Do you genre binge?

Posted by Whatchawatchin on May 10, 2008 at 4:36am in About Movies

Do you ever get in the mood for a specific genre, watch everything you can find, then burn out? I do this, particularly with Asian horror and British detective shows (great combo, huh). The only problem I find is that I'll binge on them, move on to something else, then find that 6 months later I can't remember if I've seen half of them. Or I know I've seen them, but can't really remember much about them. The plots seem to jumble together.

I used to keep all of my reviews on another site that I frequented. It was a horror board and, while I was there, I went on a huge Asian horror kick. I must have watched 50 movies in a month and ordered a bunch of stuff that was not coded for the States, even TV shows (Coma is a great Korean one, btw if you are looking for a good Asian supernatural miniseries, don't have issues with coding, and don't mind the trial and error method of finding the English subtitles since the only languages anything is written in on the menu are Korean, Mandarin Chinese and two other Asian languages I've yet to identify). That site is so poorly organized, though, that on some movies there are over 1200 entries for reviews (most of them 1 word or people just spouting racist/annoying stuff to be funny). I got tired of paging through trying to find my old reviews to jog my memory.

When I joined NF I tried to rate a bunch of stuff that I knew I had seen to improve the recommendations and realized I had seen a bunch of these, they sound familiar from the synopsis, but I could only remember the really good or really bad ones. My queue is now stocked with a bunch of stuff I know I've seen and seem to remember liking so I can visit them again.

I can't be the only one that does this, or can I? :-P

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by B-Independent.com on May 10, 2008 at 4:50am: Of course I genre binge, sometimes for weeks or months at a time. A few months ago it was all Asian horror or classic musical. Just this week I've been plowing through a number of 80's action films and older sci-fi. Often after watching and reviewings months of underground film, I'll just veg out on Hollywood eye candy. I never know what urge will hit. Some I'll dive into as soon as the desire hits, others build and build, for weeks or months, until I get the time to sit and watch....and can last for weeks or months.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by eviltimes on May 10, 2008 at 6:25am: I think it happens more like a genre order, then the crap shoot as to when the titles actually arrive. Which explains my messed up brain. "Old Boy" and "Across the Universe" on the same day will cause substantial damage.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Whatchawatchin on May 10, 2008 at 1:07pm: That may be the most screwed up double feature ever. Up next, "Meatball Machine" and "Brian's Song".; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by ewd76 on May 10, 2008 at 7:21am: nope, it has never occurred to do that.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robowriter on May 10, 2008 at 7:40am: But of course I binge! If it can be categorized, I just may...

I attacked Christmas movies from November till now (still getting in a few) and Arthur (on PBS) movies for nostalgia's sake (getting as many from the library as possible to save shipping time for longer than 40-minute titles). I plan to methodically attack some of my lists soon too (robots, priests and monks, IMAX, MST 3000, etc.). Movies -- woo-hoo!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rascal on May 10, 2008 at 8:36am: I have loaded my BB and Netflix queue's with over 400 WWI and WWII films.
I will never see them all. This week 4 or 5 more should be listed:
The Secret Of Santa Vittoria,
The One That Got Away,
None But The Brave,
The Secret Invasion and possibly
Zeppelin

Next week I believe "What Did You Do In The War Daddy?" will be released.

And ... I will still have to make time to see "The Night They Raided Minsky's". I know it's not a war movie but please tell me that Brett Ekland looked as good as I remember from 40 years ago.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by clockwork983 on May 10, 2008 at 10:11am: I do exactly the opposite (this sounds completely insane I'm sure) and try to systematically shuffle new lists of director, or genre recommendations by release date into my queue. I usually divide the recommendations into the total # of movies in my queue (200 queue slots 10 Takashi Miike recommendations = 1 Miike title every 20 movies, seeing his earliest released recommendation first and so forth)

At this stage in my movie geek career, I am excited to see every movie in my queue, and have not reached a point where I would be settling on movies because there was nothing better being recommended. The randomness helps me appreciate every movie individually.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Laur on May 12, 2008 at 1:27pm: I do this too, I don’t use any formulas or anything but same principal ;-) I never want to have two Tom Cruise flicks at the same time (bad example, I’m not sure anyone does). I’m actually a little nervous because I have two dramas up next but that happens sometimes when I’m queuing for two. And when it comes to TV series I’ll sort them so that I don’t have only series disks at home but I’ll have one movie and one series disk. I prefer to keep things random so I don’t get bored.

I do have a weakness for 24. I watched all of season 1 in a weekend and then ran out that Sunday to buy season 2. Something about that Jack Bauer.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by NetflixJunkie on May 10, 2008 at 10:26am: Yes. Mostly television shows.

I haven't watched TV on DVD for a while, but I will be starting Milennium soon, and I tend to watch the entire series of shows before moving onto another genre.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Whatchawatchin on May 10, 2008 at 1:09pm: TV is always a fun one. I'm in the middle of a Joss Whedon extravaganza. I resisted Buffy for 10 years, now I'm completly addicted.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bodhi Grrl! on May 10, 2008 at 1:13pm: Most of my queue is filled with Asian films, usually horror, but also some drama. (I like films about serial killers). I do binge for awhile, and then take a break. I have a few friends who binged on "Lost," and soon we'll have a coordinated binge on "Heroes." It's instant watch. YEAH!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by pihkal020 on May 10, 2008 at 3:59pm: but also some drama. (I like films about serial killers).

That part of your reply is just awesome!; ▶ Reply to This