104 in 2009: What comes Next

And that's that. One hundred thirty-three movies, twenty-nine more than my goal. I think I can call this year a win - but it did come with a bit of a price. In a typical year, I will have seen approximately 30 new releases by the end of the year, and that bumps up to 50 by about the mid-point of the next year. This year, however, I was so focused on older movies that I wound up ignoring the new releases quite a bit, so 2008 and 2009 look a bit anemic compared to the rest of the decade. So - I'm going to be doing things a little bit different this year. No overall goal this time, and I'll be writing up everything I see for the first time, whether it's new or old. I also plan to write up each movie as I see it, rather than doing a weekly roundup. This is primarily to keep me on track, since waiting too long can result in no review at all, as the end of last year demonstrated. I do have several sub-goals I'll be trying to reach, including filling out under-represented years in my listings (most notably 1954 and 1969) and trying to watch 75 out of the AFI's 2007 top 100 movies list (12 to go), 75 out of Roger Ebert's first 100 Great Movies (12 to go), and 71 of the top 93 movies from Sight and Sound's 2002 poll.

There will also, hopefully, be additional content beyond the basic reviews I've been doing. I'm preparing a look ahead at the theatrical releases on 2010 that I intend to post in a week or so. I also plan to take a look at the top movies of the decade - I was originally going to do this one sometime around now, but I think I'm going to wait until sometime around Oscar time, so that I can fill in some gaps and hopefully get 2008 and 2009 up to snuff. Finally, I'd like to start revisiting movies I've seen before, writing about some of my favorites in a more in-depth fashion.

Of course, only time will tell if all of this will actually happen. For now, I'm off to watch my first movie of the new year.