This month: how I’m doing (as usual), and a little something of interest courtesy of the BFI. (Or should that be a something of little interest?)
I think it’s fair to say that, after a few poorer months recently, July has gone pretty well. In total I watched 16 reviewed films, although as five of those were my Batman retrospective and one was a different version of M (2010’s #20), only 10 actually count towards my total. Still, that’s as good as May and June put together and my best month since March — and when you include the Batmans and M, it’s my best month of the year so far!
So I’m pretty happy with that, it must be said. Especially so as it comes as a bit of a surprise — ‘busy’ months normally feel it, but this one has really crept up on me.
July’s films
#52 Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, aka Di Renjie (2010)
#53 Green Lantern: Extended Cut (2011)
#54 16 Blocks (2006)
#54a Batman (1989)
#54b Batman Returns (1992)
#55 Passchendaele (2008)
#56 Cowboys & Aliens: Extended Director’s Cut (2011)
#56a Batman Forever (1995)
#56b Batman & Robin (1997)
#56c Batman Begins (2005)
#57 Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
#58 The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
#58a M (British version) (1931/1932)
#59 The Saint in New York (1938)
#60 The Saint Strikes Back (1939)
#61 The Final Destination (2009)
In my experience, twitter is generally defined by what you happen to see. Unlike a website, where you might log on and peruse posts going back days or even weeks, twitter gives you a snapshot of what everyone’s saying right now.
So I’m glad I happened to see a tweet from the BFI that declared that “2011 saw an average of 87 film viewings per person in the UK”. Considering what my blog’s all about, I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I’ve often wondered this. And I must admit, it’s considerably higher than I would’ve expected, which makes me wonder how they arrived at it. After all, they didn’t survey everyone in the country, so who’s likely to be reached by BFI polling? Film fans, of course.
All statistics are of course dubious, and there’s no information on how this was collated. Was it a random sampling of the general population or was it specifically people who found it via the BFI (i.e. film fans)? Is it only at the cinema or at home too? Is it any film or only ones new to them? Were they asked to guess or were they asked to keep a thorough record? Were they even asked to guess at all or is it somehow derived from box office admissions?
The penultimate one is especially likely to throw the whole affair (so’s the last one, but we’ll ignore that for now because it makes the whole exercise pointless). People often wildly over- and under-estimate, especially when it comes to how many times they’ve watched something. Perhaps that would mean it averages out OK, or perhaps it skews higher. “Oh, I must’ve watched 100 films this year, easy”, when really they watched one every a week.
And if it is derived from people who kept a thorough record, that brings us back to the point that they must be dedicated film viewers — what regular person is going to count up what they watch now and then for an entire year?
Hm. This statistic started out as really interesting to me, but with all of this logic and analysis I think I’ve ruined it. Maybe that’s for the best.
Next time on the all-new 100 Films in a Year monthly update…
I’ve been watching a surprising amount of the Olympics over the past few days. With it set to continue for about the first half of August, will that be a problem for my continued film viewing?
I’ll let you know… in a month. Enforced tension to maximum!
Everyone and their mother will be writing about The Dark Knight Rises over the next few days — I’m sure there’s already been an explosion in articles, blog posts and comments on both, not to mention various related terms trending on twitter almost constantly for most of the week already — so I figured I may as well add my voice to all the thousands shouting into the dark. But rather than a full review (which I’ll save for when things have quietened down a little, and perhaps there’s some kind of consensus or even just other reactions to respond too), here’s a couple of stray thoughts and paragraphs that immediately struck me.
June’s films
#38 
100Films.co.uk 