May Prompt: Spring Cleaning

We must apologize for our lack of prompting over the last few months. As you may or may not have noticed some wild stuff is happening out there in the real world.

We hope you’ve prepared your SHAME STATEMENT and watched one or two Academy-honored foreign language films, but it’s definitely time to move on. We’ll call March and April a wash because throwing on an old familiar comfort film… or twenty… was probably the order of the day. For May, we’re getting back in the spirit of Cinema Shame, picking up that Swiffer duster and cleaning off the old media shelves.

Our May prompt encourages you to take a good hard look at your DVD and Blu-ray shelves to identify the longest-tenured discs in your possession. Hell, maybe you’ve got some unwatched VHS tapes. Once you’ve given them a good dusting, watch them. You picked up that copy of Immortal Beloved for some reason. It was one of the first Blu-rays you ever purchased, but there it sits, idle on your shelf, still sealed. Do it for Gary Oldman. Do it because “2012 You” definitely needed to own that movie.

Gary Oldman is not amused.

Share your moldy watches with us. Send your photos and musings to @CinemaShame on Twitter and lets see what kind of progress we can make in communally justifying all of our long-forgotten and frivolous media expenditures. Watch the most, tag us and we’ll give you a shout out on the next podcast. It’s the least we can do.

I might start with this shelf. Then again, I might not. This brand of shame runs two maybe three deep.

Be safe. Stay inside. Watch movies you already own. Also, there are two new episodes of the Cinema Shame podcast available for your ear holes to enjoy.

–jdp

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January Prompt: The Shame Statement

Hallelujah! Holy Shit! It’s 2020.

Did any of you actually believe we’d get here? I know I didn’t. But since we’re all still around we might as well watch some great movies.

A new year means it’s time to renew your vows to Cinema Shame. It’s Shame Statement January once again and that means you have to come up with a brand new list of 12+ movies you plan to watch in 2020. If you didn’t finish last year’s list, carry them right on over. (But can you do some goddamn extra credit this year to make up for your past malfeasances?) Stick out a sexy leg and see what shows up in your queue.

That’s It Happened One Night from 1934. If you don’t know it, there’s a good place to start.

Do you have a dusty to-watch pile sitting next to your television? Pick some of those.

Do you have a favorite director? Do a deep dive. Is there a director or actor you’ve somehow avoided all these years? Give them a sample. Maybe more. Maybe you’ll fall in love.

Each month we’ll provide a new prompt that helps direct your viewing in new and exciting directions. Maybe you don’t like the cattle prod, but we like doing the prodding. Okay so maybe it’s less than prodding.

Create your list, post it and Cinema Shame will share it (by yelling your shame from atop of the watchtower — but in a loving manner). Feel free to add some background details for your picks, such as why you are picking it or the reason you haven’t had to chance to view this film. The more eccentric the better.

(That’s another movie you should have seen by now.)

If you need ideas, you can check the clan’s Shame Statements from prior years. Contact us by email cinemashame@gmail.com or tweet at us @Cinemashame.

Remember to listen to the last episodes of the Cinema Shame podcast, available on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher Radio. If you like what you hear, please leave a review and share the episode on social media. We don’t even work for peanuts — just fleeting moments of appreciation on the Interwebs. What can we say? We’re easy.

I don’t know about you but this feels like the most Shameful year yet.

December Prompt: Festive Shaming

It’s December, which means you only have one month to wrap up any of those last unwatched movies on your Shame Statement. Even if you didn’t make a Shame Statement this year, just go ahead and pick that one movie you haven’t watched. We all have that one nagging outlier that just won’t get watched and it won’t go away. Rather than let it haunt your dreams like Jacob Marley, you should probably just go ahead and put it to rest before Christmas Eve.

I’ve spent the entire year focusing on my #Watch1989 marathon (60 1989 movies and counting) so I’ll finish as many of those as I can, but I’ll also finally watch The Night of the Hunter. I watched the last thirty minutes on TCM many years ago and never brought myself to do a full viewing.

I won’t even get into how many movies on my Statement I actually watched. Between #Watch1989 and Cinema Shame podcasting… ugh. Just brutal. I am shamed.

I see you, Robert Mitchum.

Whatever your measure of Shame, take it down a notch. Start your new year with a brand new batch of unseen movies. After all, ’tis the season to be jolly, eat well and watch a lot of great movies. You have no excuse. Not the weather (more time to watch movies). Not imposing out-of-town family members (share your Shame!). Make each of these viewings an event. You’ll never regret watching a classic that’s been nagging at your conscience.

Now a little housekeeping…

Start thinking about your 2020 Shame Statements. The new decade is right around the corner.

Be sure to check out the latest Cinema Shame podcast featuring Julia Ricci (@julsrich) talking about her first-time watch of Lawrence of Arabia. Subscribe on iTunes / Stitcher / Spotify. If you enjoy what you hear, leave us a present under the Shame tree in the form of a review on your favorite listening platform.

Happy holidays, happy movie watching and may 2020 be your most Shameful year yet.

JDP