My grandfather loved movies. In his house on the beach in Hull, he would record dozens of films on DVR. He called them “pictures” (pronounced pitch-ya) as in “motion pictures”. I fondly remember visiting the beach house in my youth and seeing him, comfortable in his great brown leather chair, with a movie playing in the background and waves crashing quietly in the distance.
A few weeks before he passed in March 2021, I wrote down all the films he had recorded. This was a manual process involving 20 pictures taken from my smartphone, transcribed into a spreadsheet, and imported into letterboxd.com. I tried unsuccessfully to use OCR at one point, but the manual data entry wasn’t too bad and afforded me the chance to consider and reflect on each movie individually.
The final results can be found in a playlist at https://boxd.it/bBEzY. They vary in genre and era, from Chaplin’s first feature in 1921 to the latest Marvel film in 2021. Personally, I have watched 24/110 (21%) of these films and intend to progress further through the list. I’ll start with the highest rated movies on the list first, the next unseen one being Seven Samurai. Perhaps I will write about the movie, as I have always enjoyed reading online discussions and criticism.
I am glad that I recorded this list of films, although I wish that I had also thought to capture my grandfather’s commentary on them, narrated in his warm and wise baritone. Instead, my memories of his specific favorite actors and quotes have faded into a warm sepia tint, leaving a love for the cinema and a lingering dream of quiet summer afternoons with my grandfather.