***Official 1st Annual HTF January Winter Crime Challenge*** (1 Viewer)

[Tim Tucker]

Sick of dancing sugarplums? Tired of interminable cheery music? Ready to start throwing nutcrackers on to the fire? Are you starting to think Scrooge was right after all? Is Pottersville starting to look like a lot more fun than Bedford Falls? Then get that saccharine taste out of your mouth with the 1st Annual (hopefully) HTF Winter Crime Challenge, and put some murder and mayhem back into your life!

Though the original scope for this challenge was to be classic film noir and gangster films (and I hope that those genres will still be strongly represented), all types of crime films are eligible: film noir, proto noir, neo noir, gangster films, detective films, caper films, police procedurals… if you can make a case for it, it’s in.

And now the rules (which should be familiar to participants of the HTF Scary Movie Challenge):

1. Watch 13 crime films before midnight on January 31, 2008 (use your own time zone to set the ending time).

2. Two of the above must be new discoveries, movies you’ve never seen before. The point of this is to see those few movies you’ve always meant to see, but never got around to. I recommend more than two, but two is the minimum to pat yourself on the head and say you completed the challenge. Please specify new discoveries in your film list by making them bold, adding asterisks, different colors, etc.

3. Come here and discuss them.

To make the Challenge a bit easier, here is a link to some extensive lists of film noir and related movies to choose from:

Film Noir: They Shot Dark Pictures, Didn’t They?

And by coincidence, TCM’s Star of the Month is James Cagney, so here’s a list of all his gangster/crime movies playing in January. All times EST.

January 2

8:00 PM Sinner’s Holiday (1930)
9:15 PM The Public Enemy (1931)
10:45 PM White Heat (1949)
1:45 AM The Roaring Twenties (1939)
3:45 AM Smart Money (1931)
5:15 AM The Doorway to Hell (1930)

January 3

9:15 AM City for Conquest (1940)

January 9

8:00 PM The Mayor of Hell (1933)
9:45 PM Each Dawn I Die (1939)
11:30 PM Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)
1:15 AM G-Men (1935)
2:45 AM Blonde Crazy (1931)
4:15 AM He Was Her Man (1934)

January 16

2:00 AM Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
4:15 AM Taxi! (1932)

January 17

6:45 AM Picture Snatcher (1933)

January 30

8:00 PM Lady Killer (1933)

 

[Malcolm R]

Musicals?

 

[PatW]

I'm definitely in for Sci-fi.

 

[TravisR]

If this a quarterly thing, maybe Sci-Fi Challenge would good be for April and then Comedy And Musical Challenge for July. Not that musicals automatically fit in with comedies but I think a fair number have comedic elements.

I'd like a Blaxploitation challange but I doubt that there would be too many people interested in it.

 

[JohnRice]

I was interested in possibly doing something a little less ordinary. Those are just genres I expect people are watching anyway. Of course, someone else can run a challenge on whatever genre they want.

 

[TravisR]

I agree but what other genres are there that have a big enough appeal?

 

[Ruz-El]

I think thats it Travis. Horror and Sci fi tend to have a bit more obsevive fans who collect a bunch of movies, so they are more accesable. I'd participate in the historical epics and musicals, I just flat have access to near as many titles. If you did a musicals challenge the month after that next Warners box set came out, I'd join in, I just happen to have way more non-musical titles sitting on my "to Watch" shelf that I wat to go through rather then re-watch a bunch of my collection.

Blaxploitation would be fun as well, I again suffer from not having that many titels, not as many as I would llike anyways. Frankly, I'm enough of a nerd that I keep track of what I watch anyways, so I'd do my best to join in to any challenge.

 

[JohnRice]

That's basically it Russell. I don't see the point in running only challenges in genres people are watching all the time anyway.

 

[PatW]

I guess I'd like to see Sci-fi because that's my favourite genre and I have the most titles in that category. I see your point though. My least represented genre in my collection are Westerns and War films. I'm trying to watch more films in either category so for me, they would be good choices. Epics or historical dramas were mentioned. I would be interested in that as well. Maybe we could combine Epics and historical dramas together. Either way, as long as it's not horror, I'm in.

 

[JohnRice]

Well, I would definitely like to run one on Historical Drama/Epics. So, my plan would be to do that in March. Maybe someone else would like to run a Sci-Fi challenge in May. My feeling is it's best to skip a month in between each one.

Maybe Russell would like to run a Grindhouse challenge sometime.

 

[SteveGon]

I'm up for Sci-fi and Historical/Epic challenges. Pass on the musicals.

 

[PatW]

I'll pass on the musicals as well. But March sounds great to me for Epics/Historical dramas.

 

[Ruz-El]

Make it Musicals/comedies as previously suggested and you open it more.

As I said before, I'll give all of them a go. Just don't expect obsessive crazy numbers like the scary movie challenge

 

[JohnRice]

OK then, I'll do a Historical Drama/Epics challenge in March. I'll open the thread in a couple weeks.

Here are my thoughts on qualifications.

1) Any movie set in any realistic, historical time period. Not necessarily non-fiction. Examples: A Very Long Engagement: YES. Elizabeth: YES Star Wars: NO. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" doesn't qualify.

2) Any movie with a running time of at least 160 minutes. Examples: Heat: YES. Doctor Zhivago: DOUBLE YES. LOTR: If you must, but the idea is to branch out. Prepare to be mocked. Titus: No under rule 1 (not a realistic time period) but YES under rule 2.

 

[Ruz-El]

should probably save this for the thread, but I think maybe we should discount LOTR from the historical drama/epics. It is a fantasy right? I know they treat Middle Earth like a real world, it isn't though.

LOTR makes sense to a Sci fi / Fantasy. I see these movie as ones that are monster/science or monster based, but not in a horror movie vane.

I should get my copy of El Cid for march.

 

[Malcolm R]

I think John's criteria are either/or, not that they must meet both. Hence, some LOTR films would meet the 160 minute minimum (as would "King Kong" 2005 ) as an "epic" defined by Criteria 2.

 

[JohnRice]

Yes, it is either/or.

 

[PatW]

Star Wars is a sci-fi epic so in that sense it should be included. But I have no problem discounting it. I'll include it in the sci-fi challenge. Oh goody, I get to watch King Kong again.

 

[JohnRice]

I'll turn this car around!!!

 

[rich_d]

First, thanks for Tim for suggesting this Winter Crime Theme.

Films

L.A. Confidential
D.O.A.
Too Late For Tears
The Mirror Crack'd
The Thin Man
Shadow of the Thin Man
Murder My Sweet
Pickup On South Street
3:10 To Yuma (2007)
Zodiac
The Lady Vanishes
Eastern Promises
No Country For Old Men
Pulp Fiction