The Hollywood Classic Marathon (February 11)

With less than a day to go before my #WatchlistScreenCaps viewing diary concludes, I've been catching up on blind spots from the past year. If I were to continue this exercise another month, I think I'd watch Hollywood classics from the thirties to the fifties almost exclusively, as that period is at once a favorite of mine, extremely crucial to film history, and - ironically - severely underrepresented in my viewing habits since February 2013.

I couldn't make up for this in just one viewing marathon, but nonetheless these ten classics from my collection (except for Frankenstein, which I had to watch online) can do their little part to correct the imbalance. From morning till midnight, I traveled from 1931 to 1954, via gangster, horror, musical, adventure, comedy, noir, and western films, and most of the major studios (I think only Paramount got shafted). Stars like James Cagney, Astaire and Rogers, Kate Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart (twice), Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas, Gene Tiernay, Robert Mitchum, and Marlon Brando - among others - shot across my screen, although not all were featured in my eventual screencaps.

Here then are the ten films I watched on Tuesday, with a screen-captured image and caption for each. Linked titles lead to my posts on that film (every single one of today's films has been featured in some capacity on Lost in the Movies). Visit my #WatchlistScreenCaps archive for images from everything I've watched in the past year. Stay tuned later today as at least three more posts will be going up before the year-long venture finally closes.

10 Auteurs in a Day: the missing director marathon (February 6)

I thought January's viewing marathon would be my last before concluding #WatchlistScreenCaps, but here we are again. My year-long viewing diary ends in five days, and some gaps need plugging before it's over - hence two more marathon sessions, this being the first (the second samples classic Hollywood and is scheduled for Monday).

The point of my screen-cap approach was initially quantitative rather than qualitative: to illustrate what I happened to watch, not to offer up a comprehensive view of cinema history. Nonetheless, at some point I began viewing movies in part so I could screen-cap them and add particular films to my ever-growing image library. Therefore I began balancing out my watchlist, which leaned heavily (and unusually) toward the past thirty years, nostalgia over exploration, and shorts, docs, and cartoons rather than live-action fiction features.

These readjustments have been escalating in the past few weeks as I prepare to end the exercise - for example, my Monday round-up focused exclusively on the late sixties and very early seventies (which, despite being my favorite epoch, I'd mostly ignored till now). Today offers one of my most emphatic "fixer-upper" attempts: it hasn't been a very auteurist year for me, and a lot of great directors have been left off the roster...until now.

Of course there way more great filmmakers excluded than I could rectify in one day's viewings, so I turned to They Shoot Pictures Don't They?'s list of top 250 directors and picked the top ten whom I hadn't sampled in the past year. This still excludes many greats (to just sample the next ten directors I could have chosen: Powell & Pressburger, Vigo, Cassevetes, Lubitsch, Polanski, (wrong - forgot I watched Chinatown), Leone, Ophuls, Donen & Kelly, Kiarostami - whom I've never seen and should probably squeeze in before Wednesday - and Malick). However, it does nicely insert some great visualists (and hence some striking screen-caps) into my collection. And, more importantly, it allowed me to return to and also discover some of the most acclaimed films of all time.

Eight of the films were watched on Hulu (bookending another marathon from last February), the first four as revisits, the final four as first-time viewings for me. The middle two directors (whose work was barely featured on Hulu, if at all) were drawn from my own collection. Oh, and the #1 director I haven't watched yet in the past year is already scheduled for my upcoming weekend viewing, so I left Sr. Fellini out of this venture. I watched these titles in the order their creators appear on the list. Well, enough of this unusually lengthy intro...time to let the pictures talk.

So here are the last ten films I watched, with a screen-captured image and caption. Linked titles lead to my posts on that film. Visit my #WatchlistScreenCaps archive for images from everything I've watched in the past year.

The Last Viewing Marathon (#WatchlistScreenCaps, 1/5)

On Sunday I watched a dozen movies and began three celebrated TV shows. This will be my last viewing marathon before I end #WatchlistScreenCaps in a month (for all the images included in this hashtag since last February, you can visit my viewing diary archive). I used the day to catch up with the last batch of films on my backlog, mostly unseen till now (though a few were revisits). From now on, the rest of the movies will be Netflix selections watched at my leisure; just as with books and music, I'm trying to let myself be more casual and less structured in what I watch.

Mostly by coincidence, the first four films I watched were kids' films centering around a journey, followed by four 80s action classics (none of which, believe it or not, I'd ever watched before), and after squeezing in a couple more random films I finally watched some notable television pilots (I don't usually include screen-caps from TV episodes unless I'm documenting a viewing marathon). Until now I'd avoided these shows, knowing their addictive reputation. Now that my movie backlog is cleared, maybe I can finally make room for them.

So here is the first #WatchlistScreenCaps round-up of 2014, and the last to focus on a single day's lineup...

The Christmas Day Nostalgia Marathon (#WatchlistScreenCaps)

Today, December 25, I celebrated Christmas with a viewing marathon. There was a definite theme to the lineup: not only were the first eight movies (well, six movies and a TV episode) holiday-themed, most of them I knew well from childhood (the two exceptions were based on stories or characters I was very familiar with). In many cases, this was my first re-viewing as an adult.

In keeping with the tradition of previous viewing marathons, all films viewed digitally appear full-size while TV episodes, VHS viewings, and broadcasts (i.e. things I usually wouldn't screen-cap if I wasn't being so comprehensive) appear in smaller images. Visit my #WatchlistScreenCaps archive for a full line-up of everything I've watched this year.

Links lead to pieces I've written on the given film. Merry Christmas (or what's left of it), Happy Boxer's Day, and a Happy New Year.

Filmmaker documentary marathon, 11/9

On November 9 I held a viewing marathon in which I watched documentaries about filmmakers. Here they are, with a screen-captured image and personal epigram. Visit my #WatchlistScreenCaps archive for more arresting images.

A Saturday of Classic Cartoons: 90 images from my animation viewing marathon, 10/5

What day better than Saturday for a classic cartoon marathon? This past weekend, I got up while it was still dark out and, in an effort that would've made my 10-year-old self proud, extended a Saturday morning tradition well into the evening. I've been on a vacation from work this past week (it had been over a year since I'd taken more than four days off) and using the opportunity to catch up with many discs I've owned - in some cases for years - but never watched (as in never never - many were blind buys). Among these were four cartoon DVDs: Mickey Mouse in color & black-and-white, a Looney Tunes collection, and a cheapo anthology of 100 cartoons.

Since July I've been steadily making my way through these (see "100 Cartoons in 100 Images" from August) but I figured now was the time to finally plough through and finish 'em. So I did. There were some familiar favorites (including selections I hadn't seen since VHS tape in the late 80s - what an uncanny sensation to rewatch those!), several duds or weak efforts (I confirmed that I really tend to prefer 30s & 40s cartoons to those from the 50s & 60s), some fascinating oddities (including that cartoon with human lips Tarantino sampled in Pulp Fiction), and really revealing historical contexts.

In the latter category there was a slew of offensive racial imagery which I ended up not screen-capping even as an example (the Disney disc features Leonard Maltin nervously providing context before certain shorts - though the Warners and Fleischers cartoons I saw had more extensive stereotyping). Highlighting these is a worthy effort, but it didn't fit the tone of this lineup; perhaps in another post. On a more upbeat note, I also found these cartoons more culturally on-the-nose than many live-action features produced around the same time; somehow that vibrant, bouncy swingin' 30s & 40s energies is communicated more readily via animation.

Below are 90 screen-caps, including 3 from TV show (these appear smaller than the others and will not be included in the official #WatchlistScreenCaps directory). I've included a caption for each, usually a joke, alliterative description, or bad pun (though often, the opportunities for those were already taken by the toon's title) - although occasionally they express personal admiration especially for the dazzling accomplishments of Robert Clampett (the only linked title leads to a clip from my favorite film of his).

If you've seen any of these, or have any questions or comments, leave 'em below. Here we go...

Images from the Documentary Marathon, 10/1

Yesterday (October 1), I held a viewing marathon in which I watched ten documentaries. Here they are, with a screen-captured image and personal epigram. Visit my #WatchlistScreenCaps archive for more arresting images.

Images from the Two-Day Viewing Marathon, 9/15 - 9/16

On Sunday, September 15, and Monday, September 16, I held a "viewing marathon" - not a movie marathon per se as it included episodes of TV series and miniseries and video essays as well as short films and features. Since  I usually don't include episodes or video essays in #WatchlistScreenCaps line-ups, those appear in a smaller size and are not on the master list (which can be found here). My previous mixed-medium viewing diary is here.

The Sunday visual diary: Viewing marathon, 8/18

On Sunday, August 18, I held a "viewing marathon" - not a movie marathon per se as it included episodes of TV series and miniseries along with video essays, short films, segments from interviews, and features. Though I usually don't include episodes or video essays in #WatchlistScreenCaps line-ups, I've included them here in smaller sizes than the stuff I watched in its entirety. Previous viewing marathons were covered here and here. All #WatchlistScreenCaps entries can be found here. Links below lead to previous pieces on these titles.

Top 10 Movie Marathon (#WatchlistScreenCaps, 6/3)

On June 3, 2013, I watched all ten of my favorite films (thirteen, actually, if you count the four entries in the Stille Nacht series separately), according to a list I compiled a year and a half ago. The idea was that it would inspire me as I developed my own feature film idea in the coming days. We'll see how it works out. For now, enjoy the screen-caps I tweeted after each viewing, along with - as always - brief info on the title and a epigrammatic tagline.

As always, Follow this feature on Twitter here, read about the kickoff here, and view the previous #WatchlistScreenCaps roundup here. Links below are to my post on the film in question.

Movie Marathon (#WatchlistScreenCaps 4/22)

Between 8am, April 22 to 2am, April 23, I watched seven features, four shorts, and one featurette in a movie marathon, ranging from fantasy films to documentaries, from kids' cartoons to the dark avant-garde. Below are the screen-caps from the films I viewed, accompanied by basic info and an epigrammatic caption. Links are to my own posts on a given film.

Follow this feature on Twitter here, read about the kickoff here, and view the previous #WatchlistScreenCaps roundup here.

The Criterion-Hulu Marathon (live-blogging)

In which the author watches as many Criterion uploads on Hulu (free for the last day) as possible in twelve hours, and logs his viewing as he goes. Read more here.

6am. It begins. After each film, I will upload a screen cap and compose a quick capsule at this spot. I will update this post accordingly, and retitle it each time until at the end of the day it assumes its final form. I'll also be tweeting. First up...