Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams
Genre:Comedy, Drama, Bio-Pic,
Year: 2009
Format: DVD
Plot: After reading the cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julie Powell decides to cook her way through the large volume, and becomes obsessed with the life of Julia Child.
What do I think I learned from this film?
I decided it was only fitting to end the challenge the same way I started it. By watching the movie Julie/Julia. The film that got me going in this direction to begin with.
So it's a year later...
I started the year by watching the movies at night and writing up the post to have for first thing in the morning. It gave me a schedule and forced me to sit down for a few hours every day.
But along the way, because of things happening in my life, the movie was done in the morning and therefore, posted later in the day.
I was about three weeks into the challenge when I started wondering if I was in over my head and if I was going to even continue into the New Year. But I got past that bump and kept at it. As crazy as it sounds, I needed this. I needed to finish something that I had started.
A year ago, I had talked about finding your passion, another reason I wanted to do this year long challenge.
Nine weeks in, I sort of had an A-HA! moment.
I am not the type to do up New Year's resolutions, but I did for 2012. Two of the things on my "wish list" for the year were to get back to work on my scrapbook that had been sitting half done since 2008, and to get back to painting again. Something else I had not done since about 2006.
I'd realized the little sketchbook I'd been using to keep track of the movies I'd seen to that point, was more of a journal/scrapbook then just a list, with tickets I'd kept from the cinema, the lessons I felt I learned from each film and drawings I'd done that had been inspired by some of the movies.
So I ended up heading to the craft store and stocking up on art supplies and a photo album. I turned what had been a simple list into these single mini projects. The list had started just so that I could refer back quickly to make sure I did not re-do a movie.
This challenge had unknowingly helped me to fulfill two of my New Year's "wishes".
Twelve weeks into the challenge I fell and broke my kneecap. Just shattered it. I, ironically was coming home from the cinema when I slipped on some ice. It put me a full week behind on the challenge having been in the hospital.
The challenge gave me something to focus on while I went through recovery.
This was not a cheap challenge by far. I gave up around May trying to keep track of everything spent over the course of the year in regards to this challenge. From movie rentals, to the price of a popcorn etc.
Some of the movies I watched for the first time during the year, some were old favourites, and others still were movies I had in my collection that I'd watched once and didn't remember I had until I started to dig through my collection.
I think the movies I enjoyed the most during the year were Warrior and Anonymous
This challenge ended up seeping into every part of my life. I did not take in account at the beginning of this how it would affect my budget or how my family interacted with me. As, because of my knee injury I spent a few months crashing on my mother's sofa; my movie choices were limited to what she was willing to watch with me. That ended up being a major game changer. Not too mention that she babysat a lot, which would account for some of the kids movies I ended up seeing.
Ratings and how appropriate a movie was suddenly became something I needed to think about.
There were many disappointments, because of my knee injury with me not getting to the cinema for all the films I had been looking forward to.
When I started this challenge, I was stuck on my sofa with a broken foot on a December afternoon in 2011. Who would have guessed that would be a foreshadow to the coming year with my knee?
I thought "how difficult is it to do something I do every day anyway? A year is nothing" What I didn't account for were the unknowns. Things like my health getting in the way, bad weather that caused power outages which kept me from seeing the movies and from getting online, the uninvited company who would stop by keeping me from being able to see a movie etc. All things that factored into the year going over by a few weeks.
This year was not what I was expecting it to be. But if I learned anything, is that life usually isn't what you would expect.
My official challenge is over for 2012. But the blog is not.
You would expect to have a life lesson from something like Julie/Julia or Eat Pray Love, which I did. but you wouldn't expect to learn a life lesson from something like Evil Bong (okay I didn't learn anything from that but I needed an example)
The day I started this year long challenge, I really had nothing in mind other then I thought it would be cool to watch one movie a day for the year and blog about it.
But, after a few movies, I realized I actually wanted to get something out of this whole thing. I wanted to discover stuff. Stuff about myself, new interests, new hobbies, new people. I realized in the end I really do want to find my passion.
It all ended up leading me back to a few common things. Scrapbooking, art, and vampires.
That's when I decided I wanted to do an all vampire challenge. Which is what I'm setting out to do in 2013.
This past year, despite my injury (two surgeries, seven months of physio therapy, and almost nine months sharing an apartment with my mother) despite the lack of a social life, I still had some fun with this challenge. (I think it helped keep me from going totally mad during the whole thing.)
And I'm sure a few of my readers checked in to see if I was honestly going to finish. There were times when I wasn't sure I would. But very glad I did.
And I also know, that there are a few readers (mostly in the wrestling industry -big kiss-) who checked in to this blog simply because it was a ridiculous challenge. I think that was another part of why I actually had fun doing this. I was not working for any magazines or newspapers as a movie reviewer, it was done for fun.
As I said, my official challenge of one movie a day for the year in 2012 is over, but the blog is not. The plan as I type this, is to continue the blog as I watch movies, as the movie club progresses (keeping my fingers crossed on that one) and diving head first into the vampire challenge I have planned for 2013. (more on that after tomorrow)
And as I realize this post is about as long as the last five I've done combined, I will say stay tuned, Happy New Year, and stay safe.
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