Well, certainly, it did make me acutely aware of where my personal gaps were. While I had no trouble finding something I hadn't seen (or at least reviewed) in the early decades of the 20th century (after going through the very early shorts of the 19th very quickly), once we hit my adult years, especially the 21st century, there were very few movies I wanted to see that I HADN'T. That's where my choices skewed towards kids’ movies I was too old for, and dumb comedies I generally avoided. But that's what these movie-watching projects are for: Expanding my horizons and perhaps discovering something new. So while there were some more obscure movies on my list (which evolved as titles became more or less available on my services), I tried my best to pick things that left a footprint on the culture (ex: There's Something About Mary) or that might have made you say "You haven't seen that yet?" (same example, really).
What was especially interesting, of course, was seeing cinema evolve over the years. The early stuff is MOST intriguing because you're seeing film makers invent things we take for granted. The first POV shot, the first fiction, the first use of color, the first feature-length film, etc. From decade to decade, tastes change, the technology allows for new things, and styles start to develop and inform one another. The silent 20s, the glamorous 30s, the Noir 40s, the indie 70s, etc., but in each case, I tried to also sample films from other countries, or by directors I like who I knew to be outliers. Exploring a decade isn't just about distilling its essence, but spotting its avant-garde. So while my experience with the 60s skewed towards puff-piece comedies, it was also the start of the true horror films that would overtake the next decade.
So what were my most precious finds? By decade (let's just say you can never really go wrong with Georges Méliès in the 19th century and the early 1900s and leave it at that, so beyond):
1910s: Dante's Inferno (just incredible for something made in 1911)
1920s: The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a great achievement, but Buster Keaton's Home is a short I'd gladly watch again.
1930s: Ozu's An Inn in Tokyo (but can I call it a "find" when I'm already a big Ozu fan?), I really liked The 3-Penny Opera and Pygmalion, too.
1940s: Orson Welles's The Stranger, but lots of nice stuff in this decade - The Murderer Lives at Number 22, A Canterbury Tale, Brief Encounter, and Kurosawa's first film, Sanshiro Sugata - it's just hard to top Welles when he's in top form.
1950s: Hobson's Choice (absolutely delightful)
1960s: Hara-Kiri (the best film I saw from the whole project), Letter Never Sent (a brilliant Russian film), and though it wasn't well-received at the time, I loved Hello Dolly!
1970s: Punishment Park (had never heard of it, but it speaks to our time even more than it did 1971) and Rock ’n’ Roll High School (for sheer entertainment)
1980s: Mississippi Burning, but I'd seen it back in the day, so is it a "find"? The 80s is when I started going to the movies, so there are a number of films on the list I'd seen before, and not a lot of winners, honestly. The one I'll probably most talk about going forward is Over the Top, which I HADN'T seen and is absolutely bonkers.
1990s: The Joy Luck Club, but full marks for the double feature of Strictly Ballroom and Shall We Dance?
2000s: Chocolat and Shawn Baker's Prince of Broadway, but some surprises - Lilo & Stitch and Borat were better than I expected, while The Princess Diaries was much, much worse.
2010s: Short Term 12 and A Man Called Ove.
2020s: The Worst Person in the World
Overall, a good experience, with only 10 of the 143 films falling under the 3 stars (out of 5) mark, and a little above 30 AT 3 stars (a passing grade that's nothing to write home about). That's, like 100 good movies I got under my belt by doing this.
And now I'm thinking to the future... October is my annual Halloweenathon (one horror film a day - minimum - for 31 days), so I'm busy, but come November... what happens from 2026 onward? Movies... from the future?!
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