This is the place I'm going to keep a list of all the movies I watch during the year. [This will be an ongoing post.]

Movies are linked to the IMDB and rated with 1-5 stars.

January:

• Cronicas ****
  
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind ****
  
• Shattered Glass *****
  
• Ghost in the Machine **
  
• The Interpreter ****
  
• Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith ****
  
• Zardoz *** (Weird! But I kinda liked it ...)
  
• War of the Worlds ** (Cool special effects, but the story was flat)
  
• Shallow Grave ** (Ewan was good, but the ending left much to be desired.)
  
• Brokeback Mountain ***** REVIEW
  
• The Island ***** (Excellent!)
  
• Syriana *** (Too damn confusing for the big screen. Save it for DVD where you can stop, rewind, and pause to try and grasp the bits and pieces that make up this otherwise remarkable movie.)
  
• Girl with a Pearl Earring ***** (Every frame like a painting! This movie gets better every time I watch it.)
  
• My Dog Skip ** (A little too corny for my taste.)
  
• Kiss the Girls *** (Not bad.)
  
• Behind Enemy Lines *** (Bleh.)
  
• Happy Endings ** (It tried. It really tried. But it just didn't quite pull it off.)
  
• Kingdom of Heaven *** Review (Second time around, and it still sucked.)
  
• Kissing Jessica Stein *** (Entertaining.)
  
• Bring it On ** (Moderately amusing at best. Terrible acting.)
  
• Passion in the Desert ***** (Remarkable. Outstanding. And oh so beautiful.)
  
  

As you can probably tell by now, I didn't buy into the whole Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! crap every other blogger in the blogsphere seemed to have succumbed to. I figured no matter if I wish my readers a good X-mas, they'll have one (or not)...

There will also be no endless posting of New Year's resolutions - only the resolution to continue to go against the grain by not posting such stuff.

On the Bright Side however - I am embarking on a new project. One that occured to me in a sleepless minute last night. You know - between the befuddlement of half-awakedness and the fog of mid-sleep. So this could be interesting - or could just be boring for everybody besides me. We'll see.

In any case: you see, I like movies.

No, you don't understand.
I really do.
I really, really do.

So much that aside from subscribing to HBO and Netflix, I forage in my friends' DVD collections for fresh stuff, and make regular trips to the local library to find nuggets (they have an excellent free rental collection of independent and foreign movies). I've seen all three "Lord of the Rings" movies on their opening day, and of course own the Extended Edition sets. I'm a member of the Regal Crown Club, which gives me a free movie ticket after something like 5 visits. What I can't catch on TV because of scheduling conflicts, I Tivo. (And I really need to get myself a DVD recorder I can hook up to the Tivo, because my HD is almost full, and I'm not willing to erase any of the movies I've recorded ...). I even volunteer for the local Film Festival, just so that I can go see those movies too and have access to their lending library after the fact. If I had a faster internet connection and BitTorrent - well, let's just say, it's a good thing that I don't ...

So - the word obsession comes to mind.

To fully realize that obsession now, I've come to the conclusion that I need to keep track of the movies I watch. A few times last year I've actually started watching a flick, and 10 minutes into it, realized that I'd seen it before. That totally bummed me out.

This blog would be a natural place to keep such a list. Of course, I don't update it nearly often enough. So maybe a running list in an ongoing post would work. Any thoughts/input, valued reader?

[Update: The list lives here now.]