horse racing movie like SEABISCUIT and a million others
Goat: I'm stumped/HEIDI has a goat in it.
Monkey: THE MONKEY GOES WEST, a Shaw Bros. classic
Rooster: COCKFIGHTER, by Monte Hellman
Dog: IT'S A DOG'S LIFE, A BOY AND HIS DOG, DOG OF FLANDERS...millions more
Pig: Any of the Monkey King movies, like MONKEY GOES WEST, include Pigsy, a major pig character. Any Porky Pig cartoon/also, isn't a pig a major character in CHARLOTTE'S WEB?

davidh777

Non-Chinese Zodiac could be a good topic as well:

Libra: Courtroom film?
Virgo: Something with women in it?

I also like people's idea of tossing in a superheroes mini-challenge based around The Avengers.

BobO'Link

I finally settled on "50s/60s TV" as my theme and am making it inclusive to those years. A episode has to have originally aired during those 2 decades to count even if the series spanned adjacent decades.

I chose those decades simply because I just purchased I'm Dickens... He's Fenster - V1, My Living Doll - V1, and Car 54: Where Are You? - S2 and don't want to "sit on them" until a "better" time. I don't recall watching I'm Dickens... even though it was on a night following a program I *did* watch (The Flintstones - but at a time that may have been "bedtime" that year) and the other 2 came on while we were at church. It also doesn't hurt that I have more than enough "unopened" TV seasons from those decades to fill several months of constant viewing. I have unopened seasons of: Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, Rawhide, Mission Imposible, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Dennis the Menace, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Twilight Zone, The Donna Reed Show, McHale's Navy, Perry Mason, The Prisoner, and many, many more.

I *finally* decided to start with Rawhide as it's one I don't remember watching. I was either outside playing or it came on opposite a more "kid friendly" program (in 64/65 it came on opposite Jonny Quest - need I say more) but I *do* remember the theme song and *not* because of The Blues Brothers.

mrcellophane

A couple months ago, I read an "Onion" article entitled "Miranda July Called Before Congress To Explain Exactly What Her Whole Thing Is" and both laughed and found myself wondering if there was an answer to that query. My response made me wonder if I was losing my love of quirk and oddity.

Today, I watched Paper Man which is about a quirky writer struggling to write a quirky novel and instead begins spending time with a quirky teenaged girl, and it confirmed I don't find "quirky" as charming as I once did. I should clarify that I don't like "quirky" for the sake of being "quirky." It seems that many indie filmmakers use odd aesthetics, plotting, and scenes to simply distinguish their projects from more mainstream films. However, many of these filmmakers fail to realize that there has to be a reason for these choices; they have to make sense in the world of the characters. For the life of me, I could not figure out how the hell no one had murdered the main character or how he had managed not to die performing some everyday task. (This also puzzled me upon recently rewatching July's Me and You and Everyone We Know.) Perhaps being finding this style of storytelling to be needlessly self-indulgent is a sign of growing up. Also, I found it mildly disconcerting that the only character I identified with was the exasperated wife, a character cast as the unfeeling shrew for a majority of the film.

Sorry, I'm rambling. I also watched Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and a couple episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey, and they were awesome!

lisadoris

Since I only get 11 days to devote to the All Challenges Challenge, I decided to divide each day in half tackle one challenge in the AM and another challenge in the PM. Watching My So-Called Life is interesting. Now I'm closer to the age of the parents than the students but it's amazing how relevant this series still is. The "Guns and Gossip" episode about bullying could air today without a single edit and it works, unfortunately.

Watched The Birds for the Oscar Challenge portion of my day and I wonder how that film is going to look on blu. The special effects already look dated to put it mildly. Still an insanely creepy movie and it drives me nuts to not know why the birds were attacking.

Cardsfan111

The good and bad from the early stages of my Alphabet Challenge:

For a television show starting with the letter S, I finished the first season of The Shield. First time going through this series and it has lived up to the glowing reviews from folks here. I'm anxious to move on to the next season, but I'll have to wait til June if I want to finish my Make-Your-Own quest.

I sat through Zookeeper last night since my "Z" film options were limited and I had recorded it to my DVR previously. The best thing I can say about this movie is that it met my expectations. I'd also add my expectations were set very low.

lisadoris

For the B-Movie portion of the challenge I went through last month's list thread for ideas and came up with two films I hadn't seen before: Mad Max and Enter the Dragon. Max wasn't what I was expecting. It was a very slow and deliberate story and not a lot of action. Who knew. Dragon was OK. After the film was over I realized this was the first Bruce Lee film I had ever seen. Don't know how that happened.

gp1086

Began the challenge today by watching How To Train Your Dragon (2010) for the first time. WOW! I am blown away by how much I loved this movie. Had a feeling I would like it given the good reviews, but I was hooked into the story, the characters, the brilliant animation, etc. I read a review afterwards that pointed out how this movie chose to focus more on character and plot build up rather than little kid jokes or pop culture references for adults (like some other titles do), and I really think that made the difference.

2010 was one hell of a year for animation with this and Toy Story 3. Highly recommend if you haven't seen.

Dimension X

Here's the up-to-date participants list from the list thread. Let me know if I've made any errors for your entry (bad link, incorrect Challenge description, etc.).

Thanks.

Name	Challenge Theme
Dimension X	"Commentary Track Challenge"
cardsfan111	"The Alphabet Challenge"
BuddhaWake	"Iberian and Latin American (including Caribbean) ... Now with Asia too!" Challenge
MrTerrific	Movies by Ratings Challenge
davidh777	"Bring On Buffy" Challenge
Screwadu	"1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" Challenge
KaBluie	"Mill Creek's 50 Classic Musicals Challenge"
Gobear	Musicals Challenge
shadokitty	"Documentaries and other educational programs/Anime/Horror Films" Challenge
Indy24LA	"The All Challenges Challenge"
mrcellophane	"Film Adaptations & Film Writers Challenge"
Mister Peepers	???
pagefrance	"Comic Book Movie Challenge"
Jeffy Pop	"Foreign Language Film Challenge"
NoirFan	"Unwatched Blu-rays Challenge"
walletboyniac	"Sabrina, The Teenage Witch Challenge"
gp1086	"May Mix-Up Challenge"
Giles	"The Art of the Short Film" Challenge
Trevor	???
jmsmath	"2012 'Non-Challenge' Challenge"
Mondo Kane	"Commentary Track Challenge"
terrycloth	???
lisadoris	"All Challenges Challenge" & "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Challenge"
Bladz	"Superhero Challenge"
Chad	???
BobO'Link	"The 50s/60s TV Challenge"
zaphod2467	"Last Annual 2012 End of the World Movie Challenge"
brianluvdvd	???
hbsvb	"Clean Off My DVR Challenge"
indiephantom	???
acubfaninmd	"Unwatched Challenge"
SterlingBen	"The Mad Men & Wife's 'To Watch' Pile Challenge"
critterdvd	"Unwatched MOVIES Pile" Challenge
SnapDawg	"The Expendables Challenge"
CardiffGiant	"Unwatched Material" Mini-Challenges
Darkgod	"Clean off My Hard drive of 100gb" Challenge + Chuck & Supernatural Mini-Challenges
omike	"American Movies of the 30's, 40's, and 50's" Challenge
coyoteblue	Chinese Zodiac Challenge
indy2003	Movies by Ratings Challenge
popcorn	"The Unwatched/Unopened Challenge"
InnocentBlood	"World Cinema Challenge"

I've had pretty good luck so far with my Commentaries Challenge. The first one I listened to wasn't great, but at least it was short.

Mondo Kane

As expected, Joe Bob redeems that with his track ("EWWW! PEE-STAIN!!!")

My commentarython (Hey! I like that!) is going well too.
The goal is to just bounce around from all decades and genres---Nothing similar will be watched (Or rather, listened to) back to back. That should keep things fresh.

Dimension X

Steckler did have some interesting stories, but he fell into just-describing-what's-going-on-onscreen mode a few too many times. I don't know if I hate that or silence worse.

At least when Joe Bob Briggs is just describing the action, he's also making fun of it. I have a few more of his commentaries to look forward to for later in the month.
That's one of the things that sold me on the idea. I have commentaries for horror, comedy, action, and I'm sure a few more genres I'm forgetting. Should keep me from getting burnt out.

Trevor

I'm doing poorly in my Stuff I'll Probably Sell After the Challenge Challenge.

I started with the film FarCry on Tuesday night. A horrible film so far, but it's making me think, with my lifelong videogame passion and collecting, that videogame films should be one of my 20 or so "collecting niches".

walletboyniac

I hate it when they start pointing out their buddies and/or family. Guess what? No one gives a shit.