New Year's Resolutions

(This article will be published in The Ryder in the next couple weeks - read it here first!!)


New Year, New Goals – A Movie Lover’s New Year’s Resolution

Every time a New Year begins, people start talking about their New Year’s resolutions. Exercise more, eat healthier, stop smoking, and save money are staple promises people make to themselves every January. Sometimes the resolutions stick, often they get broken. This year I plan on really challenging myself and adhering to my resolution. I figure if I share it with you, in print, then there is no way I can go back on my word. So, here goes… I am finally going to watch Casablanca.

Yes, I’m going to do the healthy eating and exercising thing too, but watching Casablanca is a lofty goal that is going to take time and fierce dedication. If my calculations are correct, I have checked this movie out of the library about 15 times in the last eight years and not once have I watched it. Every year I watch those AFI “100 Years, 100 (fill in the “ blank)” specials and every year they list Casablanca while I just sit there and feel more and more ashamed.

You don’t understand, fellow cinemaphiles, I majored in video production and have a minor in film from Ohio University (BSC ’06). I’ve recently put in applications for graduate Cinema Studies programs as an aspiring film professor/journalist/critic. If the selection committee at NYU finds out that I haven’t seen Casablanca yet, they are probably going to laugh at me and then delete my submission materials.

While I run around town finding an available copy of Casablanca, I urge you to make some cinematic resolutions for yourself. If you need a little encouragement, I have some ideas that just might work. If you are going strictly for quantity over quality, try setting a goal for yourself. My dad once asked me during a trip home from college what my plans were for my six-week winter break. I told him, “I’m going to watch movies.” Not the answer he was looking for, as I know he was hinting at me to get a temporary job, he said, “I want you to think bigger. Set a goal for yourself.” Without skipping a beat, I replied, “I’m going to watch 50 movies.” Luckily he laughed or it would have been a long three hours in the car.

The goal was to watch 50 movies I had never seen before, and I did. I chose an actor or director I liked and tried to watch their entire canon of work. It’s amazing what a variety of movies you cover with this method – you’ll end up seeing movies you never knew existed. You can even spice things up and watch the movies in chronological order so you can witness the creative ups and downs of someone’s career.

If the overall quality of a film is more important to you, then I suggest you start with a list. If you don’t want to make up your own there is outside help readily available. The aforementioned AFI “100 Years, 100 [fill in the blanks]” lists are great. Go to www.afi.com, click on “tv & events,” then “AFI’s 100 Years”. Here you will have access to many different lists, ranging from the greatest comedies, thrills and inspirational films from the last century. More than a fair few films pop up on multiple lists, so if you are looking to cover the most ground, start with the “AFI 100 Years, 100 Movies” list (either the original or 10th Anniversary Edition will do).

Another list worth mentioning is laid out in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, with Steven Jay Schneider as the General Editor. The edition I got for Christmas lists movies released from 1902-2004. So far I have only seen 267 of them, so I have my work cut out for the next couple years. There is a genre index in the front of the book that is really helpful if, for example, you just want to watch dramas or war films. Throughout the book, there are images from the movies listed, cast, crew and production information, as well as essays about the history and themes of each film - explanations why these films are so important for all of us to see.

In the coming weeks, I promise I will spend an afternoon watching Casablanca. I will then spend that evening making my own list of movies I need to catch up on. I wish you luck on your cinematic endeavors. Years from now, you might look back on your resolution as the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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For the record, I had help from the editor of The Ryder with the very last line :)