Today is 100 Films in a Year’s 10th birthday.

Back when this started it was just a challenge to myself, inspired by “50 books in a year” efforts that other people were doing. I covered it on my DeviantArt blog because that’s where I’d seen the idea (look, it’s still there!) After that first year went rather well I decided to continue the challenge, but moved my coverage to a dedicated blog on Blogger (look, it’s still there!) That didn’t last long: less than two months later I moved on to the film blogging community at FilmJournal (look, it’s still there!) After several happy years, the FilmJournal community began to die off as the site fell into a kind of disrepair (if you follow that link you can see what a mess the formatting became), prompting a final move to WordPress in 2012 (look, I’m still here!)

When I started this whole shebang the world was a different place: Tony Blair was still Prime Minister and George W. Bush was still President. Apple had only just announced the iPhone; the iPad and the tablet revolution were still several years away. Facebook had only been open to everyone for five months. The hashtag hadn’t been invented yet. The final Harry Potter book hadn’t been published, most people hadn’t heard of Twilight, and Fifty Shades of Grey didn’t even exist. Britain’s Got Talent hadn’t aired, never mind spawned the ubiquitous Got Talent franchise. The format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD was still raging.

I suspect the “all your base are belong to us” meme had already had its day by then too, but I’m using it now nonetheless.

On a personal level, I was still an undergraduate, had never owned a dog (it was a couple of years before we’d meet Rory at a rescue — I wonder what he was up to then?), and still had all those dreams and ambitions of youth that end up going unrealised. But hey, at least I’ve still got my blog!

During the past decade said blog has certainly grown, from writing a couple of sentences about each film in updates posted every few weeks, to the almost-daily and often-far-too-long dedicated reviews I post nowadays, along with my monthly updates and TV reviews. The number of people reading my ramblings seems to have continually increased as well, which is rewarding in its way — I guess I’m doing something right; have something interesting to say.

Two months in, 2017 is already over halfway to 2013’s total.

Commensurately, the blog has taken up an increasing amount of my time: it feels like when I’m not watching films and TV I’m writing about them; especially last year, when adding my 100 Favourites series into the mix took up far more time than I’d anticipated. Sometimes it feels like I’m making a rod for my own back, doing all this, but at the end of the day it’s enjoyable — why else keep doing it? But after the monomaniacal focus I’ve given this thing for the past couple of years, I do need to find more time to broaden my activities.

Not just yet, though! For two reasons: starting on Thursday (after tomorrow’s February monthly update) I’ll be diving into 100 Favourites II! No, not another 52-week marathon project — it’ll all be over by Sunday. More on that then.

For now, the thing everyone loves (right?): statistics!

As the title of this post reveals, in the past decade I’ve watched 1,337 films expressly for this blog — which, as anyone familiar with internet-y slang will know, is code for “elite”, as in “very good”. Probably a bit old fashioned to use nowadays (or it should be), which is connected to why I revived the whole “all your base” thing. See, there’s method to my madness.

Those 1,337 films include all the alternate cuts and other films I reviewed. The actual total of brand-new films I’ve seen is 1,283 (which is a less entertaining number, hence why it’s not inspired the theme of this post). The total running time of that many movies was 136,154 minutes, and if you factor in everything else I’ve watched and reviewed it comes to 144,118 minutes — back to back, that’s 3 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 1 hour, and 58 minutes of solid viewing. Whew!

Regular readers of my annual statistics posts may have noticed that the graph of each year’s running time always shows “no data” for 2007. That’s because when I first posted my 2007 reviews I didn’t include that information, so I couldn’t tally them up for my stats that year either. However, when I re-posted all those reviews to one of my new blogs I added the times… but still didn’t bother to total them up — it is a lot of films, after all. But this is a special occasion, so I’ve finally gone back over the lot and done it. So here, for the first time, is a complete running time graph:

If you’re curious, that makes the average running time of a film 106 minutes. I don’t think that really signifies anything, but there it is.

Down the years I’ve regularly noted my predilection for newer films — more recent decades always come out on top year-by-year, and my 100 Favourites showed a definite bias towards the past couple of decades (there are stats on that here). Naturally, that’s borne out when I look back at the last ten years in totality. The only possible element of ‘tension’ is: what will come out on top between the 2000s and the 2010s? On the one hand, about 70% of my blog’s life has been in the latter decade; on the other, that means there are more years (and therefore more films) for the former. Drama!

As it is, things go as you might expect: the 2010s come out on top with 458 films, which is 34.3% of the 1,337; and then of course the 2000s are second, with 388 (29%). The only other decade to make triple figures was the ’90s, its total of 114 representing a mere 8.5%. In order of size, the next decade is the ’80s with 91 (6.8%), followed by the ’40s with 79 (5.9%) — all those classic detective series add up. The countdown continues as follows: the ’60s with 57 (4.3%), the ’50s right behind with 56 (4.2%), the ’70s with 50 (3.7%), the ’30s with 21 (1.6%), the 1920s with 15 (1.1%), and finally the 1910s with 8 (0.6%). And the 1900s are actually represented too, by a single short.

As we’re talking about my tastes skewing newer, I thought I’d take a look at something I’ve never considered before. Every year I post a list of my top ten films selected from my personal viewing that year, meaning that films from any time period are eligible. Despite that, I’m aware I still have a tendency to declare newer stuff my #1 of the year. Just how new? Well, this graph shows the ages (in years) of my #1 picks at the time I picked them…

The average age of a #1 (ignoring the outlier) is just over 9 months old. Sticking out is, of course, Seven Samurai, which was 716 months old when it became 2013’s #1. The second oldest was United 93 at a piddling 18 months, while the youngest of all was Skyfall at just 2 months. So, yeah, pretty new.

Similar to running times, I’ve not kept track of all my stats for all ten years — I can’t list languages, or countries of production, or a couple of other things I cover at the end of each year nowadays. It would’ve been interesting, but there you go. There are a couple more things I can pick out, though.

Firstly, the formats I’ve watched all these movies on. This is an interesting one (well, it is to me) because these have regularly fluctuated down the years. Back in 2007 DVD was at the height of its dominance and was the clear frontrunner, but since then it’s slipped far back. Blu-ray has taken its place to an extent (maybe not in the wider population, but in the hearts of people like me), but in terms of my own viewing I know that watching films on TV topped the pile for a number of years. Recently, however, streaming has taken charge, with Now TV making Sky Movies Cinema more affordable and the increasing rise of Netflix, not to mention Amazon’s wannabe-competition. But what comes out best from the decade as a whole?

A little to my surprise, the winner is television, with 367 films (27.4%). I know it was once the #1 format for my viewing, but it’s been slipping for four years now. I guess it’s because it’s been a constant, whereas DVD has faded, streaming has only recently risen, and I’ve never watched as many of my Blu-rays as I should. That said, Blu-ray is second, gradually amassing 318 films (23.8%) over the past nine of the ten years. DVD has clung on in third, with 291 (21.8%). I guess that’s a slow accumulation — it’s one of only three formats to be represented in all ten years (along with television and another that we’ll come to in a bit). New champion streaming (it’s been #1 the past two years) ends up fourth with 243 (18.2%). Considering its numbers over the last couple of years, if I re-ran this all-time chart this time next year it’d likely be second, with the number one spot in its sights not long after. Unless I finally buck up my ideas and get better stuck in to my DVD and Blu-ray collection, anyway.

There’s a big drop to the rest of the figures, which are rounded out by the third and final format to crop up in all ten years, downloads, on 68 (5.1%); my poor record of trips to the cinema on 42 (3.14% — so it’s both the answer to life, the universe and everything and pi); good old VHS on 7 (0.5%); and a lonely little film watched in-flight, that 1 being just 0.07%. Sadly, it wasn’t a Bond film. Even more sadly, it was the risible Superhero Movie.

Finally, as always, a word on quality, or at least my perception thereof. In the past ten years I’ve handed out 223 5-star ratings. That’s 16.7% of the films I’ve watched, which also happens to be one-sixth. I guess that’d sound neater if it was one-fifth, but then I’d be an even more generous marker than I already am. This is definitely borne out by the 615 4-star ratings, which at 46% is not that far off half. (Well, I’d have to have given out 53½ more of them to make it actually half, but still.) Sitting between those two in quantity were the 350 3-stars, which at 26.2% is only a little over a quarter (certainly closer to a quarter than 46% was to half). That leaves the two ‘bad’ ratings to share just 11.1% of films between them — which is just over a tenth, of course. That splits as 130 2-star ratings (9.7%), leaving just 19 films (1.4%) in the highly exclusive 1-star club.

From all that, we can deduce that the average rating earnt by these 1,337 films is 3.6679, which as a percentage would be 73.358%.

And that, I’m afraid, is the end of that.

Tomorrow: putting my birthday celebrations aside for a moment, the February update.

On Wednesday… 100 Favourites II: Eclectic Boogaloo.