It’s New Year’s Eve, I’m sat watching the TV with the person I’d most like to be sat next to at this moment in time, and I’m feeling like it’s the perfect time to wrap up the year.
At the start of 2014 I made a few film and blog-related resolutions. You can read that post here. Basically, I aimed to do the following:
Cross off at least 75 movies from the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List
Watch and review my 12 Most Anticipated Movies from the 1001 Movies List
Watch and review my 12 Least Anticipated Movies from the 1001 Movies List.
Take part in the Matinee’s Blind Spot series.
Celebrate HitchcOctober properly, with a Hitchcock review every day.
Finish reviewing all of Kate Winslet’s movies.
Podcast more.
Go to the cinema at least 25 times.
So, how well did I do? Well, to be honest, pretty terribly.
Let’s start with what I achieved:
I successfully took part in the Blind Spot series, reviewing the likes of Singin’ in the Rain, Rocky Horror Picture Show and 2001: A Space Odyssey, all watched for the first time. I may have been a day late some months, but I submitted something nonetheless.
I freaking owned HitchcOctober, reviewing a total of 30 Hitchcock films that month, along with a smattering of posts for other sites too. The only problem was, the constant working through October pretty much burned me out for the rest of the year, which suffered immensely, but we’ll get to that.
I podcasted a heck of a lot more this year, which wasn’t hard to orchestrate seeing as I took over the Lambcast, meaning I either hosted or at least edited and posted a show every week. It’s been amazing, and I can’t wait to do more of it next year. However, outside of the Lambcast I also appeared on a few episodes of the FilmWhys podcast, French Toast Sunday’s show (including a phenomenally entertaining International Drunk Trivia Show), the Insession Film podcast and an episode of the Matineecast, which was my unspoken goal for the year anyway. Last year I wanted to be on the MILFcast but didn’t tell anyone, and it happened. This year it was the MatineeCast. Next year, the Moon!
OK, so that’s all I actually achieved. For everything else I was close, but didn’t quite make it.
In total, I only crossed off 53 films from the 1001 List. That’s the most disappointing statistic of this list. I thought I’d reviewed more, and frankly I don’t know what happened.
Also, I managed to miss two movies apiece from both my Most and Least Anticipated Lists. I’ve still got Napoleon and Blonde Cobra to go from the bad ones, and Bringing Up Baby and Heart of Darkness from the good stuff. The summer months hit me hard, and I found it difficult to knuckle down and watch stuff I didn’t really want to. I’ve got access to all four of these films, so really there’s no excuse.
As for Kate Winslet, I’ve only got three of her films left, all on DVD, which if anything is just frustrating. Little Children, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Faeries have all thus far eluded me.
Finally, and again I didn’t realise I’d failed this one until I just counted up, but I only went to the cinema 19 times this year. This one I’m not taking all of the blame on, because frankly there weren’t that many films I was all that excited to see this year. There were literally months in a row where nothing that appealed to me came out. Seeing as I write a film blog, host a film podcast and generally tell people I like films a lot, I still should have made the effort, but there we go.
Overall, did I really do that terribly? I think the goals I set myself were achievable, I just didn’t get myself organised enough to sort them out. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my 2015 resolutions, which will have a bit more of a schedule to them, so should be more manageable. Anyway, Big Ben is counting down now, so it’s time to wrap this up and get on with the clinking of glasses and mashing of faces that comes with midnight at this time of year. I hope your 2014 has been more successful than mine, and hopefully this post next year will be much more self-congratulatory. Regardless, Happy New Year!
Life Vs Film 
Don’t beat yourself up, dude. I wouldn’t call your year a failure by any means. Look at it this way, 53 movies crossed off the1001 movies list might not be 75, but it’s 53 more than you however many you had seen at this point a year ago. Wouldn’t change that goal, though. Go for it again!
Thanks Wendell, that’s a much more positive way of looking at it than I feel I’m capable of I’m afraid!
Going to the cinema 25 times would be at least 20 times more than I have any desire to go in any given year. There just aren’t more than a couple movies in any year that I feel the need to see right away rather than waiting for the DVD. If memory serves, I saw the Captain America sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the third Hobbit film in the theater. That’s it.
I didn’t even see Captain America in theatres this year, but I got the other two, as well as the likes of Godzilla, X-Men, 12 Years A Slave, The Lego Movie, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Grand Budapest Hotel, Muppets Most Wanted, Gone Girl, Interstellar and a few others. I just like going to the pictures, really.
Happy Belated New Year Jay! You achieved like 80-85% of your goals. That’s a solid B. Plus I give you extra credit for rocking the whole “be on more podcasts” thing and rate you a B+. As someone who did a pretty poor job of completing my goals (which were much more manageable than yours) I think you did a pretty great job.
Happy Belated New Year to you too Jess! Thanks for the positive comments. If I even fail to achieve one of my goals and complete the rest I still consider it a failure, but I’ll take the B+ anyway (anything less than an A+ is a fail, dammit!).
And yeah, listening to your Resolution episode, you all did pretty poorly. I think the problem is that other than Nick none of you set any definitive, quantifiable goals. It was a lot of “try and do this more” instead of “I currently do this once a month, I now want to do it three times a month”. I find it easier to stick to things if I can tell how well or poorly I’m doing at it. If that makes sense.
That’s some sound advice and I think Lindsay & I will be on our shit more this year with our plan to watch 3 movies of a certain criteria every week. I already am on it for this week!