Call for Shame Statements 2023

2023 doesn’t sound like a real year. It’s a title card on a science fiction movie, citing a far off year in the future. Hell, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) took place in a dystopian 2023. The wasteland established in Terminator 2: Judgment Day is 2029!

What I’m trying to say is that a lot of movies predicted the 2020s for some type of apocalypse and if we’re going to get those long overdue movie watches checked off, we’re going to need to pick up the pace. Watch the movies! We’ll never reach the end of our lists, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Push play.

Stop browsing your 27 streaming services for another limited series and make a conscious decision to watch a great movie.

Unwrap that Blu-ray. Check out the new Sight & Sound list, AFI, BFI. Open up a Danny Peary book and look for a movie you didn’t know about. Listen to podcasts like The Movies that Made Me or Pure Cinema and jot down their recommendations. (The Cinema Shame podcast talks about some good movies, too — I’m just saying.) Open up any movie book and see what shakes out! There are so many ways to approach your year in moviewatching that go beyond mindless scrolling.

Do me a favor.

Right now — go on Twitter or Facebook or Hive or into your neighborhood cafe or wherever you interact with other humans and ask people to tell you some movies they love. These are real humans sharing their love of cinema with you. Pick one of the titles they mention and just watch it. After you watch it, tell them what you thought. Tell that that you watched it. These are simple interactions, but ones that make real connections.

Tag us on your posts at @CinemaShame or #CinemaShame. We definitely want to hear about your adventures in cinema. And if you make the effort to write up your 2023 Shame Statement make that your January movie — your first assignment of the new year. You’ll definitely get a RT and perhaps a mention on the next episode of the Cinema Shame podcast.

To participate in the Shame Statement party, create your list of 12 and post it on your blog or favorite signpost. Cinema Shame will share it. 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 particular film. When you watch them, maybe write about your experience. Maybe send a few tweets. Call and tell your mom.

And while you’re here, subscribe to the Cinema Shame podcast wherever podcasts are found: Apple Podcasts / Stitcher Radio / Spotify / Google Podcasts / Amazon Podcasts. This year will be a big year as we’re mixing up the format and adding some more permanent co-hosts. Kris Myers (@kris__myers) and Allan Mott (@houseofglib) will join James (@007hertzrumble) in the Shamequarters.

Take us along on your cinematic journeys — and may we avoid that coming apocalypse by watching great movies instead of plotting our own self-destruction.

The 2023 Penitent:

Taking Up Room: https://takinguproom.com/2023/01/13/in-the-year-of-our-shame-2023/

30HertzRumble aka @007hertzrumble aka Cinema Shame (obvs) https://thirtyhertzrumble.com/2023-cinema-shame-statement/

Shame Statement 2022

We’ve been shaming and stating for a few years now. The Cinema Shame rolls ever onward. No matter how many movies you watch, you’ll never reach the end of this road. It’s a comfort; it’s a disease. What, after all, do you aim to gain by following this golden road on into the emerald light?

It’s a good question, and I’m not sure that I have the answer. I do know that I always enjoy watching that long overdue classic, that other movie from a favorite star or director. As a content consumers, it’s becoming all too easy to open up our favorite streaming service and just push play.

Pushing play is fine. There’s a mindless simplicity that does not exacerbate a long day of work, a long week navigating the latest COVID-19 obstacle course–but what fulfillment do we gain? Another night cashed in, another few hours letting the images flash and flicker across our screen, until we crawl into bed and do it again tomorrow.

Purposefully selecting a movie to watch is different. It’s planned. Celebrated as a sort of ceremonial unveiling. I acquired this DVD/BD/4K/Digital copy so that I could watch *THIS* specific movie and have this specific experience. In the streaming age, such decisions feel empowering. I get a taste of this every time I pull a DVD off the shelf and insert it into a player.

I have taken control of this evening. I have popcorn and a choice beverage. I have a movie.

I have chosen to watch something that I can talk about with someone else.

I have chosen to watch something I can share on Twitter and tag @CinemaShame because they will definitely retweet you and attempt a terrible pun.

To celebrate our independence, to celebrate our own agency, let’s see your lists of Shame, the 12 movies you aim to watching during 2021 to right egregious wrongs. To fill in blanks in filmographies. We are more than just the accumulation of our currently available streaming options.

We are cinephiles. Hear us roar…

The usual “rules” apply!

Create your list, post it on your blog or favorite signpost and Cinema Shame will share it (by yelling your shame from atop of the Xanadu). 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 particular film. When you watch them, maybe write about your experience. Maybe send a few tweets. Call and tell your mom.

And while you’re here, subscribe to the Cinema Shame podcast wherever podcasts are found: Apple Podcasts / Stitcher Radio / Spotify / Google Podcasts / Amazon Podcasts

And if you’re feeling kindly, leave us a good review. If you’re not feeling kindly, well, kindly bugger off. We don’t need that kind of energy in this safe space for penitent, take-charge-of-their-TV moviewatchers.

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.