My Classic Movie New Year's Goals
The classic film blog Box Office Poisons has recently dedicated a post to her Classic Movie New Year's Resolutions (here). I think it's a great concept for a post, so I'm going to steal the idea.
I often pick random films to watch, just choose whatever tickles my fancy, yet on the other hand I also like to be guided by a preconceived plan and to have a small goal in place for the month ahead. So alternating whim-watching with goal-watching (someone on Letterboxd was using these terms) is pretty much what I do. Monthly goals can include the exploration of a certain actor's filmography (I love binge-watching films from one actor), or delving deeper into a certain genre (for instance, horror films in October, film noirs in November and Christmas films in December), or watching more films from a certain decade or even a certain year (1939 comes to mind).
So here's a list with some movie goals for 2021:
*Watch more SILENT FILMS, also more BUSTER KEATON films. I already dedicated last March to watching more silents but it's obviously not enough (I also wrote a little post called Silent Film Appreciation). There are so many great silents I haven't seen yet and it might be an idea to watch a fixed amount of silent films every month (say 2 or 3) or simply dedicate another month to them. Silents that are high on my watchlist: Wings, West of Zanzibar, The Big Parade, The Cat and the Canary, A Cottage on Dartmoor, Ella Cinders. Apart from more Buster films, I also want to see more of Harold Lloyd (in any case all his films with Jobyna Ralston, as I have only seen The Freshman), Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Gish (especially Orphans of the Storm) and Marion Davies.
*Watch more films from the 1950s and 1960s. My favourite decades are the 1930s and 1940s so I do not need an extra incentive to watch films from those decades. Yet I'm less into the 1950s and 1960s, and especially the 1960s are seriously being neglected. It might be a great idea for a monthly goal to focus only on those decades to give the 1950s/1960s figures a boost.
*Watch the entire TORCHY BLANE series. I like Glenda Farrell and I like short B-movies. Farrell stars in 7 out of 9 Blane movies, with Jane Wyman and Lola Lane starring in the other two. When I watched the Nancy Drew series in 2019 (4 titles) — see my Nancy Drew Detective post — I was reminded of the Torchy Blane series, which are similiar in design, and made a mental note to watch them but I've never gotten around to it.
*Watch the entire DR. GILLESPIE series, 6 films in total. I watched the entire Dr. Kildare series in 2018, 9 films in total (see my round-ups where I talk about the Kildare films, here and here), and I really liked them. I like watching serial films and spending time with the same characters. I had a good time following the relationship between Dr. Kildare (Lew Ayres) and Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) and wouldn't mind seeing more of Dr. Gillespie.
*Watch the rest of the ANDY HARDY series. There are 16 films in total and I watched the first film A Family Affair and the 4th instalment Love Finds Andy Hardy last December. So I have 14 films more to see and might start binging them very soon.
*Watch the rest of THE THIN MAN series. I've only seen the first two films The Thin Man and After the Thin Man (with James Stewart). There's no reason why I should postpone watching the other four films in the series because who wouldn't want to spend time with William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles and their cute dog Asta?
*Continue the filmography of BARBARA STANWYCK, my favourite actress. As I write this, the score of watched Stanwyck films is 72. I'm very close to finishing her pre-1970 filmography so I might just do that this year. Leftovers are: 3 from the 1930s (Union Pacific, Annie Oakley and A Message to Garcia), 4 from the 1940s (Hollywood Canteen, California, Variety Girl and Hollywood Victory Caravan), 3 from the 1950s (Blowing Wild, Escape to Burma and The Maverick Queen) and 2 from the 1960s (Walk on the Wild Side and Roustabout).
*Continue the filmography of JAMES STEWART. I'm at 46 films watched now, yet I have a longer road to go with watching all Stewart's pre-1970 films than with Stanwyck. There are 6 leftovers from the 1930s (The Gorgeous Hussy, The Ice Follies of 1939, The Last Gangster, Small Town Girl, Navy Blue and Gold and Hollywood Hobbies), 3 from the 1940s (Ziegfeld Girl, On Our Merry Way and Malaya), 8 from the 1950s (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Greatest Show on Earth, Broken Arrow, The Spirit of St. Louis, Night Passage, The FBI Story, Strategic Air Command and The Jackpot), and a lot of unwatched films from the 1960s, 10 in total (The Flight of the Phoenix, Two Rode Together, Cheyenne Autumn, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, Bandolero!, The Rare Breed, Firecreek, Dear Brigitte, The Mountain Road, and Take Her, She's Mine). It would be great to binge-watch all of these films in a month's time.
*Continue the filmography of BETTE DAVIS. Currently I'm at 50 watched films. I still have a lot of 1930s films to see (The Bad Sister, Hell's House, Fog Over Frisco, Of Human Bondage, Bordertown, Satan Met a Lady, Waterloo Bridge, Seed, Way Back Home, The Menace and The Man Who Played God), only 5 films from the 1940s (Thank Your Lucky Stars, Hollywood Canteen, The Corn is Green, Winter Meeting, June Bride), 7 films from the 1950s (Another Man's Poison, Phone Call from a Stranger, The Star, The Virgin Queen, Storm Center, John Paul Jones and The Scapegoat) and only 4 from the 1960s (Pocketful of Miracles, Empty Canvas, The Nanny and The Anniversary). It's going to be quite a challenge to find the really obscure ones (Seed and The Menace) but I will definitely like to spend some time with Bette in 2021.
*Watch more WESTERNS. I love westerns and there are so many that I still need to see for the first time (The Tall T, Station West, Day of the Outlaw, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Wichita, Westward the Women, Night Passage, Saddle the Wind, The Last Wagon, The Wild Bunch, The Magnificent Seven, The Virginian, The Big Trail, Cowboy, Arizona and The Unforgiven). I would also love to see the lesser-known titles in the filmographies of John Wayne, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott, and see some westerns starring John Payne and Fred MacMurray.
*Watch more SCI-FI FILMS and ADVENTURE FILMS. I'm not a big fan of sci-fi films (although I love the 1950s The War of the Worlds) but there are still some titles on my watchlist (Them!, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly, The Blob, When Worlds Collide). I do like adventure films (like The Naked Jungle and Elephant Walk), and there are many that I still haven't seen. I was thinking of King Solomon's Mines, Secret of the Incas and Valley of the Kings but I would also like to see films like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Arabian Nights, Sinbad the Sailor and The Thief of Bagdad. And the Tarzan films! Maybe I can do a month where I'll explore both genres.
*Watch more WAR FILMS. Many films are on my watchlist: Battleground, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Dawn Patrol, A Guy Named Joe, A Walk in the Sun, So Proudly We Hail, Desperate Journey, The Captive Heart, I Wanted Wings, They Were Expendable, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, et cetera. Maybe I'll spend this May watching war films, coinciding with Dutch Liberation Day being celebrated yearly on the 5th of May to mark the end of the Nazi occupation during World War II.
*Watch more MUSICALS. I love musicals but I don't watch them on a monthly basis. The last time I watched a bunch in a row was when the film theater Filmoteca in my hometown Barcelona had dedicated a special to the musical in 2019 and I was very fortunate to see so many wonderful musicals on the big screen (see my round-ups where I discuss the watched musicals, here and here). Most of the titles I had already seen before (even multiple times) yet I don't really explore new-to-me titles. When I think of musicals I think of the colourful MGM productions but there are also a lot of black-and-white ones I haven't seen (like Bing Crosby films and Judy Garland films, e.g. For Me and My Gal). It would also be fun to start watching some Esther Williams films since I have only seen Bathing Beauty.
I will probably not even try to achieve all of these goals — it's more of a list to choose from — and it's not unthinkable either that I'll make up some new ones along the way. Still, let's check back this time next year to see what goals from this list have been met.
Happy New Year! Cheers and bottoms up!
PHOTOS/GIFS IN THIS POST FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
*Beautiful Buster Keaton;
*Smart Blonde (1937) with Glenda Farrell as Torchy Blane and Barton MacLane as her detective boyfriend Steve McBride;
*The Thin Man (1934) with William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles and their fox terrier Asta played by Skippy;
*Barbara Stanwyck, my favourite actress;
*The Thief of Bagdad (1940) with June Duprez as the Princess;
*Arabian Nights (1942) with Maria Montez as Sherazade;
*Easy To Love (1953) with Esther Williams; (gif by me)
*Old Acquaintance (1943) with Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins toasting.