The How many movies do you average? topic encouraged me to create this one.

Do you post every movie/film you watch into your film journal? What criteria do you use to determine what you will place in a public film journal? Why would you be selective about what people know you watch?

I have wondered about how we present our film viewing habits for a while now. Similarly, like the ubiquitous "top 10" lists, which don't seem to mean much without being able to see, in total, how someone engages film.

If you are willing to write it here, what do you leave out and why? (this is not a guilty pleasure confession, although that would qualify for a reason/criterion)

I used to be very scrupulous about recording every film in my journal, except for random movies that I would play in the background while doing something else. These days I usually sit back every month and think through what I watched. If I remember it (either for being good or awful), it must be worth going in the journal. If I don't remember every film, I just don't worry about it. For a few years I watched about one film a day on average, and trying to keep up with the process of organizing my notes and thoughts on all these films wore me out.

A few years back I watched Cinemania for the first time and was struck by how ineffective such compulsive viewing and listmaking really is. (There is a follow-up interview with one of the guys in the documentary here.) It wasn't too long after Cinemania that the MOMA book on The Hidden God series came out, which ends with Nathaniel Dorsky's incredible essay on why our experience of some films is spiritual or transcendent. A lot of his descriptions have to do with the physical experience of certain rhythms, timings, and patterns in film. On the heels of Cinemania, this resonated strongly with me and allowed the pace and content of my film watching to take on a more intentioned direction.

After keeping a film journal here for a few years, I stopped a couple of years ago. Ironically, that decision was spurred by reviewing my journal entries. I see a lot of movies, and many aren't worth remembering, or, at the least, aren't notable in any way. So why was I bothering? The movies that stay with me stay with me. I figure I can put together a year-end list based on my own memories, and reminders from other folks' lists. But even those lists are nothing more than annual markers, something to compare with others in terms of film taste. I still like doing that at the end of each year, so I continue to put together year-end lists. However, I'm not one of those folks who retains my list over the years and goes back to revise it every time I see a title I previously had overlooked.

If I happen to see it on television... doesn't usually count.

If it's an oldie but goodie that I watch, in full or in part, frequently, I usually don't mention it.

If I only watch part of the movie, I don't mention it.

And then, well... a lot of times I just forget to update the list....

I record all that I watch, except that I only note one viewing per year of a given film. If I only watch a little bit, I don't include it. If my wife is watching one that is just background noise for me, I don't include it.

If I see at least half of a film, I generally note it. If it's a film I've seen before, then I know how the rest of it goes; and if it's a film I HAVEN'T seen before, then I virtually always watch the entire thing anyway. (Notable recent exception: Eastern Promises, where the press screening started AN HOUR LATE and I had to leave about half-an-hour before the end to meet my wife and kids at a prearranged time. I still noted the film in my journal, because I had seen the bulk of it, and on the big screen to boot, though I admittedly missed its most talked-about scene.)

When I'm going through TV shows on DVD, I generally note the disc, rather than specific episodes, and I place it on the day when I saw the biggest portion of episodes on that disc. (So if the disc has 4 episodes, and I saw 1 on Monday and 2 on Tuesday and 1 on Wednesday, I jot the disc down for Tuesday.) But now that I'm BitTorrenting The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and there is no "disc" involved, I have been noting each episode as a separate entry.

I was shocked and appalled when I discovered recently that I had neglected to add Tuck Everlasting to my journal for 2007. I watched the DVD while living with my uncle and aunt, so that means I saw it within a six-month window; and what's more, I can access the library records which tell me that I took the DVD out on a certain day (but not when I returned it; or maybe it's vice versa), which narrows the window a little more. But I haven't a clue which actual DAY it was when I watched it.

I never watch TV, so I generally don't have to worry about movies in that format. But if I did see a film on the telly, I'd probably note it in the journal.

Haven't been keeping one this year, but in previous (and probably future years) I've recorded any feature length film I've watched (except perhaps if I've watched less than ten minutes). But then I very rarely only watch part of a film. My anal side usually insists that I catch the rest at some point.

Matt

I record everything I watch, as long as I see most of the film. Due to all the great films I find out about on this board, I've been busy trying to keep up with these new discoveries, and haven't been doing too much rewatching old favorites lately.

You have an anal side? Is that a British thing? How do you people use the toilet?

But to return to the question at hand, I record everything that I see start to finish. It may be a mediocre film, but I never know when I'm going to want to be able to figure out "What was that film with the strange colour treatment? Was that shot on digital?" or "There was that one good scene about aardvarks, what film was that? I know I saw it last spring..." Etc.