Thursday, November 19, 2009

The 46x60 or So Project, Pt. 3: Things Start to Get a Little Wonky...

With my Tower of Film already swaying haphazardly in the skies above me, I was beginning to consider whether it was simply time to concentrate on watching the movies and writing about the experience of doing so.

But, there were still three crucial elements missing...

First, there were my DVDs. The thrust for the notion of adding my own collection from 1964 forward to the list was that, while a certain portion of films already entered into the 46x60 or So Project were also sitting on my shelves, there were a great many discs that I had purchased over the last couple of years of which I had yet to pause for a viewing. Since watching every available film in the project would allow me little time (or much in the way of interest) for watching films outside of it, the solution was to add every single film in my personal catalogue. Not only did this increase each year, on the average, by eight to twelve more films, cushioning the Project a tad more, but it would essentially force me to finally catch up on watching everything I owned.

It also led to the addition of the second crucial, missing element -- horror and science-fiction films -- to the list. Since I tend to purchase most of the films which I adore (or at least halfway like) in those genres, and since horror and science-fiction is largely ignored by the Academy except in the makeup and effects categories, this allowed me to "slum up" the list a little bit. I have to admit, it was looking awfully prestigious in there. I know the original point was to actually watch all of these films of presumed prestige which I had ignored much of my life. But, after the first couple of months of plowing through endless dramas from 1964 through 1966, one after the other, with very few comedies to break up the bluster and whining, adding my own personal faves, no matter the genre, threw a bit of a fun factor into the mix.

And this led to the purpose of the third crucial, missing element: slumming it up even more. Any overview of a cinematic yearbook is not complete without also seeing the nadir of cinematic "achievement" throughout those twelve months. Sure, the Academy is pretty good at allowing some truly egregious films get nominated, but not really as much as you would think (or snarkily wish). That's where the Golden Turkey Awards, and its one-time competitor and now leader in the field of film insult, the Golden Raspberries come into the picture. As much as I despise Michael Medved's politics and cultural whining, and as much as I don't agree with the purposes behind why he and his brother Harry included certain films within the pages of their series of books in the late '70s and early '80s about epically bad movies, I will admit that I return to them time and again to catch up on the wacky antics of directors gone loco. And overall, since they saw fit to have their readers also vote on the worst films in history, this provided a pretty solid base of rottenness on which to build.

Pretty much where the Golden Turkeys and the Medveds left off (they do overlap a few years) is where the Golden Raspberries began embracing movie horridness and took it to an even more thorough finger-pointing level, handing out their annual awards to major time- and brain-wasters to this day. (Myself, I am about one month away from joining their society myself, so I too can vote on the awards, something the Oscars don't allow. Their loss. Oh yeah, and I could attend the ceremony, as well.)

Thus, I took to the task of adding all of the nominated films for both awful movie award programs to my Tower of Film. (Granted, most of the films will be kept in the basement of the Tower, but this is pending further review. After all, I can't criticize a film without seeing it first.) It only took a couple of nights to add every single allegedly terrible movie to my list (after all, I have not seen all of them, just many of them). When completed, unloading a couple barrels of genuine trash balanced out the 46x60 or So Project so nicely, that I was finally ready to allow the contractors building the Tower of Film to go home and see their families after a long four months of construction.

And since I am actually each and every one of those "contractors," it's sad I didn't work out a decent overtime plan.

[To be concluded in Pt. 4 tomorrow...]

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