2010 Challenge – Month 2 Stats

(A nerdy deconstruction of potential pitfalls)

To recap, I’m aiming to watch 450 films by the end of the year but a minimum of 80% of that total has to be stuff which I have never seen before.

My focus is on watching a large amount but I’m still trying to engage with each film more by writing a review of them. This has posed a dilemma. The more time I spend watching the films, the less time there is to write about them. Perversely, the same is obviously true the other way; the more time I spend writing about the films, the less time there is to actually watch them. It would appear that being able to watch a lot and write a lot are pretty much mutually exclusive.

For the time being, I’m just about able to shoulder it but I may have to consider what takes priority in future months as the deadline looms.

So, here’s where I stand at the end of the second month:

February:

Total films watched: 31
First-time viewings: 29
Percentage of first-time viewings: 93.5%
Cumulative monthly total: 72
Cumulative monthly first-time viewings: 65
Cumulative monthly percentage of first-time viewings: 90.3%

Best Films: Whip It, Ponyo, Thirst, Jean De Florette, Manon Des Sources, [●REC]2
Worst Films: Lady In White, The Room


February 2009 Comparison:

Total films watched: 40
First-time viewings: 29
Percentage of first-time viewings: 72.5%
Cumulative monthly total: 69
Cumulative monthly first-time viewings: 55
Cumulative monthly percentage of first-time viewings: 79.7%


I’m in two minds about this month’s stats. On the one hand 31 films is still more than one-per-day on average. On the other hand it’s a bit of a drop from last month, even taking into account the whole ’28 days’ hindrance. It has been a fairly busy month with travelling through to Glasgow on a few occasions for The Glasgow Film Festival as well as appearing on the radio and numerous unrelated time-sapping pursuits.

It’s still slightly up on last year, but not by much. In saying that, the percentage ‘new’ figure is high and rising. In fact, apart from two viewings of The Room, I didn’t watch a single other film in February that I had seen before.

On an even more positive note, the standard for the month was impressively high. I saw far more great and good films than I did awful ones.

So, a few positives to be gained from this but, otherwise, I need to up my game.

Possibly, something’s got to give…