Where I Stand (January 1st-ist Edition)...

So at the end of the year, over 416 movies watched - when I started this little project, one of my first standings posts referenced 283 movies watched. At the very least, this is 133 movies watched from the list.

At this rate, I'll be done in 2013! Ha!

Either way, I've gotten to see films I've always meant to see and I've gotten to see films I would have never heard of if it hadn't been for this little book. I fell hard for directors I should have always known and rekindled a love for watching films that had started to wane in the name of the need to shove the 100-million dollar guaranteed movie in our face no matter the cost to the story. While I haven't been thrilled with every single film on the list I've watched, there hasn't really been one I've wanted to deny the existence of like a certain Crystal Skull piece of crap that trashed my childhood this summer...

Anyway, onto last month. While we did watch a lot of movies, but we took a break from the list. Only 9 were actually from the list, so were back to a single list of favorites:

Cabaret: It's your typical girl-meets-bisexual-boy love triangle set against the backdrop of Hitler's rise to power in Germany, but it's a musical! (Really, it's iconic and I hadn't seen it, what am I supposed to say?) What's a shame is that "Money, Money" isn't the best musical number and yet it's the only one that gets any play when they show clips.

Moonsoon Wedding: Great westernized Bollywood. Just the right balance of comedy, drama and love without going too far in any one direction. Did I mention the fabulous music? When you're actually rooting for nice things to happen to the slimy wedding planner, you know it's good.

Heavenly Creatures: First, it's proof that Peter Jackson is a really good director without the aid of overblown special effects and a built-in geek fan-boy base. Secondly, as will all true-life murder stories, it's a good learning experience on what NOT to do if one wants to get away with murder. In this case, when checking off "things to do" one should think to burn the diary you've been keeping detailing your desire to kill your mother in cold blood before actually carrying out the crime. Now, I did mention OVERBLOWN special effects since the girls do have an amazing fantasy world they've created in clay that comes to life throughout the film - proof that Jackson once knew the meaning of the word "restraint" when it came to interspersing special effects with storytelling.