Last night, at 11.02pm, I blogged the last of the Operation 101010 reviews, concluding the project on 10.10.10. The mission was accomplished; the gimmicky end date achieved. For the record, the individual categories and complete list of titles is as follows:Clint Eastwood movies
1. Coogan’s Bluff
2. The Beguiled
3. Play Misty for Me
4. High Plains Drifter
5. The Eiger Sanction
6. Escape from Alcatraz
7. Heartbreak Ridge
8. Dirty Harry
9. The Enforcer
10. The Outlaw Josey Wales
Werner Herzog movies
1. Little Dieter Needs to Fly
2. Wings of Hope
3. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans
4. The Wild Blue Yonder
5. The White Diamond
6. Even Dwarfs Started Small
7. Heart of Glass
8. Stroszek
9. The Flying Doctors of South Africa
10. Rescue Dawn
Anime
1. My Neighbour Totoro
2. Sky Blue
3. Ponyo
4. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
5. Appleseed Ex Machina
6. Grave of the Fireflies
7. The Place Promised in Our Early Days
8. Millennium Actress
9. Resident Evil: Degeneration
10. Kiki’s Delivery Service
Gialli
1. All the Colours of the Dark
2. Blood Stained Shadow
3. The Black Belly of the Tarantula
4. Baba Yaga
5. Forbidden Photos of a Woman Above Suspicion
6. Short Night of Glass Dolls
7. Opera
8. The Stendahl Syndrome
9. Four Flies on Grey Velvet
10. Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes
Documentaries
1. The Aristocrats
2. An Inconvenient Truth
3. Anvil: The Story of Anvil
4. Iron Maiden: Flight 666
5. Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer
6. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
7. Religulous
8. My Kid Could Paint That
9. Fuck
10. The Cove
Eurovisions
1. Amarcord (Italy)
2. Winter Light (Sweden)
3. All About My Mother (Spain)
4. Amelie (France)
5. Funny Games (Austria)
6. A Serbian Film (Serbia)
7. The Double Life of Veronique (Poland)
8. Dead Snow (Norway)
9. North Face (Germany)
10. Cold Fever (Iceland)
Comedies
1. Intolerable Cruelty
2. Kissing Jessica Stein
3. In the Loop
4. Kick-Ass
5. Zombieland
6. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
7. Monty Python’s Life of Brian
8. Superbad
9. It Happened One Night
10. Some Like it Hot
Biopics
1. Sylvia
2. Monster
3. The Aviator
4. The Edge of Love
5. Ludwig
6. Wilde
7. The Doors
8. Immortal Beloved
9. The Gambler
10. Ed Wood
Impulse buys
1. Rise: Blood Hunter
2. Stoned
3. The Oxford Murders
4. Priceless
5. S. Darko
6. Frost/Nixon
7. Show Me Love (a.k.a. Fucking Amal)
8. Together
9. Lilja 4-Ever
10. A Hole in My Heart
Films with numbers in the title
1. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
2. 49th Parallel
3. Million Dollar Baby
4. The 39 Steps
5. Eight Legged Freaks
6. 30 Days of Night
7. 800 Bullets
8. The Ninth Configuration
9. 10 Things I Hate About You
10. Seven
Out of 100 films, 47 were movies I watched for the first time prior to reviewing. Of these, 11 were absolute gems: ‘The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans’, ‘Ponyo’, ‘Millennium Actress’, ‘Short Night of Glass Dolls’, ‘Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes’, ‘North Face’, ‘In the Loop’, ‘Kick-Ass’, ‘Frost/Nixon’, ‘Show Me Love’, ‘Together’ and ‘800 Bullets’.
‘The Aristocrats’ and ‘Fuck’ were magnificently sweary. Whilst not exactly fun to watch, ‘Grave of the Fireflies’, the two Aileen Wuornos documentaries, ‘A Serbian Film’, ‘Lilja 4-Ever’ and ‘A Hole in My Heart’ made for provocative and rewarding viewing.
In particular, the Lukas Moodysson films were a real discovery.
Of the 53 movies I had seen before, it kind of goes without saying that they were all worthwhile enough to revisit and write about. ‘Little Dieter Needs to Fly’, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, ‘Amarcord’, ‘Amelie’, ‘Some Like it Hot’ and ‘Ed Wood’ were all immediate choices from the Personal Faves list.
On the whole, Operation 101010 has provided me with 10 months of generally satisfying movie-watching. There were ten films I was ambivalent about or indifferent to: ‘Coogan’s Bluff’, ‘Sky Blue’, ‘Baba Yaga’ (which I’m prepared to forgive for its outright weirdness and the sight of Ely Galleani in bondage gear), ‘Religulous’, ‘Funny Games’, ‘Dead Snow’, ‘Stoned’, ‘The Oxford Murders’, ‘Priceless’ and ‘S. Darko’ (which, like ‘Baba Yaga’ is almost redeemed because of its general fucked-up-ness). And only three that I outright disliked: ‘Rise: Blood Hunter’, ‘The Edge of Love’ and ‘30 Days of Night’.
An acceptable result, then, but not a challenge I’m in a hurry to repeat. If anyone postulates Operation 111111 for next year (which would entail 121 films across 11 different genres or categories), I’ll be opting out.
In the meantime, I’m taking a couple of days off (I’m feeling all blogged out at the moment), during which I’ll make a point of catching up with, and commenting on, all the blogs I’ve neglected while I’ve been aiming for the Operation 101010 finish post. The Agitation of the Mind will then return to a more realistic and less cluttered schedule (seriously, the ‘Rescue Dawn’ review yesterday took me to a total of 23 posts in 10 days!) as I count down to Hallowe’en with a batch of horror movies.
8 comments:
I'll have to look through to see how many of these I've seen. Have a great week.
My God man, do take a break, you've earned it. Impressive feat in getting this done -- it's been a fun series (and I just realized I need to read the ED WOOD post...somehow missed that one)
Great job sir! I have enjoyed many of your reviews posted for this project, so it was worth it, your readers appreciate it!
By the way, Rise, that vampire movie, what a mess! I hated every second of it as well.
You get metaphorical cupcakes for your efforts, my good chap. What's 111111 entail, anyway?
Congrats, Neil. Again, sorry for dragging you into this! :)
As much as I blog, I should have been done with this challenge a month ago. I originally decided to do it at a time when I was unemployed and watched a lot of movies (I watched 67 films in January alone), but then as time went on and I actually started working again, I found myself watching less movies and not caring as much as I did before. Not to mention that I constantly find myself being burnt out when it comes to blogging, which is the case now. I still plan on taking an extended hiatus at some point, which unfortunately means I won't complete my OP:10 challenge. I'm looking forward to reading your horror reviews this month, though! Cheers.
Hello Neil mate I have tried E-mailing and texting you but no luck,the emails were returned and the texts I am not sure if you got them, just to catch up really.
Steve Wyer
Hello Neil I have tried emailing and texting you but no luck with any replies. so I am trying this. just a catch up really.
Steve Wyer
Keith - I'd be interested to know how many you've seen. Quite a few of them were real discoveries for me.
Troy - a break is definitely being taken. Doing those last seven titles between Friday night and Sunday night was just crazy. Doing the odd hit-and-run review (knock it off in an hour and post it cold, no redrafting or polishing) is quite enervating. Too many of them and your writing starts to get ropey.
Francisco - thanks, my friend. And I completely agree about 'Rise'. Jeez, that was one of the worst things I've seen in ages.
Simon - if you're hardcore enough to consider it, 111111 would entail picking 11 categories or genres of film, then watching and reviewing 11 films from each category during the course of 2011. I don't know who first came up with the concept, but it first appear as 090909 during 2009 (with the perameters set at 9 titles from 9 categories or genres). The 090909 participants set themselves a fairly realistic 91 movies to watch. Adjusted for 101010 this year, the challenged amounted to 100 movies in total. Anyone doing it next year will have 121 films to get through.
Aaron - I know exactly what you mean about getting back into a working routine. A few years ago I was out of work for nearly 6 months (my own choice; I got a decent redundancy package and basically lived off it till it was gone) and when the money ran out and I went back to work, I just found I had no energy or interest in anything else. When you're feeling blogged out, it's best to step back from it rather than just going through the motions and posting substandard articles purely for the sake of posting. Don't sweat it if you don't finish Op10. Hope you enjoy my horror movie reviews. They'll be kicking off in a few days' time.
Steve - hi. My internet and mobile phone have been out of commission for a while but I've settled my dues with T-Mobile and I'm back on line. I got your text yesterday - and I'm truly sorry to hear your bad news - but I didn't pick it up till nearly midnight. Expect a text back from me this evening and we'll catch up very soon.
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