The 'A' List Update

On my lunch break on Tuesday I wondered around the DVD section of HMV in Epsom (the town in England where I work). I hung around mainly where the DVDs starting with 'A' can be found. I saw so many films starting with A that I wanted to watch or I have watched in the past, loved and never bought for myself. For anyone unfamiliar with HMV it can tend to be more expensive than other retailers so I wrote a list of the films that inspired me the most for various reasons and did an Amazon shop on my return to my office. I bought the following to add to the list of films I will begin to watch next week, as I'm going to be on leave;

A Child is Waiting
An Affair to Remember
Annie Hall
Armageddon
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Coming to a grand total of £21.56, and under budget of £25 per letter of the alphabet, Annie Hall came in a Woody Allen box set of 6 films so I divided the total for the box set by 6. I will add the £3.44 to the budget for films starting with B. I was sorely tempted to buy many more films, including Annie, Annie Get Your Gun and all manner of other titles, however that is one of the main reasons for the budget and I intend to stick to it, well that's what I say now!!

The Beginning

So as I promised here is the A List and also a brief description of how each ‘review’ will be laid out.

I will first of all watch the film then write a brief plot summary and also include my likes and dislikes for it. After this I will mark each film out of 20 which will be broken down as follows;
Acting; out of 5
Keeping my attention; out of 4
Overall Visuals/Directing: out of 5
Story/Plot; Out of 6
With each review I will try to include any personal titbits where these films may have impacted on my life in any way, where I bought them, who I’ve watched them with or personal episodes in my life that I link with them.
I will then give the film a verdict, such as keep, sell etc

So here it is the ‘A’ list, nothing too taxing to start off with I think!

P.S A quick note on the Alphabetisation, where there are series of films I have tried to put these in chronological or story order, such as Harry Potter and Dirty Harry, for others I have put them under one heading for the series, such as ‘James Bond’ with all the films I have in sequence. I hope you enjoy. X


A
The Abduction Club
A Bridge Too Far
A Bug’s Life
The Accidental Husband
Addicted to Love
A Good Year
A Knight’s Tale
Aladdin (Disney)
Alex and Emma
The Amazing Adventure
Amazing Grace
America’s Sweethearts
An American in Paris
Anchorman
Animal Attraction
A Prairie Home Companion
Are You Ready For Love?
Atonement
Austin Powers
Austin Powers; The Spy Who ******* Me
Austin Powers; Goldmember

Why am I doing this?

I watch and own a lot of films, and I mean a lot!
This blog will endeavour to 'rummage' through my DVD collection alphabetically providing a short synopsis of the films I own and any personal feelings I have on them, as I have recently realised that films run through episodes from my personal life as well.
Maybe some of you out there might be able to recommend a few films to me (anything less than £5 on Amazon, and in total less than £25 per letter of the alphabet!).
I like 'Chick Flics', Sci fi, musicals... in fact pretty much everything, one of the many curses of being an only child, where I watched musicals with my mum one day and Star Trek with my dad on another and John Wayne films with my Grandma the next. I always have to know what a film is about before I watch it and if I don't like the sound of it I sometimes won't watch it, but for the purposes of this experiment I will try to keep an open mind. So please don't take offence if anything you recommend isn't put into the list, also there may be some films that I have seen in other ways (TV, cinema or just a long time ago) that I never thought to own myself for various reasons.
The main reason for this Blog is to vent the inner writer in me, that is currently being suppressed by a career I don't really see myself being in by the time I 'work' through to Z in this project, and maybe that should be a goal to work towards.
I have only included films in this blog as I don't think everyone else would be as interested as me in spending weeks watching George Clooney in ER (as I recently acquired the complete series for my birthday).
So other motives for this blog, to weed down the amount of DVDs in my collection maybe some of them will end up in local charity shops or on eBay so keep your eyes peeled for a bargain.
So how this will work; a week or so before each letter is due to start being reviewed I will post a list of the films being included and hope for some feedback from the population of Blogger. Any help that you can provide will be greatly appreciated on any other films in the selected letter that might be worth a look, I'll try to include as many as possible that are suggested.
So join me if you wish in watching some of the treasures, and maybe sometimes not, of cinema from the last few decades.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I know I will. xx
P.s I will need about a week to compile the A list so watch this space for updates very soon