It seems strange to have a cinematic backlog but i can’t ever seem to find time to watch films anymore, not when there’s a million other things to do (including playing a million different games). So, i try to keep a list of films that interest me when i see some information about them, because if i don’t i’ll quickly forget they even exist.
So the list, like all backlogs, grows. This one is rather weedy however.
So talk me out of films i don’t need to see! Or, perhaps better, talk me into a flim I need to see.
California Typewriter
808
The 24 Hour War
Hardcore Henry
Joy
H.
Samsara
Hail, Caesar!
Helvetica
Force Majeure
The Death of Stalin
Hereditary
(and for future reference)
Wildlife
mid90s
I Think We’re Alone Now
Oh man, I have scraps of paper all over the place with movies to watch. (Canadian Netflix is particularly sucky when it comes to finding older movies.) Here is one list I found - I have no idea where I got half of these and it doesn’t include a whole batch of movies from the horror thread:
Jasten
Aqui Alla
This is not a Film
Mama
Magic-Magic
Vinyan
Towelhead
Nothing Private
Hot Coffee
The Rover
Rust and Bone
Spirited Away
Princess Mononoke
Bad Lieutenant
4 months 3 weeks and 2 days
Please let me know if there is something unwatchable on here!
Hmm. There are a bazillion movies out there that I OUGHT to see; movies that are shameful gaps in my experience life… like, say, Citizen Kane, which I’ve never taken the time to watch. But to be honest I’m probably not going to get around to seeing most of them until retirement, if then. I just can’t imagine pausing on some Sunday afternoon and saying, “I think I’m finally going to watch Some Like it Hot!”
That said, there are a number of movies that I WANT to see and actually plan on getting around to:
War for the Planet of the Apes
Ant Man and the Wasp
Blade Runner 2140-something
A Quiet Place
Annihilation
Solo
Ready Player One
I, Tonya
L’Avventura
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Pather Panchali
Angel Heart
Moon
The Battle of Algiers
Hell or High Water
Silence
Frenzy
25th Hour
First Reformed
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Arrival
Halloween
Come and See
I Was Born, But…
I have a letterboxd list open on my browser at all times so that I can quickly add interesting movies to see. I think I’m pretty close to hitting 900, so I won’t burden anyone with it. But you should watch The Death of Stalin and Hail Caesar! at your earliest convenience. Also, 808 is a terrific little doc.
If you’ve seen the short then don’t bother with the ‘full length’ (read: needlessly long) movie. If you want to switch it out for another short-made-long then try Lights Out, which is still considerably shorter than Mama and home to some effective scares.
Ugh, backlog. There are many, many “must-sees” and “oughtta-sees” movies out there. I check them off when I can. Sometimes I stream 'em. Sometime I see them at a friend’s house.
Sometimes I watch physical discs from Netflix. We still have the service, and sometimes I forget I have it. It is so much work to take the disc out of the envelope and put it in the player, you know. So sometimes the disc sits around the house for a long, long time before I actually watch it. Back around 2010, 2011, I went through discs pretty quickly. They were in better shape than DVDs I’d get from the library, usually.
This is a record of my backlog of shame. I don’t want to think about how much money I’ve spent on the disc portion of Netflix solely to have Clerks 2 hang out in my house for nearly a year and a half and Mildred Pierce (1945) for three years. (Cancel the service? No, that’s another conversation. A long one. No time for that now.)
We love our Cinema Paradiso disc service because you can almost always get things you can’t on the streaming services so it’s a good, reliable and quality catch-all, albeit slower. Our list is huge and constantly growing though thanks to sites like this, but we see so much good or interesting stuff it’s always a pleasure not knowing what we’re in for.
I also have another backlog list of films which aren’t even in Cinema Paradiso’s database, or that I know are available on streaming. And I’m adding to both of them at the moment by going through these recommendations from the Flop House podcast
Oh hell yeah, plus Nick and Nora are having the time of their lives while going on weeklong benders and, oh yeah, solving some murders along the way. I admit I was a little horrified to see that they end up having a baby in one of the later movies. But then my mom admitted she would sometimes slip a bit of bourbon into my milk bottle so I would sleep at night, so probably everything turned out all right.
It occurs to me now that they’re presumably the inspiration for Frank and Sadie Doyle in The Thrilling Adventure Hour. That may, in fact, have been why I put it on the list. It’s been a while and I’ve forgotten what prompted it.
