Finished Dark today. It was a mostly satisfying final act. There came a point where the interconnections became laughably convoluted, but I made peace with that because it was both sufficiently explained and satisfactorily addressed by the end. If the second season was about drama between characters and their relationships, the third is all about double-crosses, triple-crosses, and trying to un-cross. I still don't understand why the thing that started everything in the first episode--disappeared kids found with their eyes burned out--had to happen at all. It raised the stakes immediately, but having reached the end I feel it served that purpose without serving any real in-story purpose. For all the emphasis on the interconnections, there's one kid who's barely a footnote. I also dug the third season because it...

Speaking of directors, I like the idea of looking for some (another?) woman to add. Maybe pick two or three to combine togather to make up a decent list to choose from? We definitely could shake up this area for next year, I cannot find enough movies here that I haven't already seen.

I still have 10 to go. After this weekend I hope to be all done except for maybe one or two. Congrats on finishing already with no multiple entries. That is definitely my favorite way to do the checklist! I looked at the movies you watched this month and it definitely looks like you have had a good challenge.

Great job! (Though, I'm only seeing 3 checks for the "he's dead, Jim" section. You might also want to go through your movie list and see if you could blackout the list for an extra entry. Might mean doubling up on some of the movies, but hey, extra entry!

I'd love more diversity be it women directors or POC directors. Keep suggestions coming for this one! I feel the same way, I don't see very many new movies (to me) that I could watch to complete the section and the older ones are getting to repetitious. I don't like 'em enough to keep watching year after year...

Good luck! I'm getting there slowly, but surely myself.

The only women on the current list are Lana and Lilly Wachowski who work together and count as a single entry. Last year, the Horror Challenge included "Watch a movie directed by a female director". If I'm remember correctly, the discussion ran into the same kinda problems with female directors not being as prolific or as tied to genre. I glanced at Debra Hill and Katheryn Bigelow's credits, but they have only done a handful of things that count for this challenge. (Also, Near Dark doesn't have a "fantasy" tag. I tend to think of any film with vampires (or werewolves) to be fantasy.)

I counted, and I would need 22 more entries to complete the checklist without multiple entries. I doubt I can do that, but I'll give it the ol' college try! I'm so impressed with the passion and planning y'all have put in to complete it!

I've also managed to complete the checklist with no multi entries. Was going to try for the blackout of all titles but dont think i'll manage it. Actors section is the one with still the most to do, struggling to try and find enough movies i havent watched or not watched for a while, the list is really good but sometimes it seems a lot of titles but is a all LOTR or x men for example, which I love, cant keep watching them.
It's my first time with this challenge and has been great fun.

I'd be in support of the general "directed by a female director" checklist item for next year. (One look at the "personal challenge" section of my list should make it clear that this topic is of interest to me, LOL.) It is definitely a problem coming up with names who have a more extensive body of work -- and that's obviously a long-running industry problem, amplified when it comes to genre films, and not a fault of women or POC -- but it is what it is. Opening it up to TV directors could expand the field quite a bit, but I know not everyone would be in favor of adding names to the checklist that have pretty much exclusively TV episode credits.

But I'll also commit to trying to come up with a few directors that might have enough qualifying (film) credits on their own -- there are some good lists on letterboxd that I can comb through.

A female director as a possible supplement/replacement for Georges Melies: Alice Guy-Blaché. She has 450(!) director credits on IMDb, from 1896 to 1920. Most of these don't have genres tagged on IMDb (just "short") but some would clearly qualify as fantasy, and probably some as sci-fi as well. She used a lot of trick photography, like Melies and other early filmmakers.

Congrats on successfully tackling the checklist on your first challenge go-round!

I went sort of the opposite direction: blacking out the checklist, but allowing multi entries -- still challenging, but not quite as hard. My internal compromise is to try to keep the entries in each section unique. (e.g., don't use the same film for more than one actor, but that film could also be used to fill one decade, one sub-genre, etc.) I'm pretty close to that; still have a couple dups in a couple sections.

I’m sure I won’t have a lot of entries, but I plan to add the checklist this weekend and go through what would count for it. Regarding the earlier post about sci fi animation, I’m thinking of digging out my DVDs and watching some. I also just watched a super hero cartoon on Disney Channel, Miraculous: Ladybug And Cat Noir. I used to watch that even before it moved to the Disney Channel.

Thanks.
I think when I've watched all the movies I can manage, I'll see what I can do with the multi entries, good idea with the each section unique idea.

Watching It Came from Beneath the Sea for the Harryhausen and 1950s checks. Colorization looks fine to me, but it helps that I haven’t seen it before.

Think it would be great to have a general "directed by a female director" checklist for next year, maybe do something like a certain number of films directed by female directors, like the languages other than english from this year.

I'm not a fan of the process - but I have to say the colorization on the BR of that one looks quite good (as do the other 2 colorized Harryhausen movies on BR). I don't recall it looking that good on DVD, yet it should since both use the same print.

I just came across this list. List of stories set in a future now past
Click the column header that says "Form" and it will reorganize with all Films together.
Some highlights:
Akira takes place in 2019.
Blade Runner, 2019.
The Transformers: The Movie Animated 2005
Back to the Future 2 2015.
The Abyss 1994
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes 1983/1991
Battle for the Planet of the Apes 2001.
Destroy all Monsters 1999
Escape from New York 1997
Godzilla Final Wars 2020
Mission to Mars 2020
Parasite 1992
Reign of Fire 2020
Running Man 2019

Soylent Green is coming soon in 2022.

Oh, I like that! It would give a several options without having to reuse the same person over and over each year. Good luck on your checklist!

Congrats! The actor section is a tough one, especially since you're not reusing films more than once. I was able to check off several names at once just by watching an Avenger film (the superheros, not the spies). I think over the years, the same people just kept on turning up in those franchises...Benedict Cumberbatch is in the Hobbit, Marvel AND Star Trek, for instance! You could keep watching Marvel, and use one film per actor?

These are def. going into the reminder in the opening post. Keep the suggestions coming! I'll ask again at the beginning of the challenge next year but I think I get more suggestions at the end of the challenge when people are watching and trying to complete the checklist. I know I do!

Don't forget you'll get double credit on the last day of the challenge with Animation. Maybe you could get a few more entries! And remember, you do get an extra entry even if you don't complete the checklist, just make sure you have 4-5 films marked down on it (check opening post for exact number).

Definitely a possibility, I kind of like just adding the option of "watch a film by any female director" but if there is interest, I could change the whole thing to "Watch 3 films by female directors, watch 3 films by male directors, watch 3 films by a POC director" to get a little more diversity.

Any opinions on that suggestion?

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think they were looking for the new post where it's people from the future go to the past. But the past is still our future. Like Star Trek: First Contact where they are far in the future, but go back to the past where the Vulcans come to earth, but that time is still considered the future for us in 2020.

I stand corrected. I believe I did misread that. I didn't realize that item had been added. Is that even a sub-sub-genre? It's just time travel, really. Oh well. The original checklist item was mine, actually. I recently came across an article on Akira and hadn't realized that it took place in 2019 so I was curious if anyone mentioned it.

No worries, that other list is nice to have too! I just watched Escape From New York tonight myself. It is a new item, we talked about it a bit at the beginning of the challenge. There were 3 or 4 titles suggested if you want to take a look back. It's gotten some confusion, so I'm thinking it's going to either be a one year only item or I'll combine it with the other one. Neither item has a ton of films that are eligible, but maybe together will give a few more choices to watch.

I finally watched Akira in its entirety. A friend started to show me that on VHS way back when, but we only got about 20 minutes or so into it before something came up and interrupted us, and we never came back to it. It's a wild movie to watch in 2020, that's for sure. I wasn't paying attention in 2013; did the International Olympic Committee award the 2020 Olympics to Tokyo because of Akira? I'll feel better if someone will verify that there are no disembodied parts of a highly evolved telekinetic person being kept alive beneath the stadium. I would have said the same thing if I'd watched this last year when it's set, but I would have only been flippant then. In 2020, though, I think we need to take such matters more seriously because there is clearly no reason whatsoever to think anything is off the table now.

My concerns over what may or may not be contained under the stadium in Tokyo aside, I really dug this one. I'm used to dystopian stories where the protagonist either leads or joins and becomes the hero of a resistance movement. That's not exactly what happens here, though. Kaneda does fall in with the resistance movement, but not really because of ideology. He opposes the government, but Kaneda doesn't seem to have any strong feelings about the disastrous tax reform initiative passed by the previous administration. His opposition is instead based on his experiences falling through the cracks of a system that's only ever pushed him around, personified by the abusive gym coach at his "vocational" school. He'd be anti-government even if Neo-Tokyo wasn't a dystopia. He falls in with the resistance, but that's only because he takes a liking to Kei. And he does confront Testuo during his devastating attack on the city, but that's a clash of egos, not an act of civic duty. There's nothing to even indicate once the movie ends that Kaneda's views on anything have changed or that he's committed himself to any social cause. For Kaneda, the dystopian setting is only relevant in that it's the setting where he lives. It is absurd that he's able to go toe to toe with Tetsuo after we've just seen the military fail to cause him any harm, but I'm willing to go along with it because the relationship drama is so well crafted.

I did have an obnoxious experience streaming this from Hulu, though. There were several moments where the movie would abruptly stop, go black and seem to buffer before jumping ahead. At first, I thought it was my connection but no matter how many times I rewound, it happened in the same place each time. Statistically, it's all but impossible for my connection to have become unstable in that exact same spot every single time I tried to play. Even the frame preview images when I paused and began to rewind were solid black for those segments. I don't think any of the jumps went so far ahead that I really missed out on anything of consequence, but it was irksome just the same.

Rewatched Fly II from the Scream Factory Box Set. Multiple watches of this film one thing that struck me was Chris Young's score is basically same as Hellraiser which is a score he did for Hellraiser II within one year of Fly II.

Watch a few things composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and you'll come away with that same thing. When I was in HS the soundtrack for "Jesus Christ Superstar" was huge. I really liked it so searched out other material by Webber. I picked up a copy of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and discovered he'd reused almost the entire score in "Superstar" just changing lyrics, instrumentation, and sometimes tempo. I've listened to soundtracks and/or watched films based on his Broadway material and hear those same themes in almost all of them.

I completed the checklist last night with a ?th viewing of The Invisible Man (1934) to get the James Whale director check. I *did* use a few films for multiple checks - mainly because I'm primarily focusing on watching only titles in my unopened pile. I had to resort to a few "library" titles for a few checklist items, something I wasn't going to do until I realized I only needed 3 or 4 to complete it. Part of me wants to "black it out" simply because I can but it'd mean watching mostly "library" titles the rest of the challenge and I have several new (mostly BR upgrades) titles I really, really, want to watch this year, none of which can check any unchecked items.

So far, only 12 of the 70 films I've watched so far came from my library with the rest being new/upgrade titles in the unopened pile. For the first time in several years I likely won't be watching "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, in spite of having a new BR of the Extended edition waiting in the wings. I normally watch them all in one day and just haven't been able to block a day for the viewing.

I watched Aquaman (2018) for the first time this afternoon. I mostly enjoyed it and it has some excellent visuals. It also runs at least a half hour too long and I feel it suffered a bit having 2 villains. Ocean Master would have been more than enough for this origin story and Black Manta could have been left for the 2nd film (which is seemingly going to have him as the primary villain based on a post credits scene). He was an unnecessary distraction in this one and much of the reason it ran too long. Black Manta's origin story has been reworked many times so what they did in this movie could have been saved or done differently later. In this film it partially* ties into his origin as told in the "New 52" reboots/updates but just tangentially in that Aquaman accidentally killed his father (under different circumstances).

I noticed that trend as well. Some actors seem to have *only* Marvel movie ties in the SF/Fantasy realm. There may be several but they're all Marvel. I've been trying to save those as I'm wanting to watch all the Marvel titles in either release order or logical order with my grandson. There are several neither of has seen yet and a few that one but not the other of us has seen.
This was the challenge that 11 years ago (the 3rd year of the challenge) got me started with the challenges here as it's my overall favorite genres of films. Over the next couple of years I did them all, kept that up for a few years, and have now weaned myself off a few of the ones that don't particularly gel with me and slacked off some others. I used to hit them all with full intensity and almost drove myself to exhaustion trying to get larger numbers each subsequent year.

Anyway... Welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying yourself.

Oops, first time I responded, I think I misread this. Sorry! I get not wanting to watch the same films over and over. Feel free to make suggestions about actors to switch out or remove! I love getting feedback about the checklist!

I'm glad you've enjoyed your first challenge! If you liked it, you might want to try to the Animation challenge. That will be starting soon and the last day of this one, first of that one, you get double credit for animated films you watch (that qualify for sci-fi/fantasy). The first year or two I started doing challenges, I did hit them pretty hard, but I really had fun with them and found a ton of great films I would have never watched without wanting to finish the checklist, but eventually I ran out of steam to do 12/13 back-to-back challenges. Now, I participate in several, but skip quite a few as well. I think a lot of people find their favorites and do those, or just use the challenges as guidelines for what to watch that month.

I hope you continue to participate in the challenges and continue to enjoy them!

All the Marvel movies are too long,lol

I started with the horror challenge last year, & did a few more but didnt really comment very much, I know what you mean you get hooked, i like the checklists because it makes me watch some stuff that i have had hanging around, & sometimes it great to discover some gems. Also due to the lockdown & more work from home it gives me a bit more time for viewing.