Introduction

Introduction to "5... Films"

Choosing a film to watch can be really difficult. I never know whether I'm in the mood for a drama or comedy; a classic film or a contemporary indie; a first-time watch or one I've seen one hundred times before. Add in the fact that I've got well over 250 DVDs and Blu-Rays, and access to at least 10 different streaming services, and you see my dilemma. I needed some sort of easy way to choose a film to watch, and thus the concept for "5... Films" was born.

"5... Films" is pretty simple in theory. Every two weeks, I watch 5 films from a given theme. They could be 5 Roman Polanski films. 5 Judy Garland musicals. 5 William Shakespeare adaptations. It doesn't really matter what the theme is, so long as I have a theme in place. Once my theme is decided, I'll pick 5 films to fulfill it (in the case of the Polanski example, the 5 films may be: Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, The Pianist, Repulsion, and Tess). They don't all have to be new films for me. I've already seen Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby, for example. I'll always choose my 5 films immediately after I choose my theme, and I'll announce my upcoming theme and films at the end of the previous theme's blog post.

I've always been a fan of organization, and so I already have a rough idea of what these blog posts will look like: I'll discuss each film in the order I watched them, ending the post with a ranking of the 5 films I watched. My goal is not to be overly judgmental or critical of the films, but rather, I want to look at the films in the lens of that film's theme. For example, if I had a theme of Howard Hawks films, and I watched The Big Sleep, I may look at that film completely differently than if I watched The Big Sleep for a Humphrey Bogart theme, or a 1940's noir theme. Essentially: don't take my reviews as gospel. I'm just one film fan, after all.

One other minor note: in order to keep things relatively fresh, I will never do two similar themes back-to-back. My first theme is 5 films by a director, meaning I won't have my second theme be a director, too. I want to spread my horizons, and focus on 5 films in a genre, a decade, an actor, composer or cinematographer. I love exploring directors, and I definitely will do that a lot, but I also want to try and keep each theme distinct from one another and avoid this project becoming stale.

Now would be as good of a time as any to announce my first theme. After much deliberation, I eventually settled on 5... JOHN HUSTON Films. John Huston is one of my favorite directors, despite only seeing 5 of his films so far (The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, The Asphalt Jungle, Annie, and Wise Blood). This theme will rectify that, as I'll be watching 4 films of his that I haven't already seen, and I'll be re-watching The Asphalt Jungle. Originally, I debated looking at films Huston acted in as well (films like Chinatown, The Other Side of the Wind or The Black Cauldron), but I eventually decided that there are already more than enough of his directed films that interest me. The films I'll be watching are: The Asphalt Jungle, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Casino Royale (1967), Fat City, and Let There Be Light. I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I've enjoyed making it, and I'll see you in two weeks for the first edition of "5... Films"!