The following article on Deanna Durbin was published in a 1943 issue of the Lafayette Sun. Since I have been covering her films, I thought I would post it here.

If anyone is at all curious, here are all the films I considered for my 25 best, worst, and gems lists.

Best:

1. Murder By Contract (1958)
2. Kings Of The Road (1976)
3. Aliens (1986)
4. Providence (1977)
5. Triumph Of The Will (1935)
6. Kind Hearts And Coronets (1949)
7. Brazil (1985)
8. Alice In The Cities (1974)
9. Shoah (1985)
10. The Wrestler (2008)
11. Dead Ringers (1988)
12. Evil Dead II (1987)
13. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
14. Day For Night (1973)
15. Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)
16. Amadeus (1984)
17. Farewell, My Concubine (1993)
18. Antonio Das Mortes (1969)
19. Raise The Red Lantern (1991)
20. Midnight Run (1988)
21. I Am Cuba (1964)
22. The Round-up (1966)
23. The Up Series
24. Underground (1995)
25. Up (2009)
26. The films of Jiang Kia-Je: Unknown Pleasures (2002), Platform (2000), Xiao Wu (1997), Still Life (2006), The World (2004), 24 City (2008)
27. The Hurt Locker (2008)
28. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…And Spring (2003)
29. The Sorrow And The Pity (1969)
30. Als Twee Druppels Water (1963)
31. The Long Day Closes (1992)
32. White Dog (1982)
33. The Red And The White (1967)
34. Il Sorpasso (1962)
35. We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)
36. The Birds, The Bees, And The Italians (1966)
37. Street Of Shame (1956)
38. Harakiri (1962)
39. O Lucky Man! (1973)
40. A Bullet For The General (1966)
41. A Brief Vacation (1973)
42. High School (1968)
43. War And Peace (1967)
44. Querelle (1982)
45. The Tree Of Life (2011)
46. Kanal (1957)
47. The Window (1949)
48. Where Is The Friend’s Home? (1987)
49. Come and See (1985)
50. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
51. The Double Life Of Veronique (1991)
52. Charade (1963)
53. Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown (1988)
54. Midnight (1939)
55. Carnival In Flanders (1935)
56. The Steel Helmet (1951)
57. Come Drink With Me (1966)
58. Japanese Girls At The Harbor (1933)
59. Of Time And The City (2008)
60. The Ceremony (1971)
61. Within Our Gates (1920)
62. A Geisha (1953)
63. Shock Corridor (1963)
64. To Live (1994)
65. Grey Gardens (1975)
66. Sugar Cane Alley (1983)
67. Orlando (1992)
68. Tokyo Drifter (1966)
69. The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner (1962)
70. Stolen Kisses (1968)
71. Children Of Heaven (1997)
72. Subarnarekha (1965)
73. The Fire Within (1963)
74. Lord Of The Flies (1963)
75. Touki Bouki (1973)
76. Pixote (1981)
77. Hamlet (1948)
78. Missing (1982)
79. The Ladykillers (1955)
80. Gunga Din (1939)
81. Carlos (2010)
82. Hindle Wakes (1927)
83. Obsession (1976)
84. Suspense (1913)
85. The Terrorist (1998)
86. Super 8 (2011)
87. The Band’s Visit (2007)
88. The Two Of Us (1967)
89. Zorn’s Lemma (1970)
90. A Short Film About Love (1988)

Worst:

1. L’Argent (1983)
2. India Song (1975)
3. Historie(s) Du Cinema (1988)
4. Lost Highway (1997)
5. What The Bleep Do We Know? (2004)
6. The Hangover (2009)
7. Not One Less (1999)
8. Syndromes And A Century (2006)
9. Run Lola Run (1998)
10. I Love Dollars (1986)
11. De Tweeling (2002)
12. Showgirls (1995)
13. The Heiress (1949)
14. Red Angel (1966)
15. Hitler: A Film From Germany (1977)
16. New York, New York (1977)
17. Thor (2011)
18. Green Lantern (2011)
19. Chelsea Girls (1966)
20. The Woman In The Window (1944)
21. City For Conquest (1940)
22. Pitfall (1962)
23. Europa (1991)
24. Story Of A Love Affair (1950)
25. Iron Man 2 (2010)
26. Dancer In The Dark (2000)
27. Otley (1968)
28. Stop, You’re Killing Me (1952)
29. The Lost Honor Of Katharina Blum (1975)
30. Nowhere In Africa (2001)
31. Happy Feet (2006)
32. Love On A Pillow (1962)
33. Two Weeks In September (1967)
34. Girls Just Want To Have Fun (1985)

Gems:

1. The Watcher In The Attic (1976)
2. All My Life (1966)
3. Two Solutions For One Problem (1975)
4. Island (1973)
5. La Region Centrale (1971)
6. There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)
7. The Devil Is A Woman (1935)
8. The first two Trinty films
9. Cyclo (1995)
10. That’s The Way I Like It (1998)
11. Wife To Be Sacrificed (1974)
12. The Working Class Goes To Heaven (1974)
13. Manila: In The Claws Of Neon (1975)
14. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)
15. Soldier Of Orange (1977)
16. Turkish Fruit (1973)
17. The Fourth Man (1983)
18. Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (1974)
19. Perfumed Nightmare (1977)
20. Seconds (1966)
21. Max Havelaar (1976)
22. De Aanslag (1986)
23. Charleston Parade (1927)
24. A Colt Is My Passport (1967)
25. White Sun Of The Desert (1970)
26. 17^th Parallel: Vietnam In War (1968)
27. Death By Hanging (1943)
28. The Night Of Counting The Years (1969)
29. The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987)
30. The Phenix City Story (1955)
31. Santa Sangre (1989)
32. Dial 1119 (1950)
33. Different From The Others (1919)
34. The Oyster Princess (1919)
35. The Wildcat (1921)
36. Lemonade Joe (1964)
37. Who Wants To Kill Jessie? (1966)
38. Yankee Doodle In Berlin (1919)
39. The three Czarist Russian films: Twilight of a Woman’s Soul, After Death, and The Dying Swan
40. Tear Gas In Law Enforcement (1962)
41. The Black Book (1949)
42. Bloody Birthday (1981)
43. Two-Gun Man From Harlem (1938)
44. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968)
45. Rocker (1972)
46. A Virgin In Hollywood (1953)
47. Star Without Light (1946)
48. Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man (1976)
49. What Scoundrels Men Are! (1932)
50. Altered States (1980)
51. Joe MacBeth (1955)
52. The Naked Spur (1953)
53. Border Incident (1949)
54. Three Times (2005)
55. Daises (1966)
56. La Chambre (1972)
57. Hotel Monterey (1972)
58. Blonde In Black Leather (1975)
59. Sisters Of The Gion (1936)
60. Fighting Elegy (1966)
61. Gate Of Flesh (1964)
62. Chushingura (1962)
63. Youth Of The Beast (1963)
64. The Green Ray (1986)
65. The Case Of The Bloody Iris (1972)
66. Antoine And Colette (1962)
67. Zouzou (1934)
68. The Chess Players (1977)
69. Spies (1928)
70. A Very Special Favor (1965)
71. Plácido (1961)
72. The Last Wave (1977)
73. The Friends Of Eddie Coyle (1973)
74. Suds (1920)
75. The Ace Of Hearts (1921)
76. Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
77. The Man Who Laughs (1928)
78. The Criminal Life Of Archibaldo De La Cruz (1955)
79. Repo Man (1984)
80. Laila (1929)
81. Summer Of ’63 (1972)
82. Taxi Driver (1954)
83. Lion Of The Desert (1981)
84. The Exiles (1961)
85. Body And Soul (1925)
86. Native Land (1942)
87. Man Of The East (1972)
88. Doc West (2009)
89. Under The Bridges (1946)

1. Remember that people think of the 1980’s when you say a movie is old. That means about 30 years ago. By the time movies really got into sound in 1930, they had already been around for 40 years. My point is that the term “old” shouldn’t be used when describing a film. It’s confusing and unnecessary.
2. The Jazz Singer was not the first sound film despite what classroom textbooks say.
3. Never read the book before the movie. It only ruins the film for you. Not because the book is better because sometimes it’s worse, but because books encourage you to form your own incarnation of the material. That means you will likely reject or at least have difficulty accepting the film, which is somebody else’s vision shared with you.
4. If you want to see a movie, never watch the trailers or read the full reviews. Pick trusted sources and if they say it’s worth your time, see it. Anything else starts your imagination and leads you toward issues with the film.
5. I watched Debbie Does Dallas on February 10^th, 2010. Why do they think that heterosexual men want to see so much penis? People always seem to wonder why heterosexual men like woman on woman action of any sorts. It’s because they are both what we are attracted to and they are having sex. That means the whole thing is arousing instead of having a naked man and his shlong around to leave us limp.  I would rather imagine myself with two women than to see another man with one woman. Maybe it’s just me.
6. Keep track of the films you watch and when you watch them. The information is invaluable for many reasons including the ability to visualize where the holes in your cinematic knowledge are located. If you can make a note of your thoughts about them, then that’s even better.
7. If you are going to blog about film, do what you can to engage with other bloggers rather than trying to be nothing more than a broadcaster. There is only so much you can do, but the relationships you forge make the process very rewarding.
8. Always respond to comments. People take being stonewalled very poorly and aren’t forgiving. This applies to receiving @ replies on Twitter as well or any social network you employ.
9. If you are going to setup a Twitter account, do not start off by following enormous numbers of people to get a certain percentage back before culling the number way below your followers in order to look impressive. Early on I was followed by a beauty queen who was doing this and found a few days later that I was unfollowed and she had rigged her numbers to make herself look good. The point is to engage and form meaningful connections. Remember, you want discussion around your posts, not simply page views.
10. Another Twitter faux pas is being spammy. This can take the form of tweeting many times about the same post you have written or misusing automated tweets. A good example of the first would be tweeting all the time about your current and past posts. It sounds good until one of your followers tries to use something like Flipboard and cannot quickly and easily find your latest post.
11. If it is possible, use images from the film in your posts. Film is an audio-visual medium that doesn’t flatten into words accurately. You want people to be able to get an idea of what kind of movie you are writing about.
12. You can’t claim to love film if you have only seen ones from a particular period or place. That’s a love of a particular period or place. A love for film means you want to see a short from 1910, an experimental film from the 1970s, a Deanna Durbin film from the 1930s, and a movie that was just released. It means you spend time trying to find films from Cambodia because you haven’t seen one from there yet. It means the whole of cinema is your playground.
13. Know when to stop writing and say: If anyone else has any advice to add or disagrees with my “words of wisdom”, please comment.

In my three years of blogging I have seen a lot of films. Some I wrote about and others I didn’t. I have culled from the 1,449 films I saw during that period and created three top 25 lists. The first is the 25 best films, the second is the 25 worst films, and the third is the 25 gems. The last are films that for one reason or another stand out without meriting a position on the best list.

For the sake of consistency, I have not tried to mark this up with images, YouTube videos, and my own commentary. If you have any questions whatsoever, leave a comment or talk to me on Twitter.

There will be one more post in this series with some parting words. After that, I will resume normal posting with the next film in my Deanna Durbin series.

The Best:

1. Shoah (1985)
2. War And Peace (1967)
3. Brazil (1985)
4. The Long Day Closes (1992)
5. White Dog (1982)
6. High School (1968)
7. Kings Of The Road (1976)
8. The Up Series
9. Harakiri (1962)
10. Make Way For Tomorrow (1937)
11. Il Sorpasso (1962)
12. Stolen Kisses (1968)
13. Pixote (1981)
14. The Birds, The Bees, And The Italians (1966)
15. Kanal (1957)
16. Where Is The Friend’s Home? (1987)
17. Querelle (1982)
18. The Tree Of Life (2011)
19. The Ceremony (1971)
20. The Terrorist (1998)
21. A Geisha (1953)
22. Shock Corridor (1963)
23. To Live (1994)
24. Touki Bouki (1973)
25. A Bullet For The General (1966)

The Worst:

1. What The Bleep Do We Know? (2004)
2. The Hangover (2009)
3. Red Angel (1966)
4. De Tweeling (2002)
5. Not One Less (1999)
6. I Love Dollars (1986)
7. Chelsea Girls (1966)
8. Hitler: A Film From Germany (1977)
9. India Song (1975)
10. The Heiress (1949)
11. Lost Highway (1997)
12. Showgirls (1995)
13. Green Lantern (2011)
14. New York, New York (1977)
15. Run Lola Run (1998)
16. The Woman In The Window (1944)
17. Europa (1991)
18. The Lost Honor Of Katharina Blum (1975)
19. Story Of A Love Affair (1950)
20. Stop, You’re Killing Me (1952)
21. Nowhere In Africa (2001)
22. Love On A Pillow (1962)
23. Happy Feet (2006)
24. Girls Just Want To Have Fun (1985)
25. Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man (1976)

The Gems:

1. Lemonade Joe (1964)
2. All My Life (1966)
3. Two Solutions For One Problem (1975)
4. The Night Of Counting The Years (1969)
5. Wife To Be Sacrificed (1974)
6. Als Twee Druppels Water (1963)
7. La Region Centrale (1971)
8. Manila: In The Claws Of Neon (1975)
9. Seconds (1966)
10. Blonde In Black Leather (1975)
11. A Colt Is My Passport (1967)
12. White Sun Of The Desert (1970)
13. Dial 1119 (1950)
14. The Oyster Princess (1919)
15. Bloody Birthday (1981)
16. The Black Book (1949)
17. Two-Gun Man From Harlem (1938)
18. What Scoundrels Men Are! (1932)
19. That’s The Way I Like It (1998)
20. The Band’s Visit (2007)
21. Suds (1920)
22. The Exiles (1961)
23. 17^th Parallel: Vietnam In War (1968)
24. Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)
25. The Watcher In The Attic (1976)

So I have been through the updated version of the list and I now have 63 films left to watch. Unfortunately, Stan Brakhage’s The Art Of Vision is still on the list! At this rate, I am going to have to start raising money to send me to New York to see the print at MOMA. The films left to watch are as follows:

1. Withnail & I (1987)
2. Audition (1999)
3. Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
4. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)
5. Marketa Lazarová (1967)
6. Se7en (1995)
7. The Time Of Harvey Milk (1984)
8. Out 1, noli me tangere (1971)
9. Caché (2005)
10. Sleeper (1973)
11. Landscape In The Mist (1988)
12. Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
13. The Gleaners & I (2000)
14. Yol (1982)
15. The War Of The Worlds (1953)
16. Mother India (1957)
17. Zabriskie Point (1970)
18. Funny Games (1997)
19. L’Enfance Nue (1968)
20. Russian Ark (2002)
21. Quince Tree Of The Sun (1992)
22. The New World (2005)
23. Pink Flamingos (1972)
24. Wanda (1970)
25. Awaara (1951)
26. Edvard Munch (1974)
27. The Art Of Vision (1965)
28. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
29. The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)
30. The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)
31. Star Spangled To Death (2004)
32. The Killers (1946)
33. Bellissima (1951)
34. The Age Of The Earth (1980)
35. To Sleep With Anger (1990)
36. I Compagni (1963)
37. La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000)
38. Moana (1926)
39. Happiness (1934)
40. The Crucified Lovers (1954)
41. Purple Noon (1960)
42. Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (1986)
43. Second Breath (1966)
44. L’Amour Fou (1969)
45. Sonatine (1993)
46. They Died With Their Boots On (1941)
47. El Sur (1983)
48. The Roaring Twenties (1939)
49. Dracula (1958)
50. 7th Heaven (1927)
51. Winchester ’73 (1950)
52. The Far Country (1954)
53. Heaven Can Wait (1943)
54. Female Trouble (1974)
55. Bend Of The River (1952)
56. Tropical Malady (2004)
57. Scarlet Street (1945)
58. In Praise Of Love (2001)
59. Louisiana Story (1948)
60. Cutter’s Way (1981)
61. The Black Cat (1934)
62. Strangers When We Meet (1960)
63. Forty Guns (1957)

My love of film probably goes back further than 1997 but anything earlier would be apocryphal. In 1997 the American Film Institute (AFI) announced a list of the 100 Greatest American films (although Lawrence Of Arabia at #5 is actually British). I began making regular trips to the video store and saw most of the films before the passion for film largely went into hibernation. In the early 2000’s I bought my first TiVO and soon replaced it with a one that had a built-in DVD burner. On December 28th, 2003 I began keeping a list of every movie I watched. A few years later, with help from IMDb, I added every film I had seen prior to starting the list.

With my special TiVO I began to put every film that was recommended on Roger Ebert’s TV show into the Wishlist section. This meant that once the film eventually made its way to cable, it was recorded, burned to a DVD, and waited patiently for me to watch it. This is why the year that I have seen the most films from by year of release is 2004 with 100 films. Finding TCM and taking courses on film at Diablo Valley College are the reason there is a steep drop off after that year.

Diablo Valley College Movie Theater/Forum

The passion that AFI had lit in the 1990s was reignited when I saw A Trip To The Moon (1902) on January 19th, 2006 in a class on American Cinema up to 1950. My teacher followed it with The Great Train Robbery (1903) and The Lonedale Operator (1911). Around the same time I discovered Roger Ebert’s Great Movies essays. I didn’t read them. I didn’t need too. If he said they were worth my time then I wanted to see them. While I was getting a lesson in American cinema at school, Ebert was beginning to give me a taste of what foreign cinema had to offer. I would later find out that I had been watching a foreign movie over and over as a child. How was I supposed to know that The Adventures Of Milo And Otis (1986) was actually a Japanese film when the voices had been dubbed into English?

In my remaining semesters at Diablo Valley College I took the second half of American Cinema and World Cinema after 1960. Sometime in there I discovered the website They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?. I printed out their list of the 1000 Greatest Films and was overwhelmed at how few I had seen. I was also very aware of the difficulties of seeing those movies when I had to rely on the video store. I put the site away in the back of my mind. In the spring of 2007, I signed up for Netflix and was accepted to UC Berkeley as a junior transfer in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Me In My First Dormroom/Mini-Suite

In the spring of 2008 I was looking for something to do with my college roommate because our room had been invaded and wasn’t going to be vacated until they were done. I printed out They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? 1000 Greatest Films and began checking off what I had seen. It was probably around 400 or less but availability of the material had changed thanks to Netflix. Still, I put the list away in my mind again. For my last two years at Berkeley I had a roommate named Rocky. He was a Chinese national who had been living in America for a while and liked to watch movies but only if they were made in the last 10 years. Despite little issues like that, we got along well. I would even con him into going to a showing of the silent Soviet classic The Man With The Movie Camera (1929).

In October of 2008 I was watching a lot of Blaxploitation, Spaghetti Westerns, and Kung Fu movies. Then for reasons I can’t recall, I pulled that list out again and decided that now was the time. Among other films, I watched Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967), Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), and Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil (1964). It was during this time that I found two blogs from people who had taken the same task upon themselves as I had: Kevin B. Lee of Shooting Down Pictures and Andrew of Shooting Lessons: 1000 Pictures. Probably because it was December 31st, I decided to make my New Year’s resolution to blog my way through the list like Kevin and Andrew. To choose the name I took a page from them and decided that “Shooting” had to be in the title. I love film noir and the genre tends towards declarative titles such as He Walked By Night (1948) or I Walked With A Zombie (1943). Therefore, my blog was entitled I Shoot The Pictures with its first post on December 31st, 2008 on Murder By Contract (1958). I began the blog having seen 534 films on the list.

I started watching and posting like crazy. Sometimes I would write something, but often it would only be a screenshot and my verdict. I was on a mission and it was for me. During that period Andrew became a regular commentator on my blog and was joined by Kyle at Enter The Movies. On April 12th, 2009 I was contacted by Iain Scott of 1000 Nights In The Dark (then The One-Line Review) who wanted to include me in a film poll. I would do another poll with Iain later on and the two would be incorporated into the very list I was working on. The end of the semester brought a bit of a hiatus for I Shoot The Pictures. It really didn’t get going again until the Winter of 2009-2010 when I started a series of posts on an East Asian Cinema Binge that I was in the middle of.

While complaining about the end of a Filipino film on IMDb, I met a Filipino on the message boards who was willing to share what he knew. This meant two things for me: 1. I was able to discover the largely overlooked gem that is Filipino cinema and 2. I was now able to find films that had eluded me before. I posted sporadically for my final semester at UC Berkeley before I turned my attention back to the blog. At this time I had seen about 840 of the 1000 films on the list.

This time around I went all out. I redesigned the blog and began to reach out to others beyond my very tight circle. I found a new blogger named Rachel at Endless Reading (then Reading Rachel) who was working through a comparable list for Literature. She became a regular commentator and a comment I left on her blog caught the attention of the sweetest blogger I know. That blogger is Patrick Tillet who made his first of many comments on my blog. After that I met Warren Zoell of The Great Canadian Model Builder’s Web Page who makes wonderful models. I met Minoccio, a Russian lawyer who helped me to translate some Russian intertitles. I met Kalli of Spectacular Cinema: From the Classics and Into the Beyond. I met David Blakeslee of Criterion Reflections. Joem18b of Does writing excuse watching?, Chris of Moviesandsongs365, and Andrew A.K.A Movieman of 1001 Movies I (Apparently) MUST See Before I Die.

Later that summer and into the fall, I joined both LAMB and the CMBA. CMBA brought several people into my life including Patricia of The Lady Eve’s REEL LIFE, Jessica of Comet Over Hollywood, and Page of My Love Of Old Hollywood. I blogged like a madman till shortly after January 2011. That’s when I lopped off my ponytail and took another hiatus. I still wrote from time to time, but spent most of the time volunteering at my city’s historical society and wardriving.

I Donated It To Locks Of Love

Where I Went Wardriving

I actually became afraid of posting during this period. Somehow no matter what I wrote, it wasn’t going to be good enough to post. But come Fall, I found that I needed to understand WordPress to do some work. I bought myself a proper domain name and transferred my blog away from Blogger to WordPress. Being a techie I joined Google Plus and it was there that I rediscovered posting for my own enjoyment. After all, that is what I started this blog for in the first place. I have been back on track since and hope to make it through the new year without another hiatus.

The majority of the time you can find me here and on Twitter. I have Tumblr blog called Screenshooting Pictures that I use as a bottomless bucket for sharing movie screenshots. I do try to check in on Google Plus and post links to my blog posts, but I don’t do much there yet. I use ICheckMovies to keep a public listing of the films I have seen. When I check a film there, it isn’t a check-in, but a check-out. With that in mind, I am toying with GetGlue as a check-in service for film.

I intend to follow up this post with at least one more post. I will be putting together 3 lists of the 10 best, worst, and gems from the films I have seen since I started this blog. They will not be confined to ones I have written posts on. I will also put up some summary “words of wisdom”. These may all go into one post. It may be spread across four more posts. They may include video of myself. I’ll have to play it by ear.