words of wisdom

In a further attempt to introduce myself, here are the two cinema-related quotes that most summarize how I feel about the movies and inspire me, and the clearest statement of purpose that I have ever found about what I would like to do for a career. I have no interest in being a film-maker, so the more famous quotes about being able to create and express whatever you want (like Kubrick's famous maxim, "If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed") don't do much for me. But these two quotes, from film critics and historians, really emphasize the importance of preserving and projecting old movies for future generations.

Peter Bogdanovich:
"I think one of the reasons younger people don't like older films, films made say before the '60s, is that they've never seen them on a big screen, ever. If you don't see a film on a big screen, you haven't really seen it. You've seen a version of it, but you haven't seen it. That's my feeling, but I'm old-fashioned."

Andrew Sarris (1974):
"Perhaps if we all pool our memories without shame or snobbery, we can see to it yet that nothing of merit in the movies is ever completely forgotten or completely undiscovered."

Favorites

First, in order to know where I'm coming from, here is a list of my favorite films, actors, actresses, and directors:

"Young Frankenstein" [1974, Mel Brooks]
"The Shining" [1980, Stanley Kubrick] (the source of the title of this blog, for those who were curious)
"Cat People" [1942, Jacques Tourneur]
"The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" [1963, Jacques Demy]
"Manhattan" [1980, Woody Allen]
"Night of the Living Dead" [1968, George A. Romero]
"8½" [1963, Federico Fellini]
"Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb" [1963, Stanley Kubrick]
"2001: A Space Odyssey" [1968, Stanley Kubrick]
"Amelie" [2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet]
"Touch of Evil" [1958, Orson Welles]
"Rosemary's Baby" [1968, Roman Polanski]

I noticed almost all of these were made in either 1963 or 1968. How weird is that? Some other honorary mentions from those years: "Planet of the Apes", "Once Upon a Time in the West", and "Repulsion". What good movie-years.

As for favorite actors and actresses:
♂ Steve Buscemi
♂ Orson Welles
♀ Audrey Hepburn
♂ Josh Brolin
♀ Audrey Tautou
♀ Mary Elizabeth Winstead
♂ Sterling Hayden
♂ Woody Allen
♀ Madeline Kahn
♀ Claudia Cardinale
♀ Ingrid Bergman
♂ Boris Karloff

Prologue

My name is Dain Goding, and I am a senior in the Cinema Studies department of Tisch School of the Arts in New York University. Since June of 2004, I have seen 841 separate, individual feature films. (I have a seventeen-page Microsoft Word document to prove it.) Some of these I liked enough to watch twice. Some of these I barely remember anything about. Some of these I have seen ten or fifteen times. Most of these, however, I have seen once and remember a few highlights about, like where I saw it or who I saw it with, or like who starred in it or who made it or what the story was about.
But I would like to record more of my immediate reactions -- what did the film look like, which actors struck me in it, and how did the movie make me feel? Was the film worthy of more thought, a second watching, and copious discussion or argument? Or was the film enjoyable but lacking the depth to warrant a commitment of any additional time or mental energy to it? Or was the film a waste of even the time that I have already put into it?
I will try to be diligent about recording my thoughts on and impressions that I take away from films that I see. I will also write about music or books that strike me, or occasionally share something on the web that might be of interest. Thanks for taking a look.