The Chelsea Challenge

On December 28th I went to the movies.  No big deal right? I go see a lot of movies.  This evening I saw a double feature.  I started with a 4:20 showing of Big Eyes and followed it with a 6:50 showing of The Imitation Game.  The second film stood out to me more then the first.  However both films mark a moment for me.  I completed my 2014 Chelsea challenge.

The challenge was to see every film that played at the Chelsea movie theater during the calendar year.  In addition to seeing all the good films that meant seeing all the bad films.  There were some bad movies.  In Secret, Le-Weekend top the list of movies that I would of loved to skip.  

There were a few surprises during the year.  Omar was a fantastic foreign film that did not appeal to me.  I would of skipped this one had I not had the challenge going.  It’s not  that the movie comes with subtitles but rather a movie that just looked like it would bore me.  After seeing I now wonder how I could of even considered skipping it.  Other movies like that include The Immigrant, the vampire tale Only Lovers Left Alive, the abortion comedy (yes you read that right) Obvious Child, and the film about Charles DickensThe Invisible Woman.

Some movies I would of seen anyway and, realized after the fact, I should of skipped them.  Magic in the Moonlight and the Oscar entry from Chili Gloria lead the should of rethought seeing aspect of the year.

The obvious part of the challenge was to see movies I was already going to see.  Birdman, Chef, The Grand Budapest Hotel, A Most Wanted Man, among others, were all movies I would of seen without the challenge.  

Some films I was two sided about.  The Theory of Everything tops of that last.  While I really enjoyed the movie and thought the actor playing Hawking was great in the role I wanted more of the physics and less of the love story.     

Looking back I enjoyed myself doing the challenge.  I had a rough year and enjoyed looking forward to seeing all these movies.

Would I do it again? Yes.

Will I do it again in 2015? I don’t know.

Regardless come see a movie with me.