The Monday Project Explained.

Long time listener, first time blogger. And all that.

Yes, this is not only the first time that I've posted a blog, but also the first time I've been to blogger.com. So I'm pretty spankin' fresh. There may be some kinks to work out here. I might have some rough edges. But let me start by explaining the purpose of this blog.

In the coming weeks, I'm going to be using this outlet to drop some movie reviews. OK, maybe reviews isn't the right word. The word implies a level of polish, style and professionalism that I'm not promising. Rather, I'm going to running through some random thoughts, musings and rants on a bunch of movies of which you may or may not have ever heard. Many of which you won't care about in the least. Sometimes they'll be written late at night and sometimes they'll be weeks after the fact. There may be a few verbose essays or they might just be 10 words to describe a movie experience.

Let me explain.

I've started something I'm calling the Monday Project. It's simply this: a commitment to watch a new movie every Monday night, without exception. Everyone has these kinds of movie lists rolling around in their minds (or at least, I think they do.) It's a combination of AFI's top 100 movies, with the best of Oscar winners, combined with a bunch of critic's top 10 lists, welded to movies that were talked about in school, with movies recommended by friends, bonded with an exhaustive whack of titles that I've been piling together for years. A wall-to-wall list of every movie that I think I need to see before I can take a break and start doubling back. My own list now sits a little south of 500 movies.

The genesis of this project was Roger Ebert's 100 Great Movies which startled me in two ways: first, Ebert's introduction not too casually implied that most people will never take the time to find the best movies out there for them. He described the ongoing experience of talking to people about favourite movies and learning (no surprise) that most people name a movie in the last 10-20 years (he gives the example of Ferris Bueller.) Makes sense, of course. People don't consume a lot of old movies. But he makes a pretty good case that the last two decades are only the tip of the movie-rama iceberg. There are a LOT of undiscovered diamonds out there. Case in point: what's to turn a person born today towards someday watching The Godfather or Star Wars or Chinatown? The second surprise then was Ebert's 100 Great Movies, of which there were a surprising that I had not seen and worse - had never heard of. I'm talking about movies that Ebert (or any critic for that matter) consider seminal flicks of the 20th Century. Now, I consider myself a movie-lover, and not in the casual sense. Between jamming 50+ hour movie-fests at home and weekend-long theatre fests (catching as many as 10-12 movies in a weekend), I think I make a pretty good case for a hard-core movie dude. I went to school for film. I took more than a couple film history courses. I watch old movies. I'm not scared of black and white (though I am a little intimidated by silent movies.) I work in the home video business.

Truth is, it started me to learn that there were movies - important, excellent, crucial, spectacular movies - that had slipped completely below my radar? And why is it that every time Criterion publishes their lists of upcoming releases, I'm lucky to know 25% of them? Where have I been?

With that in mind, I built the list. And it grew. And it grew. And by the time I had over 300 movies, I knew that I was going to need a stronger commitment than a "general urge" to see the movies when I had a spare Saturday afternoon. So I took a look at my week and found a sweet spot on Monday nights - a sweet spot without other responsibilities, distractions or restrictions on my time. Plus Mondays suck the bag at work so I really wanted the extra carrot dangling at the end of the afternoon. Then I found a way to randomly order my movie list to avoid anything as boring as straight-up chronology or alphebetical ordering. At the start of each month, I refresh the list again so that I'm never more than 3-4 weeks ahead of knowing what's to come. (That obviously keeps it pretty interesting.)

I started this project in early August and to date, I've watched the following:

Casablanca
Stagecoach
The Magnificent Seven
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
The Misfits
...and just this week, Barry Lyndon.

Every movie on this list was brand new to me with the exception of Casablanca which was part of a black and white Fest a couple of years ago. And the experience has been outstanding. Truly remarkable. I have not NOT enjoyed a single movie on this list and more importantly, I've been turned onto movies that I never would have found without this little project, which truth be told, is WHACK.

So there is it. You have it. The reviews will be added to this blog on a weekly basis, if I can stay regular. And every once in a while if I'm not. Read. Don't read. Makes no difference. I just want to make sure I get my impressions of the movies in writing. And maybe you'll be curious to check out some of these movies when you get a chance.

Hey. I'm out there, I'm out there.