BRIDE OF HERNIADROME! aka WHAT DID I WATCH IN 2021? (Part 5: My Personal Film "Festival", October 18 - November 30)

Saturday, January 1, 2022, 11:16 pm

NOTE: Continued from Part 4.

OCTOBER 18-31

Huh. I guess I didn't watch any more movies for the rest of the month. Well, two explanations for that.

In the previous post, I talked about watching 26 films from Oct 1 - 17, but actually the pace I watched films was even higher than that. Oct. 1 was my operation and then I was pretty much out for the rest of the day, so I didn't watch anything that first day for sure. But that's just a bookkeeping detail. When I started my two-week recovery at home, I was focused on watching movies, and I embraced that whole-heartedly and with no real rhyme or reason. But, I also hoped to do some drawing, trying to use the luxury of several days off from work in a row as an incentive to finally get through a weird and annoying artistic block I had for, well, it seemed like a whole year at least. Even longer. So, that took up my interest in the latter half of my stay at home before returning to work, so maybe from Oct. 11-17. So, that's Explanation One.

On October 18 I went back to work. Man, going back to work 32 hrs/week after lying around on the couch all day for two weeks was a bit of an adjustment. I was really exhausted after working a shift, so I pretty much passed out when I got home. And that was my physical state the rest of October, getting back to working again. Yeah, my Vivofit watch (along with Garmin) was totally confused with my exercise output for that stretch. So, I work outside at a grocery store, pulling grocery carts from the lot over an 8 hour shift. The week I last worked before my operation on Friday, Oct. 1 (Sept. 27-Oct. 3) - and I remember this because I have these Step Challenges that run from Monday-Sunday - I had a 150K Step challenge going on, and I managed to do at least 200,000 steps that week. It was a busy week at work, because the bulk of those steps had to be from Sept. 27-30. By the time I returned to work, my watch had put me in a much lower challenge, I think a 75K Step Challenge. But my first day back I did 33,000+ steps, so my watch was all confused, I'm sure. And I was beat getting used to doing all that walking and pulling again. And that's Explanation Two.

So, that was going on.

NOVEMBER 

NOTE: From November 5 - 11, the annual Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival took place at the Dipson Theatres at the Eastern Hills Mall. I wasn't able to attend every day of the festival, but I was present the first three days and then the final night. So, a lot of the films I saw in November were from that festival and are duly noted below in RED.

107. CHARADE (1963, TCM)

106. THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971, TCM)

 - THE SPARKS BROTHERS (second watch) (2021, Netflix)

105. THE SPARKS BROTHERS (2021, Netflix)

104. NOBODY (2021, Netflix)

2021 BUFFALO DREAMS FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL

Dipson Theatres, Eastern Hills Mall (including shorts)

103. IF SHE SCREAMS

102. THE LAST FRANKENSTEIN

101. DARK TALES FROM CHANNEL X

100. SELF ISOLATED

99. MYSTERY SPOT

98. N.Y. NINJA

97. CLOWNS IN THE WOODS

96. THE RETALIATORS (2021, Thriller/horror, 97 min.: Writers, Darren Geare, Jeff Allen Geare; directors, Samuel Gonzalez, Jr., Bridget Smith)

 - ECHO FALLS (2021, WNY 18 min.: Writer/director Aaron B. Webb; With Nate Chateaux, Sam Qualiana, Jessica Zwolak)

95. FEAR NO EVIL (1981, Horror, 100 min.)

 - GOD HELP US (U.S., 11 min.: Writer/director Rick Danford)

HERNIADROME! aka WHAT DID I WATCH IN 2021(Part 4: My Personal Film "Festival", October 1- 17)

Monday, December 20, 9:00 am

NOTE: Continued from Part 3.

Obviously, I'm finally getting around to writing this in December, but I had the idea for it back in October, maybe as early as when I was still off from work healing from my October 1st triple-hernia operation.

The initial idea of "Herniadrome" came to me the day of my operation when I thought about doing a surreal, personal but totally absurd comic story inspired by my operation, and I thought of it as a demented take or spoof of VIDEODROME and also just whatever other crap I decided to throw in. Of course, that comic story idea never came to fruition (although, I ain't dead, yet!), but at least that's how I came up with this stupid name. Well, it amuses me!

Anyway, after my operation I was off from work for two weeks and in that time I hoped to watch a bunch of movies. I did - well, for me - and then I decided to try and keep watching more movies than I usually do and see how many more I could watch before the end of the year. Hence, this supposed Herniadrome "Film Festival".

What's annoying me is that the way I usually kept track of, or at least managed, my ongoing film count through the year was via one of the marginal list gadgets on this blog, but I swear Blogger has monkeyed with how this particular list gadget works and now it's a pain trying to accomplish what I want to do. I'm pretty certain I could get away with what I wanted to do with my film list a lot more simply in previous years. 

Before, I could number each film I added, and I had the latest film I watched at the top of the list. But, I also add the months as part of the list so that I can keep track of when during the year I watched the films, and that item - the month - doesn't have a number. For instance, I just add "MARCH" to the list so it sits above those films I watched in March. But then, "MARCH" seems to be alphabetized rather than being organized by number, so it gets organized at the top of the list. Ugh! I know! This is a stupid, obsessive, distracting issue! 

Oh, crap. I just occurred to me as I write this all out that maybe my adding months to the list is something I only recently decided to try doing, so maybe that's why things are being complicated and un-cooperative for the first time. Heh. It's not YOU, it's ME.

Well, whatever... I'm attempting to do this movie list through a monthly-ish blog post now. Also, I guess this Herniadrome non-concept "concept" is simply taking over the remaining three months of my ongoing movie count. Does that sort of explain what I'm doing..? Maybe? No? You don't really care and have actually left the building..? DING! DING! DING!

Also, prior to October and my operation I watched 68 movies (which includes whole seasons of TV shows and assorted short films) over the course of nine months. So, roughly 7-8 films a month. But, October signals a big change in my movie-watching: I watched 26 films in that 17 day period alone,  thus the additional significance of the Herniadrome Film Festival. Well... "significant" to ME. YESSSSS!!!

OCTOBER 1 - 17

94. THE NIGHT STALKER (1972, DVD)

93. IN THE COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984, Amazon Prime)

92. PLAYING WITH DOLLS: HAVOC (2017, Amazon Prime)

91. PLAYING WITH DOLLS: BLOODLUST (2016, Amazon Prime)

90. METALFACE (aka PLAYING WITH DOLLS)(2015, Amazon Prime)

89. TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. (1985, TCM)

88. SHE KILLS (2016, DVD)

- GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE (second time I watched it)(2021, Netflix)

87. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935, DVD)

86. HELLS (2008, Anime, Amazon Prime)

85. ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE (1973, Amazon Prime)

84. WITCHING & BITCHING (2013, Shudder)

83. MS. 45 (1981, Shudder)

82. P.G.: PSYCHO GOREMAN (2020, Shudder)

81. HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB (1972, DVD, Uncut Version, Crash Cinema Media)

80. LA MUJER MURCIELAGO (THE BATWOMAN - Spanish language)(1968, DVD)

79. BAY OF BLOOD (aka TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE)(1971, Shudder)

78. THE UNTAMED (La region salvage)(2016, Shudder)

77. MAN ON A TIGHTROPE (1953, TCM)

76. GUN CRAZY (1950, TCM Noir Alley)

75. THE DAY OF THE BEAST (1995, Shudder)

74. SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (1949, TCM)

73. PERDITA DURANGO (1997, Shudder)

72. REVENGE OF THE PONTIANAK (2019, Singapore, Netflix)

71. MARS ATTACKS (1996, Netflix)

70. THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (1980, Shudder)

69. NEIL GAIMAN: DREAMING DANGEROUSLY (2016, Documentary, Shout Factory)