Movies: Inside the Numbers

228.

That is the total number of movies I watched in 2010. Somehow I never counted them before.

I am well aware that 228 movies in a single year is an abnormally large figure for most people. It would have been even more if I weren’t a baseball fan. But 228 puts me at the level of gifted amateur when compared to say, Marty McKee, from whose fine blog I swiped this post.

I won’t subject the movies to a sabermetric level of analysis. There are only a handful of statistics here that interest me anyway.

First film of 2010: District B13: Ultimatum (2010)
Last film of 2010: Freebie and the Bean (1974)

From the 1910s: 1 – The Cheat (1915)
1920s: 1 – Why Change Your Wife? (1920)

Both directed by Cecil B. DeMille, viewings prompted by reading Scott Eyman’s bio.

1930s: 8
1940s: 58
1950s: 39
1960s: 1

That shocked me. Even more shocking, the movie was The Oscar (1966).

1970s: 5
1980s: 8
1990s: 3
2000s: 104

Of more interest was the manner in which I watched the movies.

DVD: 99
DVR/TV: 49
Theater: 48
Streaming: 21

Lest ye forget, I got a Roku in 2010.

On Demand: 10

That’s the figure that intrigued me the most. Independent distributors are increasingly turning to video-on-demand to maximize the exposure of new releases. I saw some of the best films of 2010 on television at the same time they were playing in theaters, including one of my top three picks of the year The Red Riding Trilogy, the new version of The Killer Inside Me, and the latest from the great Neil Jordan, Ondine.

Oh yeah, and I watched one movie in its entirety on YouTube. But that was Wicked Woman, which I’ll take anyway I can get.