I thought it might be a good idea to do a short, impromptu podcast to welcome the sudden influx of listeners who subscribed to my podcast yesterday. Before yesterday, I’d been keeping a low profile, and wasn’t doing any sort of promotion for this site. Initially, I wasn’t going to tell anyone about it, but I mentioned it to my nephew, Mike, who is a filmmaker, and to my friend Wei Ti, with whom I used to sit up late at night, drinking wine and talking movies, before we both moved far away from one another. I thought I should tell my brothers, too, so I did. At that point, I had acquired four subscribers. I did not expect anyone else to subscribe, and as I created this podcast as a method for remembering the films I watch, I was happy luring in four more subscribers than I ever anticipated having.
Then, yesterday, my brother Ted told his 70,706 Twitter followers that this podcast existed, and my phone erupted with emails telling me over and over again that I had a new subscriber. So… welcome new subscribers! If you’d like to know more about what I’m doing here, and why, please listen to my initial podcast from August, where I go in depth on that topic.
The short version is that I heard someone say that he used to forget the plots and details of books he read, but once he started recording a podcast about each book he read, he found he had much greater recall of what he’d read. I thought I’d try the same, but with movies. That decision came shortly after I’d decided to do something else: to go back to the dawn of cinema, and watch the “important” movies in chronological order. And that’s what the All the Movies podcast is, my thoughts about each film I watch as I work through my list.
Important is a subjective term, obviously, and I made the list based on my own sense of what films I should watch. Now that others are along for the ride, I welcome any and all of you to chime in and suggest films that you think I should see. I’m only 28 films in at this point, so any film released after July 6th, 1913 is fair game. All that matters is that is “important!” You be the judge of what that loaded word means.
Now then, carry on about your day. Tomorrow I’ll share my thoughts on movie #29 on the list, which currently includes 1,748 films. Maybe you know a film that ought to be number 1,749? If you do, let me know!
A Quick Intermission