I don’t really believe in New Year’s Resolutions – why wait for a specific day to start bettering yourself when surely it’d be more beneficial to start immediately – but I do understand the notion of setting goals to achieve in a set period, and a year seems like a decent amount of time to do that with, so as with 2014 I’m aiming to keep a schedule and meet some goals over the next twelve months. Without further ado, here’s my ambitions for the site in 2015:

My posting schedule was a little, um, sporadic? in 2014, as in there were periods where I posted almost every day, and other times when weeks or even months would go by without any content from me. In 2015 I intend to change this, by posting two reviews a week. I feel that’s an achievable goal, not too ambitious.

That leads into my next goal, crossing off 75 movies from the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list. I made the same goal last year, but only crossed off 53. This year; more movies!

So how will I pick these films? Well, over the past few months I’ve been asking people on the Lambcast to each pick a couple of films from the 1001 Movies list that I’ve either never seen before or haven’t seen in so long that I’ve become unfamiliar with them. In total, 26 people were asked, and over 200 films were selected (some people were rather greedy). I’ve narrowed down all the selections to 2 per person, making a total of 52 films, so one a week. I’m not going to post the full list – some of those selected are quite difficult to track down, so may need to be substituted if I can’t get hold of them – but I’ll let you know who recommended them when they come around.

Something else I’m carrying over from last year is my planning to watch some of the less recommendable films from the 1001 Movies list. I’ve contacted a couple of guys who’ve successfully finished the whole list, Steve Honeywell and Chip Lary, to warn me of some of the horrors in my future. I’ve cut their lists down to twelve, making it one a month again, to help me cut through some of those films I’m not exactly looking forward to. I’ve still got two from last year to knock out as well.

My mission to go through all of Kate Winslet’s movies is becoming a joke with how long it’s taking me. At the time of writing I’ve only got three films left to watch; Little Children (love it), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (desperately need to revisit it) and Faeries (minor animated movie I’ve never seen but tracked down on eBay some time ago). However, in 2015 Winslet has not one, not two, not three, not even four, but five whole new movies coming out, meaning I’ll be adding Insurgent, A Little Chaos, The Dressmaker, Triple Nine and NAYA: Legend of the Golden Dolphin to the list. I’ll definitely watch the 3 I’ve already got on DVD by the end of the year, and I’ll work through those other five as they come. I can’t say any of them look enticing enough for me to see them in the cinema though.

Also, I’ll be celebrating HitchcOctober again this year, but to a much lesser extent than last year. I’ve got eight Hitchcock movies left to watch (Frenzy, Topaz, Torn Curtain, Dial M For Murder, Spellbound, Saboteur, Juno and the Paycock) which I’ll aim to get through at a rate of one every four days in the month of October.

I watch a lot of films that don’t get reviewed, and I’m planning to keep track of those here too, so I’ll be doing a weekly update of all the films and TV shows I watch day to day. It’s not a terribly original idea, but I want to do it nonetheless.

Last year I aimed to go to the cinema 25 times, and managed a grand total of 19. I’m making the same aim again this year, and I think I’ve got a better shot this time around based purely on the slate of movies being released this year, and all being well I’ll be kicking things off to a good start by going twice tomorrow.

I discovered recently that I’ve got a great deal of films recorded on my DVR. Well, when I say I “discovered”, what I mean is my partner had a go at me for having so many films recorded on there. It’s not like we’re stuck for the storage space, and they’re not exactly gathering dust on a shelf, but she does have a point. Currently I’ve got about 60 films on there, and my aim by the end of the year is to watch them all (I’ll make a list soon to keep track) and delete any that I haven’t watched. I already had a bit of a culling yesterday anyway. Many of the films recorded are on the 1001 List anyway, so it’ll be a case of two birds with one stone. Three in some instances, as one of the films recorded is from Steve and Chip’s list of bad movies, and several are from the various recommended lists.

And finally, I want to meet some of you folks. You see, over at the LAMB they’ve had two official meetups in America, one in Vegas and the other in Chicago over the past couple of years, with various other LAMB members meeting one another here and there, and another meetup planned for Austin, Texas in the near future. Well, it’s time for those of us this side of the pond to take their lead and do the same, so I’ll be attempting some kind of UK meetup at some point this year. It’ll probably be in London, because that’s where everything is, and depending on when the Austin one is I may try and schedule them both at the same time. Either way, if you’re a UK-based LAMB or would like to meet some, let me know and I’ll keep you updated on what’s going on, which at present is very little.

So that’s it, those are my aims for the year. Be sure to check back on December 31st to see how well I did.