Alrighty, onto the next twenty-five! I’m ahead of schedule, which is good, because I have several mini-vacations coming up where I might not hit my one-movie-a-day goal right on target, so a bit of a buffer is nice. Plus I’ve had extra time lately, especially when it’s excessively rainy outside and I’d rather hide on my couch with some tea and good movies.

In this twenty-five, I watch way too much Bond, cross off a few more Oscar nominees, and stretch the definition of ‘first time seeing a film’ but it’s my list so I can do what I want! Once again, I break down a few of the things that stood out to me in this set of 25 films, and then the full list of 25 is at the end of the post.

And if you missed my first post, you can check it out here. As always, you can follow the full list on IMDb here!

First, an explanation for the excessive amount of James Bond movies. James Bond was (is still?) largely on Amazon Prime this month. While thumbing through the selection of James Bond films, I realized I had only seen about half. And James Bond is a reasonable series to say ‘why yes, I have seen all of those, thank you.’ So I went to work. And here’s what I concluded: Roger Moore is the worst. Just the worst. And while I know what I’m getting in to with Bond, a lot of the films just don’t age well. And I’m not just talking about the treatment of women, but also the way “other culture” is used as gags or “plot” points. However, ‘The Living Daylights’ (1987) was a delightful surprise, and solidly puts Timothy Dalton in at my second favorite Bond. (I will watch ‘License to Kill’ at some point, because I do own that one.) Sean Connery, of course, is first. But not when he comes back for ‘Never Say Never Again’ (1983), because it’s just weird, and a complete remake of ‘Thunderball’. (I do realize it’s because of the court case and all that. Which is a little fascinating in itself, but not enough to make it a movie worth making.) Anyway, I’m now down only 3 that I haven’t seen: One final Roger Moore one (sigh), ‘License to Kill’, and the George Lazenby one.

*As it is Oscar season, I’ve been seeking out as many Oscar nominees as possible. (Anyone have a way I can watch ‘Elle’ before the awards show? It’s the only big award movie I’m missing, drat it all!) So since SIFF was showing two out of three of the Oscar Nominated Short Film categories, I was happy to go see those. Since they were in a theater, all together in a program, and the program has an IMDb title page, I added them to my list of films I’ve seen this year (though on normal occasions I wouldn’t count a short film as part of my project). But also I had to rave about two of the Live Action Shorts, ‘Timecode’ and ‘La Femme et le TGV’. They were both charming in dynamically different ways, and if all the others had been utter crap it would have still been worth it to see those two. (The others were actually all quite good in Live Action; Animated had a few misses for me though.)

‘Taxi Driver’ (1976) was my homework. (Short answer: There’s a question that gets asked at a dinner party every quarter where you say what movie you haven’t seen that you should have seen, and then you watch it before the next dinner.) I like to get my homework done early… so I’ve now seen ‘Taxi Driver’! Now I can actually nod along when people make the ‘You talkin’ to me?!’ reference without feeling like a fraud. Also, it was really good, and a great example why Scorsese is considered so highly as a director. I really enjoyed the establishing shots of the city during Travis’ drives at night - they convincingly conveyed the atmosphere and loneliness of the story. De Niro is intense and fantastic, and a super young Jodie Foster is an added bonus.

‘Sully’ (2016) was really well done, I enjoyed it immensely. It’s a relatively short film, which, considering the subject matter, makes sense. But within that short period of time, it’s really beautifully constructed - the story is told within the construct of the aftermath inquiry, with the plane incident shown in flashbacks. Tom Hanks is phenomenal, as usual, and was a perfect casting choice for this. And Clint Eastwood directs with a deft hand to balance human drama and the intensity of a plane crash, within a non-linear story-telling structure.

‘I Am Not Your Negro’ (2016) really is a must-see documentary. Seek it out, because it’s important. It’s fascinating (and at the same time disappointing) how, so many years later, James Baldwin’s words still feel incredibly relevant to the state of race relations in this country. One of the most powerful visual elements is the switching back and forth between color and black and white for the footage of protests and violence both in the 60s and present day, unifying the images across the divide of years.

Finishing off the Oscar Best Picture Nominees, ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ (2016) came out on digital video in time for me to cross it off my list. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it - it was actually really well done. I managed to even forget that Mel Gibson was the director; I thought it was pretty beautifully shot. And Andrew Garfield does a really excellent job in this role; it’s nice to see him do something a bit less… Spiderman-y. I did have a realization while watching this film that I haven’t seen many (if any) WWII films set in the Pacific, rather than the European stage. I know there are some, I just apparently haven’t seen any.

**Final quick note: Number 50 was ‘Mad Max: Fury Road - The Black and Chrome Edition’. I’ve seen ‘Fury Road’ before, in color, but for me, the cinematic experience was greatly different in “black & chrome”, enough so that I’m counting it as a distinctly different viewing.

26. Loving (2016)
27. Taxi Driver (1976)
28. Boogie Nights (1997)
29. Norma Rae (1979)
30. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
31. Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
32. 13th (2016)
33. Sully (2016)
34. Children of Men (2006)
35. Rango (2011)
36. Octopussy (1983)
37. You Only Live Twice (1967)
38. Live and Let Die (1973)
39. Never Say Never Again (1983)
40. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
41. The Living Daylights (1987)
42. I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
43. Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
44. Belle de Jour (1967)
45. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2017: Live Action*
46. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2017: Animation*
47. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
48. The Awful Truth (1937)
49. 13 Hours (2016)
50. Mad Max: Fury Road - The Black & Chrome Edition** (2015)

Be sure to check out the rest of my MovieADay Project posts here!