The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is the world’s most popular source for everything involving movies and TV shows. For years they have gathered movie ratings by their users and build a ever changing list of their Top 250 movies based on this. 

Melinda and I are both fans of the big screen and we regularly write movie reviews of new movies that we’ve seen. Imagine our surprise when we had a quick look at the Top 250 and realized we had only seen a measly 25%-32% of the list! The Top 250 is filled with rather old, slow, and long movies, and somehow we had never watched any of them because one really needs to set some time apart for them.

So here is our home-made-challenge for 2009: watch 52 of the IMDB Top 250 Movies. That is one movie a week, and as this year started on a Thursday our weeks last from Thursday to Wednesday.  This gives us the weekend to watch the movies, and a few days extra might we not be able to watch it in the weekend. We invite everyone to come and join us every week. We’ll be listing the next movie as we review the previous one.

Week 1

Last week’s movie was La Vitta è Bella (aka Life is Beautiful, 1997) which is currently #87 on the IMDB top 250. It is directed by and starring Roberto Benigni who is an Italian comedian and director. The movie won 3 Oscars, including that of Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film. I had already seen the movie but Melinda hadn’t yet and she had gotten the movie on DVD for Christmas. We both loved the movie and even had to wipe a tear in the end. Here is the trailer:

Week 2

This week we’re going to watch the long-time #1 in the Top 250: The Shawshank Redemption (1994). As I said earlier, we’re inviting anyone to come and join us in watching this 142 minute long classic.