The ABC Project

I’d like to post here more often. And now that the spring film festival season is behind me, I’d like to watch more movies on DVD — I’ve got Netflix and I ought to use it, instead of being envious of the DVDs my husband is watching. So why not combine the two?
My Netflix queue is currently in alphabetical order, sort of. It’s not strict alphabetical order because that really is too, too anal retentive. (Netflix does not alphabetize the movies for you; you have to do it yourself, manually.) But all the A’s, B’s, C’s, etc. are grouped together. We’re talking about over 200 movies here, plus a few TV shows thrown in there on various people’s recommendations.
So here’s my plan: The ABC Project. It’s pretty simple: I’m going to get movies from Netflix in alphabetical order. First I’ll rent a movie with a title starting with A, then one with B, and so forth down the alphabet. And I intend to write a little something about each of these movies — not a formal review, but some thoughts about the film. I’m picking movies I haven’t seen before, or haven’t seen since childhood (I’m thinking it’s time to see Jaws and Rocky again). I have at least one movie in my queue for almost every letter of the alphabet — tons of “M” options but no “X” so far.
These aren’t the only movies I’m going to watch on DVD, because I can’t wait for some of those movies with end-of-alphabet titles. And there may have to be multiple “D” movies because it’s incredibly difficult for me to decide between several I’m dying to see. Two “B” movies, too, since I just read Anthony Lane’s essay on Barbara Stanwyck and want to see Baby Face. “L” is going to be even tougher. But I’m hoping that a little gimmick like The ABC Project will encourage me to write more about movies, and to watch the movies I get from Netflix sooner rather than later. (It took me a week to get to Jesus Camp.) Also, seeing good movies that I missed in theaters, and classics that I haven’t gotten around to watching yet, will make up nicely for the shortage of thought-provoking films in theaters during the summer months. Finally, it will get people off my back about my not having seen certain films that they feel are obligatory for film writers. I will not mention any titles, because I don’t want any of you doing that “whaaaat? how can you not have seen …” thing. You can do that after I write about those movies.
The “A” movie has already arrived: All the President’s Men. I never have seen it — okay, you can do that “whaaat?” routine now, if you must. I watched Dick instead — will Robert Redford be as entertaining a Bob Woodward as Will Ferrell? I’ll let you know.