If you don't know what I'm talking about, when I finished last year's bi-monthly viewing series Audient Outliers, I said that in 2025 I wanted to return to finishing off the final six films I hadn't seen by some great director, which I have now done, in some form, in four different years. (I say "in some form" because one year I split the task between two directors who each had three, Kathryn Bigelow and Jane Campion.)
But I couldn't find the right candidate. Some people I thought would be great candidates had well over ten films I hadn't seen, and in some cases it was closer to 20. I got one person down to eight, and though I did do this sort of series for Spike Lee (the first time I did it) when he had eight films I hadn't seen at the time -- the last two of which I still haven't seen -- I feel I'm a bit more rigorous nowadays.
I may just sneak in two films by that filmmaker in 2025 in order to make them the focus of my bi-monthly series in 2026. We'll have to see about that.
In the meantime, another idea had to take its place.
To tell you how I got my inspiration would ruin one of my selections, and for some reason I don't want to do that at this juncture. I'll do it when the movie actually comes up for viewing. For now, I'll just tell you what the idea is:
Every other month starting in February, I'm going to watch movies that have a known role in the zeitgeist but which I haven't seen.
I'll give an example of what I'm talking about from a movie I have seen: The Bucket List. Which you may have guessed from the poster above.
Rob Reiner's film came out 18 years ago, in 2007. Before that, none us knew what a bucket list was because the concept didn't exist. In the 18 years since, everyone knows -- and that movie was not even very good. (I thought it might have been adapted from a novel, but it turns out screenwriter Justin Zackham came up with the concept himself.)
In 2025, I'm going to watch movies like that.
So yes, it will be six movies whose titles have a larger place in our cultural, for whatever reason. It could be because people talk about their central concept in the same way they talk about the central concept of The Bucket List. It could be because the plot has something famous about it, leading screenwriters in other films to have their characters talk about it, in addition to us talking about it in the real world. It could be because the movie itself accomplished some record feat as a flop or a hit, meaning it has become a cultural touchstone for that reason.
This is not to be confused with watching great movies that I should have seen before now, because everyone knows and talks about them for their greatness. In fact, I don't expect many of the movies in this series to be great, though some could be.
The thing I really like about this idea is that I will let the culture I otherwise consume in 2025 give me options to flesh out the series as the year goes on. I already have three titles that are short-listed, but the third could actually drop out if it needs to, if other better options come along. (In fact, each of the three choices conforms to one of the three ways I characterized a zeitgeist film two paragraphs ago.)
So the idea will be to watch these, just to have watched them, but also to come up with thoughts on whether the reason these are in the zeitgeist is valid. Like, should we really still be talking about these films, in some cases all these years later?
The series will be called Audient Zeitgeist, and as it is now February, it could start any day now.
