- Casino Royale Review
- Carrie (1976)
- Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
- Trainspotting (1996)
- Rain Man (1988)
- Fatal Attraction (1987)
- Targets (1968)
- An Education (2009)
- Mirror, The (1974)
- Fargo (1996)
- Fight Club (1999)
- Do The Right Thing (1989)
- Report (1967)
- Is "The Sting" The Best Gambling Film Ever Made?
- Pink Flamingos (1972)
- Ox-Bow Incident, The (1943), Or 28 Angry Men
- Rome, Open City (1945)
- Spring in a Small Town (1948)
- Drive (2011)
- Vinyl (1965)
- Seconds (1966)
- Rosemary's Baby (1968)
- A Hollywood Invasion of Casino Halls
- Thin Man, The (1934)
- In The Heat of the Night (1967)
- All In: The Poker Movie, Player’s Best Tricks
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
- 1001 Club - Skyfall (2012)
- 1001 Club - When Harry Met Sally... (1988)
- 1001 Club - Rain Man (1988)
Person Behind The Post - Adolytsi
Person Behind The Post
Adolytsi of Adol's CinematoBlogoWebboScreed

I was so serious about my career choice that I went to film school as my college; a school called Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. I always liken my education at Full Sail as a "jack-of-all-trades" school; instead of film theory and development, the school basically teaches you the ins and outs of a film set, and by the end of the degree, they want you to be able to walk onto a film set and essentially be able to do any job competently. I personally wished I'd gotten a more specialized education as a wannabe director, but I still enjoyed my time there, and made many good friends. It was while I was there, rummaging through the school's library that I first ran across the 1001 Book, specifically the edition with The Shining on the cover. I absolutely loved it; I must have spent an hour in the library that day just poring over the book - just imagine how many films there are that are so essential and unique, that I HAD to see them before I died! Naturally, that Christmas, I asked for a copy of The Book for myself, which I ended up getting (5th Edition). My continuing self-education in film theory and technique has stemmed largely from the List since then.

Growing up, I watched a lot of comedies and musicals and animated films; good family entertainment stuff. Some of the stuff I watched might've stretched the word "family" a bit, as my two favorite screen comedians at the time were Jim Carrey and Robin Williams, but my parents were pretty supportive of me and my brother watching stuff a little ahead of ourselves, if we were prepared for it (I remember, when I was pretty young, coming across their VHS of a mysterious and intriguing movie called Se7en, and wanting to pop it in and watch it, and they had a mini-freak out that basically said no). That all changed when I sifted through our VHS collection and found a film by the name of The Shawshank Redemption. I wouldn't say it transformed me; rather, it opened my eyes to a world of cinema I'd not realized existed. I must've watched that film a hundred times; it was spellbinding, and ever since then, I watched more serious cinema and grew to appreciate all kinds of movies, from all different genres. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Frank Darabont.

As for my personal favorites, I'm a big sci-fi geek, and my personal favorite is a little independent film called Primer. It's a mind-bender of an enigma of a quandary of a film, and I love films that require mental aptitude on my part to enjoy them; they're just fun to work out, like a Rubik's Cube, and Primer is like a fourth-dimensional Rubik's Cube. What makes a movie really appeal to me is when I can watch it over and over and still get enjoyment out of it; I've watched every film in my personal library multiple times, and can still watch them today. Primer is a great example of that; some other ones off the top of my head are The Fifth Element, Moon, Sunshine, The Fountain, Memento, and Dark City.
I read mostly film books, about directors and techniques and even some film theory, and self-help books, which I read compulsively in order to better myself as a person. Currently, the last book I read is a self-help book by the name of Switch, by Chip and Dan Heath, about how to affect change into things and even people, when people are often stubborn and resistant to change. It uses a really brilliant metaphor for the mind, that it's like a Rider riding an Elephant; the Rider is your cognitive mind, able to analyze decisions and choose which direction to go, and the Elephant is your emotional mind, prone to instinctive choice, instant gratification, and the path of least resistance, i.e. the status quo. The key to change, the book argues, is to direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path they walk down; if you can do these things, you can change just about anything. As for film books, the last one I read was Roger Ebert's autobiography Life Itself, which I actually wasn't much of a fan of; I am a fan of Ebert, though, and I was incredibly saddened when he passed away earlier this year, as he was unquestionably a bastion for the world of movie criticism, and we are that much more worse off now that he's gone. R.I.P. Roger.
I got my copy of the Book for Christmas in 2010, so my odyssey to finish the Quest began in 2011. Probably halfway through that year, I did a search for the 1001 Movies list on the internet, out of curiosity, which led me to the Wikipedia page for the Book, which I hadn't even known existed. Down on the bottom of that page was a link to the full list from the Book, complete with films from every edition, courtesy of a little site found at Filmsquish.com. It took me a few months of intermittently perusing the site and the many film blogs associated with it before I struck up the idea of starting a film blog of my own and joining them, which I did in September of that year, so yeah, I'm pretty fresh at this. I gave myself some guidelines in starting it: I wouldn't feel pressure to live up to some of the other reviewers and their lengthy and thorough reviews, I would just be myself; my reviews would just be whatever notes I take down while I'm watching (or re-watching) the films, arranged and book-ended with opening and closing sections, and that would be that. I've stuck with that, no matter how big or small any particular review may be; my only non-review post on my blog is an introductory post essentially explaining away any unusually short reviews, just in case people want to point fingers or anything. The blog also will serve to help keep all my memories of the films from the Book in check, as well as provide a base of recommendations to my friends for movies they either should or shouldn't see, and why.

Whenever the time rolls around for me to pick a film, I always try to pick one that I believe just about everyone in the club will enjoy, maybe for varying reasons, or to fill in a particular void that we haven't gotten to yet. It was to the former end that my second ever pick for the club was Ordinary People; I'd seen it for my site, and found it absolutely glorious, and knew I wanted to see what everyone else thought of it, and I was thrilled with the other reviewers' similar reactions to the film. I currently keep a Notepad file on my computer of other potential picks for the Club, and there's quite a few on there.
I currently live where I grew up, in a small town about 45 minutes east of Cleveland, Ohio. I wouldn't really say where I lived influenced my enjoyment of film; it was rather my parents' influence on me that got me to enjoy certain types of films, and films in general. Aside from here, I also spent two years in Orlando for college, which due to it being a film school was incredibly impactful on my enjoyment of film.
As sad as it might sound, I really have no other pastimes, aside from a few video games I keep up with, and fishing around the internet (in particular, webcomics, which I read and keep up with daily). However, I don't really view that as too much of a bad thing. I view it as, I love movies so much, I would rather spend all of my free time on them than pretty much anything else. Of course, that puts a dent on my social life a bit, but seeing as everyone I know in my area is 45 minutes away in Cleveland, I don't have much of a social life to begin with, though I do make time every once in a while for community mixers and independent filmmaker get-togethers.


I haven't had too many traumatic film events in my life; I was never that susceptible to horror, for instance, though I remember seeing the American remake of The Ring in theaters and mildly being affected by the climatic scene, but that was about it. Undoubtedly the most traumatic film-watching experience for me was the first time I ever saw Requiem for a Dream. By the end of it, I just sat there in stunned silence, feeling cold and clammy and hopeless all over. It actually took me about a full minute to recover enough for my brain to work again, and I remember thinking, "Wow. Damn, was that good."
I grew up outside of Cleveland, Ohio, which is where A Christmas Story was shot, and surprisingly, I've yet to visit the house used in the film, though I know where it is. If anything in film has inspired me to go see it in person, it would be the gorgeous landscapes in Westerns like The Searchers and Shane, and Once Upon a Time in the West. Just the natural beauty of the land is something to behold, and I would love to behold it with my own eyes.
Sadly, no; I have no memorabilia, or anything resembling a shrine to film. Even my personal DVD collection is modest at best. The one possession I do like to show off is a poster my brother got me for Christmas one year, from a webcomic called xkcd, that features an extensive timeline for several movies and franchises, tracking the characters and their interactions throughout the entire sagas they encompass. Since it's a humor webcomic, it also includes 12 Angry Men, as well as my personal favorite, Primer, for a quick laugh or two to those who've seen them.
Easy; move to L.A. and live off the money as I start my career as a filmmaker/actor. With some heavy rationing, ten million could last me the rest of my life, and that's if I don't get any work at all.


Adolytsi is one of the many contributors of the
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