The plan

"Where do you find the time to watch all of this stuff?" is a question frequently asked of the well-versed cinephile, and often the answer is, "Sometimes I don't." It's not easy to fix one's gaze and have, you know, a life, and, you know, read books, and, you know, all that. Some things fall by the wayside. My own domestic situation—that is, being married to the most wonderful woman on earth—is highly satisfactory, but it does, by necessity, sometimes cut in to my absolute autonomy in terms of home theater usage. But hark! My Lovely Wife departs for an extended sojourn away from home this week, and while I have a host of other plans—a barbecue, a screening of Up, catching Cheetah Chrome at Maxwell's, maybe, not to mention karaoke—I thought I'd set myself a challenge during her time away and see how much of the above I could knock off. I'm only going to tackle the Medici volume of the Rossellini set—but that's four hours and change in itself. (For the record, that's the only film I'll be completely new to—I've seen at least portions of both the others.) The Tarr is seven hours, the Fassbinder...well, all told we've got about 27 hours worth. I shall keep you apprised of my progress and methodology as I go along. I'm wondering if I should start a betting pool or something.