WHILE I WAS OUT

There’s too much stuff that’s happened since I last regularly posted here. I’m not going to address everything. Why deliberately bore you in only my second return post. I’ve got plenty of time to do that. But there are a couple things I thought I’d mention.

Just in case you’re wondering, while I wasn’t writing, I also wasn’t reading. I mean, sure … I was reading; but I wound up taking this self-imposed yet unintentional hiatus from blogs. Just about all of them. I didn’t have the patience to read my whole bloglines collection on a daily basis. I didn’t know about the changes over at Gawker until a friend accidentally sent me a link to one post and I accidentally saw the “masthead” change. I have no idea what any of my esteemed web-friends have been writing, and I don’t think I can play catch-up now, so we’ll just start from scratch.

I also didn’t know that obviously some people are paying attention to my expertise. Why, it was only last December that I bemoaned the loss of The High Sign while also suggesting that Slate take Dana Stevens off television and make her their David Edelstein replacement. Woo hoo! So that happened … when? Recently I guess. (Also discovered by accident, cause as I said, haven’t been reading.) Dana is now officially my favorite New York based film critic because she’s smart, a great writer, non-pretentious, and she doesn’t try to show-off in each review. Congrats Dana (oh, and on that baby thing too)! Even if you too have somehow been fooled by The Cult of Mann (more on that tomorrow or Wednesday), I’m still very excited for you. Now, I’m not quite sure why Slate didn’t immediately try to fill Dana’s television shoes by making yours truly “Surferboy.” I mean, come on … I actually watch and like TV. How many television critics can actually say that. Anyway … moving on.

I’m also sure many of you have been asking yourself, “Hey … I wonder how Aaron is doing on this year’s “unattainable goal” which is actually looking more attainable than ever. The story began way back here, and then I gave a little recap of 2005 right here, on January 1. I’ve been assisted in 2006 by so much screening for Tribeca. Regardless, the rules this year are the same as last, and through today, I have watched (all the way through, from beginning to end, in one sitting, either in a theater, on video or via a cable channel that shows uncut sans commercials) 205 films. Now, I’m pretty sure that July 31 is day 212 of 2006, meaning that I’m basically right on track for averaging a movie a day. In fact, if I hadn’t just made the long overdue connection between Netflix and playing TV catch-up (yeah, that sidebar to the left this time is, in fact, way out of date), I’d probably have watched even more.

So … for those of you who need some help falling asleep tonight or those even fewer in numbers who actually have an interest in such a thing, after the jump you can take a chronological and in-no-other-way-sorted peek at what I’ve been watching. (You may notice some themes along the way. If you haven’t heard of the film and/or you can’t find it on IMDb, it was most likely a submission to this year’s festival — especially in January and February when I was watching little else.)

JANUARY
1. Batman Begins (DVD)
2. The West Wittering Affair (DVD)
3. 20 Centimeters (DVD)
4. At the Green Line (DVD)
5. In the Mood for Love (DVD)
6. Diminishing Memories (DVD)
7. Kilometre Zero (DVD)
8. 2046 (DVD)
9. Seven Fallen Objects: Who Killed George (DVD)
10. Every Twenty One Seconds … or Why I Scream at the Refrigerator (DVD).
11. Bad Moon (DVD)
12. Sucker Free Lake (DVD)
13. Quarta B (DVD)
14. Drawn In (DVD)
15. Superman (HBO)
16. The Parallax View (HBO)
17. Match Point (BAM Rose Cinema)
18. Ra Choi (DVD)
19. Lenny (Sundance Channel)
20. … From the Heart (DVD)
21. Mom (DVD)
22. To and From New York (DVD)
23. The Time Machine (1960 version – TCM)
24. Who Is Marvin Israel? (DVD)
25. Lolita (1960 Kubrick version — DVD)
26. Lolita (1997 Lyne version — DVD)
27. Curtain Call (DVD)
28. Dark Water (Orig Japanese — DVD)
29. Broken Flowers (DVD)
30. Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project (DVD)
31. The Peace Patriots (DVD)
32. Manderlay (IFC Center)
33. Head-On (DVD)
34. Meet John Doe (TCM)
35. To Kill a Mockingbird (TCM)
36. Airport (TCM)
37. Wet Hot American Summer (DVD)
38. Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (Century Regency in San Rafael)
39. Mrs. Henderson Presents (Clay in San Francisco)
40. Bekhal’s Tears (DVD)
41. Papa Parkinson (DVD)
42. Red Dog. Scooter. Applesauce. (DVD)
43. Mercy Street (DVD)
44. Mud (DVD)
45. Yorick (DVD)
46. Boynton Beach Bereavement Club (DVD)
47. Poet Head (DVD)
48. The Cabin Movie (DVD)
49. Send in the Clown (DVD)
50. Escape Artists (DVD)
51. Scaring the Fish (DVD)
52. Twenty (DVD)
53. All Kindsa Girls (DVD)
54. The Gold Bracelet (DVD)

FEBRUARY
55. A Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus (DVD)
56. Whipper-Snapper (DVD)
57. Hold the Door (DVD)
58. Working Title (DVD)
59. 51 Birch Street (DVD)
60. Jellysmoke (DVD)
61. Fated (DVD)
62. Once They Were Neighbors (DVD)
63. Buddy (VHS)
64. Butts Out (VHS)
65. Cowboys, Indians & Lawyers (VHS)
66. Drakmar: A Vassal’s Journey (VHS)
67. Beauty Quest (VHS)
68. We Go Way Back (VHS)
69. American Zeitgeist (DVD)
70. What the Man With No Shoes Said to the Man With No Feet (VHS)
71. Breast Cancer Diaries (VHS)
72. Cut From a Different Cloth: Burqas and Beliefs (VHS)
73. American Hardcore (DVD)
74. All Is Normal (DVD)
75. Broken (DVD)
76. Imperfect Strangers (VHS)
77. Beowulf & Grendel (DVD)
78. Tales of Times Square (VHS)
79. Rampage (Dir: George Gittoes; DVD)
80. Who Killed Walter Benjamin … (DVD)
81. A Dios Momo (DVD)
82. The Legend of Lucy Keyes (DVD)
83. Out of Faith (VHS)

MARCH
84. Air Guitar Nation (DVD)
85. The Bridge (DVD)
86. loudQUIETloud (DVD)
87. The Treatment (DVD)
88. Rock the Bells (DVD)
89. Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People’s Temple (DVD)
90. Date Movie (Regal Union Square)
91. Pittsburgh (DVD)
92. Hatchet (DVD)
93. V For Vendetta (Loews eWalk)
94. American Cannibal: The Road to Reality (DVD)
95. Once in a Lifetime (DVD)
96. The Road to Rajapur (DVD)
97. The Groomsmen (DVD)
98. Just Like the Son (DVD)
99. Awesome! I Fuckin’ Shot That! (Regal Union Square)
100. Chutney Popcorn (VHS)
101. Cake (DVD)
102. The Big Bad Swim (DVD)
103. Wordplay (DVD)
104. Sheitan (DVD)

APRIL
105. Mini’s First Time (DVD)
106. Dear Father, Quiet, We’re Shooting … (DVD)
107. Kettle of Fish (DVD)
108. Brothers of the Head (DVD)
109. Journey to the End of the Night (DVD)
110. Freedom’s Fury (DVD)
111. Colour Me Kubrick (DVD)
112. Viva Zapatero! (DVD)

MAY
113. The TV Set (Tribeca Cinemas)
114. American Dreamz (AMC Lincoln Square)
115. Over the Hedge (Regal Union Square)
116. Art School Confidential (AMC Empire 25)
117. Mission: Impossible III (Regal Battery Park)
118. United 93 (AMC Empire 25)
119. Thank You For Smoking (AMC Empire 25)
120. Poseidon (AMC Empire 25)
121. Friends With Money (AMC Empire 25)
122. Conventioneers (DVD)
123. Room (DVD)
124. Thumbsucker (DVD)

JUNE
125. The X-Men: The Last Stand (AMC Kip’s Bay)
126. Army of Shadows (Film Forum)
127. Constantine (HBO)
128. The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (DVD)
129. Blow-up (BAM Rose)
130. Bananas (DVD)
131. Kings and Queen (DVD)
132. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex … (DVD)
133. Sleeper (DVD)
134. The Beat That My Heart Skipped (DVD)
135. 9 Songs (DVD)
136. Love and Death (DVD)
137. The Crimson Kimono (Film Forum)
138. House of Bamboo (Film Forum)
139. Annie Hall (DVD)
140. Chronicle of a Love (BAM Rose)
141. An Inconvenient Truth (BAM Rose)
142. L’Avventura (BAM Rose)
143. La Notte (BAM Rose)
144. Interiors (DVD)
145. Manhattan (DVD)
146. The Da Vinci Code (Regal Battery Park)
147. Superman Returns (AMC Lincoln Square)
148. L’Eclisse (BAM Rose)
149. The Heart of the Game (AMC Village VII)
150. Murderball (DVD)
151. Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (DVD)
152. Stardust Memories (DVD)
153. The Road to Guantanimo (Lincoln Plaza)
154. Play It Again, Sam (VHS)
155. Hoop Dreams (DVD)
156. A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (DVD)
157. Zelig (DVD)
158. Broadway Danny Rose (DVD)
159. Double Indemnity (Film Forum)
160. The Purple Rose of Cairo (DVD)

JULY
161. Why We Fight (DVD)
162. A Prairie Home Companion (Landmark Sunshine)
163. A Foreign Affair (Film Forum)
164. Some Like It Hot (Film Forum)
165. Hannah and Her Sisters (DVD)
166. The Lost Weekend (Film Forum)
167. Who Killed the Electric Car? (Lincoln Plaza)
168. Witness for the Prosecution (Film Forum)
169. Serenity (DVD)
170. Radio Days (DVD)
171. Glory Road (DVD)
172. Sky High (DVD)
173. Sunset Blvd. (Film Forum)
174. Beyond the Rocks (TCM)
175. Darwin’s Nightmare (Sundance Channel)
176. Cars (Loews eWalk)
177. Stalag 17 (Film Forum)
178. Miracle (DVD)
179. Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (DVD)
180. September (DVD)
181. Ace in the Hole (Film Forum)
182. Excellent Cadavers (Film Forum)
183. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (DVD)
184. Another Woman (DVD)
185. Crimes and Misdemeanors (DVD)
186. Rebecca (BAM Rose)
187. The Apartment (Film Forum)
188. Irma La Douce (Film Forum)
189. Alice (DVD)
190. Lady in the Water (AMC Lincoln Square)
191. Inside Deep Throat (DVD)
192. Shadows and Fog (DVD)
193. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920 — TCM)
194. Husbands and Wives (DVD)
195. Happy Endings (DVD)
196. Pink Flamingos (Sundance Channel)
197. Nowhere (Sundance Channel)
198. Peeping Tom (BAM Rose)
199. Little Miss Sunshine (AMC Lincoln Square)
200. Wall (Sundance Channel)
201. The Living End (Sundance Channel)
202. Two-Lane Blacktop (Sundance Channel)
203. In This World (Sundance Channel)
204. Wallace & Gromit: Three Amazing Adventures (Sundance Channel)
205. Miami Vice (Park Slope Pavilion)

WHEW! More comments TK …