{"id":79125,"date":"2021-12-24T18:17:58","date_gmt":"2021-12-25T01:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=79125"},"modified":"2022-04-30T16:19:42","modified_gmt":"2022-04-30T23:19:42","slug":"filmfanatic-org-year-end-reflection-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=79125","title":{"rendered":"Filmfanatic.org Year-End Reflection 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GFTFF-Year-End-Still-2021.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GFTFF-Year-End-Still-2021.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"837\" height=\"644\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-79161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GFTFF-Year-End-Still-2021.jpg 837w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GFTFF-Year-End-Still-2021-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GFTFF-Year-End-Still-2021-128x98.jpg 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GFTFF-Year-End-Still-2021-768x591.jpg 768w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GFTFF-Year-End-Still-2021-351x270.jpg 351w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 837px) 100vw, 837px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Greetings, fellow film fanatics! It&#8217;s been another busy year of movie watching and reviewing. <\/p>\n<p>In keeping with the spirit of my <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=60419\">check-in at the end of last year<\/a>, I thought I would share that I&#8217;ve now reviewed <strong>3,165<\/strong>, or <strong>~73.6%<\/strong> of the titles in Peary&#8217;s <em>Guide for the Film Fanatic<\/em> &#8212; just 1,135 more to go. (Whew!)<\/p>\n<p><em>(As much as I adore this extensive and ongoing project, I&#8217;m also looking forward to eventually turning my attention to post-1987 titles&#8230;) <\/em><\/p>\n<p>With that said, here are a few recommendations and thoughts from my past year of viewing and posting on this site: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I spent much of February and March this year working my way through the <em>many<\/em> (many) horror films listed in <em>GFTFF<\/em>. My personal favorites are those which use tropes of the genre to comment on social ills &#8212; i.e., Bob Clark&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=69714\"><em>Deathdream<\/em> (1974)<\/a>, which incorporates concepts of ghosts, vampires, and zombies to explore how PTSD manifests not only for soldiers but for their loved ones back home; and George Romero&#8217;s unusual vampire flick <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=70621\"><em>Martin<\/em> (1977)<\/a>, which still haunts me months after watching it.<\/li>\n<li>While many of the films discussed in Peary&#8217;s three <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?page_id=5986\">Cult Movie books<\/a> don&#8217;t resonate with me personally, I was pleasantly surprised to revisit Walter Hill&#8217;s cult classic <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=62205\"><em>The Warriors<\/em> (1979)<\/a>; it remains a stylized gem of fantasy vengeance, with nifty comic captions added to the 2005 director&#8217;s cut. It&#8217;s well worth a look if you haven&#8217;t seen it in awhile.<\/li>\n<li>It turns out that quite a few excellent films about World War II were made in the 1940s. Just a few recommendations from those I watched this year are: Zoltan Korda&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=74464\"><em>Sahara<\/em> (1943)<\/a>, set in the North African desert and revolving around the need for water to survive; John Ford&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=75634\"><em>They Were Expendable<\/em> (1945)<\/a>, about PT boat sailors in the Philippines; and William Wellman&#8217;s sobering, beautifully shot <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=74735\">Battleground (1949)<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Some French titles to highlight from this past year&#8217;s viewing include the provocative and sensitively handled <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=76823\"><em>Sundays and Cybele<\/em> (1962)<\/a> by director Serge Bourguignon, about a disturbed veteran&#8217;s friendship with a young girl; Alain Resnais&#8217;s still-intriguing New Wave classic <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=77210\"><em>Hiroshima Mon Amour<\/em> (1959)<\/a>, in which &#8220;sensual connection is shown as a form of visceral engagement with uncomfortable truths&#8221;; and Maurice Cloche&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=78462\"><em>Monsieur Vincent<\/em> (1947)<\/a>, about the life and spiritual growth of St. Vincent de Paul.<\/li>\n<li>Many excellent movies are too harsh to bear watching more than once or twice. Among the classics I&#8217;m glad I revisited this year but can&#8217;t imagine seeing again any time soon include Robert Rossen&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=72170\"><em>The Hustler<\/em> (1961)<\/a>, featuring a stand-out performance by young Paul Newman as pool hustler &#8216;Fast&#8217; Eddie Felson; Martin Scorsese&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=72095\"><em>Raging Bull<\/em> (1980)<\/a>, an expressive biopic about abusive, paranoid, self-loathing boxer Jake La Motta; and Claude Lanzmann&#8217;s massive, essential, relentlessly sobering Holocaust documentary <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=71718\"><em>Shoah<\/em> (1985)<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, a few underrated gems I (re)discovered from the late &#8217;40s and early &#8217;50s include Carol Reed&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=75159\"><em>The Fallen Idol<\/em> (1948)<\/a>, about a lonely young boy caught in a web of confusing secrets; George Stevens&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=75040\"><em>I Remember Mama<\/em> (1948)<\/a>, with a powerful lead performance and convincing Norwegian accent by Irene Dunne; Anthony Mann&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=74363\"><em>The Tall Target<\/em> (1951)<\/a>, about an attempted assassination of Abraham Lincoln; John Huston&#8217;s editorially butchered but haunting <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=72703\"><em>The Red Badge of Courage<\/em> (1951)<\/a>; and Henry Koster&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=75322\"><em>No Highway in the Sky<\/em> (1951)<\/a>, about a brilliant scientist (Jimmy Stewart) who no one will believe <em>(ahem)<\/em> during a time of imminent crisis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Happy 2022 (almost) to everyone! <em>(I&#8217;ll keep posting over the next few days.) <\/em><br \/>\n-FilmFanatic (Sylvia) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greetings, fellow film fanatics! It&#8217;s been another busy year of movie watching and reviewing. In keeping with the spirit of my check-in at the end of last year, I thought I would share that I&#8217;ve now reviewed 3,165, or ~73.6% of the titles in Peary&#8217;s Guide for the Film Fanatic &#8212; just 1,135 more to go. (Whew!) (As much as I adore this extensive and ongoing project, I&#8217;m also looking forward to eventually turning my attention to post-1987 titles&#8230;) With&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=79125\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogroll"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79125"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79183,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79125\/revisions\/79183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}