A New Project, or: An explanation of recent Facebook behaviour

I’ve been doing this thing over on Facebook for the past few months where I post bad cellphone photographs of movie title cards. I’ve been getting some questions about it, so I thought it might be worthwhile explaining what exactly I’m up to. Every so often, some magazine or website will publish a list of ‘movies to see before you die.’ When this happens, or when I’ve been talking with my more cinema savvy friends, I often find myself confronted with a long list of notable movies I haven’t yet seen. Finding myself with a little more free time on my hands, and with an urgent need to unwind, I resolved to watch as many of these movies as could. To give the project some structure, I decided to set a few ground rules:

1. In order to force some variety on my viewing habits, I decided to watch one movie from each year from 1945 to the present day. This not only forced me to draw on movies from a number of different eras, it also gave me an easy decision procedure when figuring out what to watch.
2. The films in question must be notable in some way. I’m not following any particular list or cannon, but if they have won awards, or feature the work of directors, actors, or screenwriters that I admire, I’ll be more likely to watch them. The movies in question may not be the best produced in their given year, but they should at least be notable. For budgetary reasons, I’m largely dealing with what’s available on Netflix Canada, broadcasts on TCM, public revivals at various theatres in Halifax, and loans from friends. On occasion, I’ll rent something from the local video store in order to fill in any major holes.
3. These must be movies I haven’t seen before. Even if I last saw a film  20 years ago, and can barely remember its plot or cast, it will not count for the purposes of the project. Here is a list of what I’ve watched so far.
4. When I watch a movie at home, I take a picture of the title card with my cellphone, and enter its name, its year of production, the name(s) of its director(s), and the date watched into a spreadsheet. I’ve been keeping a little diary of thoughts about some of the movies I see. As the project moves forward, I may begin to share these thoughts online.

Here is a list of the movies I’ve watched so far:

1945	Brief Encounter	David Lean	12-03-31
1946
1947
1948
1949	The Third Man	Carol Reed	12-04-21
1950	All About Eve	Joseph L. Mankiewicz	12-05-07
1951
1952
1953	I Confess	Alfred Hitchcock	12-03-19
1954	Dial M for Murder	Alfred Hitchcock	12-03-05
1955	Marty	Delbert Mann	12-07-18
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961	The Hustler	Robert Rossen	14-May-12
1962
1963
1964	The Naked Kiss	Samuel Fuller	*****
1965
1966	Harper	Jack Smight	15-May-12
1967	Bedazzled	Stanley Donen	12-07-10
1968
1969	Cactus Flower	Gene Saks	12-05-13
1970
1971
1972	What's Up Doc?	Peter Bogdonavich	12-03-31
1973
1974	The Conversation	Francis Ford Coppola	16-May-12
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982	The Dark Crystal	Jim Henson & Frank Oz	12-07-08
1983
1984	Stop Making Sense	Jonathan Demme	12-04-28
1985
1986
1987
1988	Running on Empty	Sidney Lumet	*********
1989
1990	The Russia House	Fred Schepisi	12-02-24
1991
1992	Orlando	Sally Potter	12-07-07
1993
1994	Vanya on 42nd St.	Louis Malle	12-04-23
1995	Le Confessional	Robert Lepage	12-04-02
1996	Swingers	Doug Liman	12-06-23
1997
1998	Run Lola Run	Tom Tykwer	12-06-26
1999	Election	Alexander Payne	12-07-31
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004	Layer Cake	Matthew Vaughan	12-03-03
2005	Mirrormask	Dave McKean	12-04-25
2006	Marie Antoinette	Sofia Coppola	12-07-17
2007	The Lookout	Scott Frank	12-07-09
2008
2009
2010	****	****	****
2011	****	***	***
2012	****	****	****

I’ve intentionally left the entries for the past three years blank, since I’ve watched a number of movies from that time period, and I haven’t decided which to use for the purposes of the project.  The entries for 1964 and 1988 denote movies I’ve committed to watch for the project, but have not yet seen. Please let me know if you have any suggestions about what I should watch next.