(Not) At The Movies

I'm planning on making Aaron a giant quiz to keep him occupied on our very long plane ride to the US in April, so today as part of that I asked him to name 50 movies he liked, not even favourites just ones he liked. He struggled and it's still not a complete list. (It also featured the six Star Wars films etc so it wasn't even 50 separate films!)

It led to two thoughts, movies that we'd seen in the cinema together and whether I could quickly name 50 films I liked. We realised we've hardly seen any movies together, and as mentioned in other blogs, that's something I want to rectify this year, by going to the cinema more often. We're very picky and so we only end up at films that both of us agree are worthy, which is why we never get anywhere! This year we have to just try more.

To highlight how few I have seen, I realised looking through the Oscar nominees for Best Picture in the 2000s that I'd only seen a handful, whether in the movies or on video or tv later.

All I've seen are

• Toy Story 3 and the King's Speech (2011)
• Frost/Nixon (2009)
• Goodnight and Good Luck (2006)
• Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2004)
• Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2003)
• Gosford Park; Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Moulin Rouge (2002)
• Erin Brockovich (2001)
• The Sixth Sense (2000)

70 films were nominated for Best Picture Oscars between 2000 and 2011 and I've seen 11. A huge 15%. Of the 9 films nominated this year, I've seen none. Moneyball, in particular, interests me but we didn't get around to seeing it. We didn't make the time. So we definitely need to see more films.

The other thought was whether I could name 50 movies I liked off the top of my head. Sure I could cheat and list six Star Wars, four Indiana Jones films, and 22 James Bond films and be instantly over halfway there. I think I could, but I think I'd find myself not just trying to list movies I liked, but actually picking favourites, and then mentally debating whether I liked A more than B, or whether I had enough dramas from the period 1992 - 1996 in there etc. (I'm big on overcomplicating things.) So I've realised that I actually now have got overexcited and need to actually try to come up with a list of my actual Top 50 films. Mostly because I'm curious to see if I have preferred genre or time period. I can tell you what I don't like (stick the word "heartwarming" or "tearjerking" on a trailer or review and see me go fleeing as far away as possible) but do I particularly like certain films? I'm going to assume the answer ends up relating to 80s teen films...

So now off to list every film, I've ever seen ever - well maybe just the ones I vaguely remember - and to try and rank them... the next blog will hopefully have a list.

Until then!