365 Days, 100 Films...

Oli Davis embarks on a journey through 100 films in 365 days...

1st March, 2011 - I panicked as the clock approached midnight. Not for pumpkin carriages or silver slippers, but for a New Year’s resolution, one other than the standard fare: go to the gym/eat healthier/become a wrestler. In the distress, I stole a friend’s resolution – to watch 100 films one had never seen before. Fuelled by the New Year liquor, I added ambitiously, “and to write an article on each!”

8 1/3 films a month, 1.92 a week, 0.27 a day: 100 films in a year. Surely I watch a lot more than that, but then again, maybe I don’t. I’ve never kept a record. Maybe I’m not the film obsessive my personality is constructed around. A serious character evaluation could be in order if not…

So it’s now March and I’ve seen only eleven films. That’s 0.186 films a day, short by 0.084. That sort of number can add up pretty fast. I thought I’d be well over the average by now. More worryingly, for the resolution’s trickier part, I’ve written nothing.

After a mirror pep talk with self-help book in hand (another attempt at a different resolution), I’m beginning to eliminate the backlog. A toast, then, to that cynical, optimistic bitch – January – almost forgotten as we wake afresh in Spring...


4th March, 2011 - I’ve been a bit of a latecomer to Real Life, being in full-time education up until 22 ½. Perhaps that’s why I still count my age with fractions. Because of the abundant spare time full-time education can provide (when done wrong), I’ve always been able to watch a lot of films. In fact, between the ages of 18 and 22 ½, my life was almost exclusively film; watching, making, studying, reading. Little things sometimes got in the way, like drinking and meth, but film was always there - humming away like the Big Bang’s eternal background fuzz.
Real Life, it seems, is against this. Commutes, cutbacks and council tax are what Real Life wants. Real Life has no time for the petty distractions of cinema. In Real Life, film is a hobby. Or worse - a pastime.

Half a year I’ve been living in Real Life, almost to the day, and already it feels as though film is expendable, as just something literally to pass the time. This task of 100 films in 365 days too – I’m moaning after only having done one review. But one must overcome such tests of the Will. I’ve seen people with no discernable hobbies, their joys eaten away by the demands of career and family, of being an adult, soaking whatever free time they have with television and wine. Is there anything more disheartening than these victories of Real Life?

So instead of these hobbies fading away, as time becomes more and more scarce, one must make that which was once gloriously abundant into precious, sacred hours. After all, what is more poignant: sitting in a University room from 10pm to 6am doing a Bourne film marathon; or working all week, making the time, earning the time, to get the train to the cinema, pay an adult ticket price and sit amongst the Sunday afternoon crowd?

22 ½ and I still don’t feel like a grown-up. Maybe those with hobbies never do.

#1 - Without a Clue (1988)
#2 - Doubt (2008)
#3 - The King's Speech (2010)
#4 - 127 Hours (2010)
#5 - Barney's Version (2010)
#6 - Red River (1948)
#7 - Rio Bravo (1959)
#8 - Submarine (2010)
#9 - The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
#10 - Caged (2010)
#11 - We Are What We Are (2010)
#12 - Cat Ballou (1965)
#13 - The Adjustment Bureau (2011)
#14 - Never Let Me Go (2010)
#15 - Attack the Block (2011)
#16 - Source Code (2011)
#17 - Black Swan (2010)
#18 - Hanna (2011)
#19 - 13 Assassins (2010)
#20 - Fertile Ground (2010)
#21 - Laputa - Castle in the Sky (1986)
#22 - Young Bruce Lee (2010)
#23 - Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
#24 - My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
#25 - True Grit (2010)

Oli Davis