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IMDB250

Since starting our own IMDB 250 challenge, Andrew and I have in total crossed 83 movies off of our list! If you missed it, we challenged ourselves to watch all of the movies from IMDB’s Top 250 list. Some have been pretty boring, but I wanted to share some of my favorites! I’m only going to write about movies that we hadn’t already seen since I am trying to broaden my movie horizon, haha.

I also included what number each movie is on the list. (This is according to our list from August, so the movie may/may not have changed its position on the list since that time). And, for fun I’ve provided my own twenty-words-or-less synopsis. If you want to view the movie’s IMDB page and consequently a more detailed summary of the movie, just click the number next to the movie. :)

Casablanca (1942) #33
Synopsis: they fall in love in Paris during WWII, and meet again in Casablanca.

I adored this movie. I’m a sucker for old movies, so the romantic and history buff in me soaked all of this movie in. I just can’t believe I haven’t seen it until now! It just has the feel of a classic movie, which makes it hard to describe why you like it so much. The acting, plot, and characters were all perfect. Plus, it’s one of the most quoted movies. It was fun to hear all the lines throughout the movie and then go, “Oh! That’s what that line is from!” So far, Casablanca is my favorite movie from the new movies we’ve watched.

Here’s lookin’ at you, kid. :heart:

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) #25
Synopsis: Weird angel shows a desperate and pennyless man what life would be like if he’d never been born.

Another old timey classic, this one makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. We watched this with Andrew’s family over Christmas. It’s always interesting to me to see how people end up where they are in life, and this movie showcases that really well. It also shows just how much of an impact people can have on others – even though you might not think so.

Infernal Affairs (2002) #208
Synopsis: One’s an undercover cop in a gang, the other’s a mole in the police. Who’s who?

This is a Chinese movie that we watched with subtitles. Another movie on the list, The Departed (#44), is the American version, with the exact same plot just different actors. We didn’t realize they were the same movie until after we finished T he Departed. but we both agreed though The Departed had some really big name actors (Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Whalberg, and more), we both liked the original much better.

I actually liked the cast of Infernal Affairs a lot better, and I think part of it was because I didn’t know them. Damon and co. did a wonderful job in The Departed, but a lot of the times big actors can be really distracting from a movie. And even though we had to watch it with English subtitles, it was just overall a more enjoyable movie and seemed to flow better. It really kept you at the edge of your seat because it was so action packed! The end really surprised me, though it did leave me feeling a bit deflated afterwards. I would really recommend if you like suspense and action! I think this should be a lot higher on the list, but I’m assuming it’s a lot lower since it’s a foreign film.

Jaws (1975) #214
Synopsis: There’s a large shark.

This movie was exactly what I thought it was going to be – but that’s not necessarily bad. Despite being forty years old, this movie holds up really well — just don’t focus too much on the shark! ;) There were a few moments that made me jump, but it was an enjoyable, straight forward story. You have to at least watch it for the “I think we need a bigger boat” line! And for its infamous music!

We’ve watched a lot of movies on our list, but these are just a few that stood out to me. Have you seen any of these movies? If so, what did you think about them? We are currently working on The Man with No Name trilogy with Clint Eastwood. I’ve not watched very many westerns before but I’m really enjoying them!

Taking on the IMDB Top 250

Growing up, my family didn’t really watch a whole lot of movies. My dad would occasionally take us to the theater to see the new, big action flick and I distinctly remember him taking me to see Princess Diaries (what a good dad), but other than the Disney movies and the ones we begged him to take us to see, we didn’t go much.

This is for several reasons, really. My mom doesn’t like movies – she only enjoys seeing very clean, “family-friendly” movies, and even then she’s really just not interested. Another reason is that we didn’t have a whole lot of money, and with a family of six people, going to the movies was expensive even on an early Saturday morning. It just wasn’t in the budget.

Andrew on the other hand, watched movies all the time with his mom growing up. We were recently talking about all of the movies that were considered “classics” or the “best of all time” that we (and by we I mean mostly me) have never seen. We both enjoy watching movies, and there were so many movies we wanted to watch that we just never have. So we thought it would be a fun challenge to watch all of these culturally classic movies by consulted the IMDB Top 250 Movies list.

If you’re not familiar, IMDB (Internet Movie Database) is a website which does exactly what its name suggests. Users can also rate movies, and I’m not sure what their exact algorithm is but IMDB puts together a list of the top movies of all time. We picked the top 250 list.

We saved a copy of the list to Excel and dated it, that way if any movies were taken off the list or added to it, it wouldn’t set us back. Our goal is to watch all 250 movies. We haven’t given ourselves a time limit – that is a lot of movies and if we watched a movie a week, it would take at least four years (we’ve crossed off movies we both have already seen). Some weeks we may watch three or four movies, and then there may be two weeks where we don’t watch any. We want to have fun with it and not make it a chore, so by not setting ourselves a “to be done by” date, I think we will really enjoy it.

Before we started the challenge, we had both seen about 45 of the movies on the list. If one of us had seen it, but the other hadn’t, we didn’t count it. We both have to have seen the movie to cross it off.

We’re still establishing rules – and by that I mean arguing about the rules. I think that we should each be allowed at least two vetos. 250 movies is, again, a lot of movies, and I can think of several that I have no desire of watching. I don’t like a lot of vulgarity so I know that I will absolutely hate The Wolf of Wall Street, however much I do love Leonardo DiCaprio. I think I should be able to use a veto. Andrew believes that we have to watch every single movie, otherwise when we say “We watched all 250 IMDB top movies!” we also have to provide a disclaimer that we skipped a few. I know of a few that Andrew really doesn’t want to watch, so I’m hoping I can persuade him that we don’t have to watch them if he uses a veto.

What do you think? Should we be able to skip a few movies, or should we watch every single one so that we can truly say we watched the IMDB Top 250?