The Genesis of this project

First a little background on me!

I am a 27 year old dude who LOVES movies.I love everything about movies, I enjoy watching them, then discussing them, and rating them. It is nothing more than a hobby but I love it. I love the medium of film so much, I think it can be one of the highest forms of art, after all when done well it is all the other forms of art working together as a cohesive unit. Photography, Performing, Writing, Construction, Pyrotechnics, Lighting, and Music. I know this art is probably whored out more than almost any other but there are times when a film fires near perfection on every cylinder and you see genuine art. Even if a film fails at some or most of the aspects, you can usually appreciate some of the aspects that they did right.

So though, I like to discuss movies and as such I will criticize movies. I know my opinion does not matter, I know I am nothing more than a consumer that pays to watch movies, I have not gone to film school, and I have not made a film, and I know my opinions are not the be all end all of truth. That being said I really enjoy the art of storytelling in general, and I look at it from that aspect so often I find myself at least partially enjoying a film that many of my friends or family may have not liked. I don't have any insane ideas that I am smarter or classier or more artistically in tune with films, I think I might try harder to see what a director was trying to do.

I will say one of the things I do grow tired of is remakes, I hate them because often they are not about storytelling, or an artistic idea of what to do but cashing in on an already established fan base, so I will say now I do despise them almost entirely with a few exceptions. Sequels are a bit different, I enjoy some sequels it just depends on what they are offering me in terms of creativity and vision.

Now with some info about me out of the way, now lets get to what I am doing.

Internet Movie Database is one of my favorite websites, and is one of my homepages. I enjoy every part of it, from the, now defunct, Daily Poll, to the Message Boards. I had originally decided to watch the entire IMDB top 250 Films starting with 250 working my way to number 1. The reasoning behind this is to broaden my horizons in the medium of film, and I love good movies. I have recently changed the whole idea of this and I will explain my reasons,

1. First of all the IMDB Top 250 has never been something that I have ever really respected much. I see a huge issue when films that are good, not great, shoot up to the top 50 because they are popular at the time, good example is when Avatar became number 1 UGH, and now with some justice it does not even appear on the list.

2. The size is rather formidable, and being a blue collar dude I simply cannot afford buying, or even renting, the many movies I do not own.

So what I have decided is to change it from the IMDB 250 to the American Film Institutes Top 100 films of all time (The 2007 version of this list). This brings the volume down considerably and also is a lot more weighted list that doesn't ebb and flow with popularity.

So the reasoning behind this blog is to be my diary of this event, and also I am going to personally grade each movie on a scale of 1-10 and give my thoughts on the film. One problem I foresee is with this being the top 100, these are probably going to all be really good movies, so I am sure most will get good grades from me but who knows.

Also I own 28 of the films right now. I have seen just under half (43) of these movies going in. I own the bottom two (therefore the first two) but the third one I do NOT so I might start quick with the first two and I will continue on when I figure out how I am going to go about some of these movies. I have Netflix streaming, I have not decided if I am going to sign up for the discs or just rent them on Amazon/iTunes or if I will buy them (used copies at FYE are awesome).

Either way this should be a fun undertaking.