Wednesday, April 14, 2010

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die



With my interest in film, I was in the bookstore one day when this book caught my eye.

I guess the title had something to do with it - it's pretty catchy and hard to miss. As I looked among the other movie review books in the film section, this one stood out.

So, now I've got it. And, I've decided to integrate my film reviews with the book every time I see and do a review on a film listed.

Going through the book, it's very easy to read and straight forward. I'm not sure if anyone here has read any film review books (such as this one), but for me personally I haven't really read a good one in a long time.

In many cases, I remember finding the reviews in prior film review books I've read to be quite dry with not many pictures included. Also, when I'm looking for a film to watch I prefer reading reviews that are very straight forward and easy to understand.

This book goes in historical order with it's list, starting with films in the early 1900s and ending with films in the late 2000s. Also, there is a checklist in the front of the book with the entire "1001 film list" so you can check off each film as you see them, pretty neat!

The first film on the list is "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" (A Trip to the Moon), which was made in 1902. And, the last film on the list is "Atonement", which was made in 2007.

Each film has it's own dedicated page. It showcases the year the film was made, the specs on the films (i.e. country where it was made, director, producer, screenplay, cast, etc), along with a snapshot pic from the movie and of course - the review.

With each review, it describes in detail why the movie is important (to be on the list) and it's effect on society and the filmmaking industry at the time it was made.

Since I enjoy history, it's interesting for me to read about the history and timeline of each film. It's even more interesting to read about how and why each film is unique in it's own way, thus making the top "1000 movie list".

So, this will be part of my movie watching journey that I'll be sharing with you. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to pick out the movies to see.

I thought of choosing each film at random (such as opening the book and writing a review on whatever film the page turns to). However, I think I'm going to just play it by ear and review films on the list as they come up and as I watch them.

If you're interested in film and it's history, you might just want to check out this book. As I understand, it does get updated from time to time (there are older versions - I picked up the latest one).

If you'd like to check out the entire list, you can find it here.

Looking through my movie reviews so far, the first film that I've found on the list can be found here. With each review on the list, I will label each post with the "1001 movies" tag.

If there's a movie you've seen on the list that's one of your favorites and/or you've done a review on one, I'd definitely like to hear about it!

Happy movie watching!

p.s. Feel free to leave comments on any post either here and/or my Facebook Page. Comments are always welcome, thanks for reading!

4 comments:

Univarn said...

Ah, cool, another person who found this book. If you'd like, there's a group of us working our way through it one film at a time, one week at a time (just for fun). And comparing our reviews.

http://1001moviesyoumustseeclub.blogspot.com/

is the link. It's run by AnswerMVP2001 (csmoviereviews on twitter).

Film Gurl said...

Awesome, this sounds great! I'll check it out, thanks for sharing the link and for stopping by!

p.s. I'll also put up the link on the Facebook Page with this post, think it'll be neat for others to check out the reviews as well!

Molly Page said...

This sounds like a lot of fun. I started doing something similar on my blog with AFI's 100.
Hope your adventure is lots of fun!

Film Gurl said...

Thanks, I'm excited about it. That's cool about your blog with AFI's 100, thanks for sharing and for stopping by!