Thoughts on 150.

Wow, I've been writing Criterion Quest for one hundred and fifty posts. That breaks down to roughly five months, possibly more, due to an at times crippling lack of ambition. Five months is the longest I've ever consistently created anything on a semi-daily basis, and even though I've stumbled in the last week (one post in six days? is anybody still reading?) I'm swollen with deluded pride.

A few thoughts on hitting 150:

1. I know I've said this in the past, but the chances of me finishing every film in the Criterion catalog before my brain is pudding and my manservant is piloting my shockingly neon speed boat along the coast of Boca Raton as I smoke cigs and swill expensive vodka on my leather seats is, well, to be honest, not very likely. These films aren't, shouldn't be, consumed as background material. These are challenging, brilliant films (for the most part) and finding time in my day, my week, my life, to watch an entire one of them with out dozing off is difficult. It's alright with the advancements in medical technology I'll probably still be peeing without assistance well in to my two hundreds, thus, maybe this delusion of completion could come to fruition.

2. Sometimes I just want to watch shitty movies. I was in Lost Weekend today, waiting for one of the two absolutely awesome, long-hair butt-rock blond fellows to help me find my next movie and actually found myself holding on to the box for The Brothers Grimm. Just holding it in front of my face, staring at Matt Damon and Heath Ledger's profiles, wondering how bad this film really was. I wanted to watch The Brother's Grimm, I actually considered paying for the much maligned Terry Gilliam flick. That's how desperate I am sometimes, festooned with free jazz Japanese gangster flicks and foppish Shakespearean melodrama, I just want to watch Transformers 2, stuff my face with popcorn and not think about a single thing. Standing there, Brothers Grimm in hand, I knew I had to get back to the Quest, my will power is faltering.

3. Again, it's been five months and I'm still under the one hundred mark in terms of the films I've watched. That means, I still have roughly four hundred films to watch before I die. Four hundred films not counting the three to four films they release every two weeks. Four hundred films squeezed in to every tightening cracks of my free time. I can feel wrinkles searing their way in to the spaces next to my eyes already. By the time I complete this Quest, many of you will be married, have children, careers and hernias. I on the other hand will still be here, in some dark cave of a room, eyes wide, the silvery reflection of my laptop playing across my face, slowly picking my way through some new film. Quite honestly, I'm pretty excited.

Tuesday: Black Narcissus (93)