July 2007 on 50 Words Aug 12, 2007

I wrote 37 Reviews in July on 50 Words, six more than my goal. In August, I’m going to try to keep up with my average of one review per day. Here’s what I reviewed in July, in order of letter grade:

1. Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane – At Carnegie Hall
2. Tito Puente – Live at the Village Gate
3. Joe Henderson – Double Rainbow
4. Joe Henderson – Lush Life
5. Billy Taylor – Dr. T
6. Buddy DeFranco and Terry Gibbs – Holiday for Swing
7. Modern Jazz Quartet – A 40th Anniversary Celebration
8. Sicko
9. The Tao of Steve
10. Thirteen
11. Gerry Mulligan – Midas Touch
12. Hargrove McBride Scott – Parker’s Mood
13. Herbie Mann – Sultry Serenade
14. Jimmy Smith and Eddie Harris – All the Way Live
15. Lackawanna Blues
16. Oscar Peterson – Compact Jazz
17. Shattered Glass
18. Teodross Avery – In Other Words
19. Eric Dolphy – Outward Bound
20. Lee Konitz – Subconscious-Lee
21. Sonny Stitt and Richie Cole – Battle of the Saxes
22. Stanley Jordan – Standards, Vol. 1
23. Transformers
24. An American Rhapsody
25. Nine Lives
26. Tom Dowd & the Language of Music
27. All Over Me
28. Mi Mejor Enemigo
29. Proof (1991)
30. Stanley Jordan – Stolen Moments
31. Ella Fitzgerald – Ella By Starlight
32. The Young Americans
33. Head On
34. The Last Days of Chez Nous
35. Keane
36. Last Days
37. Eric Dolphy – Wherever I Go

Highest Grade: A++. Lowest Grade: D-. July’s GPA: 3.21 (B+).

Category Breakdown: Movies (17 – 45.95%), Music (20 – 54.05%)

Goal for August: 31 reviews or more.

May 2007 on 50 Words Jun 1, 2007

May was a fairly busy month on 50 Words. I wrote 25 Reviews. In order of letter grade, here are the items I reviewed:

1. Clifford Brown – Memorial Album (1953)
2. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
3. The Flying Scotsman (2006)
4. Joe Pass – Virtuoso (1973)
5. Lonesome Dove (1989)
6. Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
7. We Were Soldiers (2002)
8. The Constant Gardener (2005)
9. Legends of the Fall (1994)
10. The Mighty (1998)
11. North Country (2005)
12. Platoon (1986)
13. ‘Round Midnight (1986)
14. Seth Godin – The Dip (2007)
15. Billy Elliot (2000)
16. March of the Penguins (2005)
17. Howards End (1992)
18. Hustle & Flow (2005)
19. Junebug (2005)
20. Ken Peplowski – It’s a Lonesome Old Town (1995)
21. Dancer in the Dark (2000)
22. Jack McDevitt – Eternity Road (1997)
23. The Man Without a Past (2002)
24. Chocolat (1988)
25. A History of Violence (2005)

Highest Grade: A++. Lowest Grade: C-. May’s GPA: 3.42 (B+).

Category Breakdown: Movies (20 – 80%), Music (3 – 12%), Books (2 – 8%)

Goal for June: 30 reviews or more.

Movie 200 May 24, 2007

A few days ago, I posted the 200th movie review over at 50 Words. It seems like only yesterday, I came up with the idea and sold Mr. Bye and Mr. Ferrante on it. It’s actually been a year, a month, and ten days. The very first post on 50 Words was my review for Primer. There are a few posts dated earlier, primarily remixes of reviews on this site and others in my “review this” list on Backpack (of which nine remain unreviewed).

I really enjoy writing these little tiny reviews, although sometimes I feel as though I’m saying the same things over and over again. Admittedly, I’m not the most creative reviewer out there. I also tend to be very generous with my ratings. That said, I’m looking forward to seeing how the next 200 movies goes.

Oh, I should update the list:

• Seen: 567
• In Queue: 459
• Unavailable: 319
• Left to see (but not in queue): 1000
• Removed from list: 2 (duplicates)
• Total: 2345

Since I posted here two months ago, I’ve seen 14 movies — an average of one movie every 4½ days. At this rate, it should take 18 years to watch the remaining 1459 movies, if no more are added to the list. In order to see all of these wonderful films, I really need to increase my numbers a little bit.