almost there on these "ICM weak spots"

[beavis]

We all have some favorite lists/topics and some disliked lists (for me 500<400, Doubling and Cahiers in the first part everything Western, War and Sports in the latter)

But what, according to official ICM lists, are your weak spots that you want to catch up on?!?

I have been forever getting a bronze on Fespaco, Brazil and the big Asia list. Only a few away, but I've been on bronze-3 on Fespaco for what is literally years now... other movies always seem more important, even within African cinema, which has my interest.

Other lists I know I could easily get bronze on, looking at the movies I have interest in, and found, are:

Harvard Non-Fiction (4 away)
Empire Russia (5 away)
Black Canon (7 away)
Magyar (8 away)
Love HK (9 away)
Czech (10 away)
Canada (12 away)
Cien Anos (17 away)

Some of these I had set as goals for myself this year, but I have not been able to get to them yet. Again other topics and projects get in the way and then these topics seem to not mix easily with the other stuff I'm watching...

Then there are also other lists I would love to get a bronze on, they have my interest very much, but the list is just too large and containing too much "unknown" at the moment

Sweden (have 10 lined up, need 25 for bronze)
Pinoy (have 8 lined up need 42 for bronze)
Iran (have 19(!!) lined up, need 30 for bronze)
Finland (have 14 lined up, need 38 for bronze)

So, is the Fespaco list too small? Are Sweden, Pinoy, Iran and Finland too big? (no country list is really too big in my opinion... but, they are harder to get awards on then).
Would you work on these goals list per list, or watch a movie from each list alternating to move up gradually on all lists. Which goals should I give preference?

and of course, what are yours? does looking at the lists this way feel like "homework" to you, or the best way to push you slightly out of your comfort zone to where you want to go?
For me, I do look at my lists overview once in a while like this (like I did today) and always wonder how come I still haven't been able to work (more) on these lists. Latin America, Africa, Finland all of these have been on my yearly goal lists for years now... why do I keep pushing them off? I really don't know...

NB you can assume that all other lists I could or could not get bronze on atm do not have as strong an interest for me as the ones I mentioned. There are 50 lists in total that I have not gotten bronze for yet.

[sol]

Generally, I prefer for newly adopted to have tons of unseen films. I always prefer having to work on a list as opposed to easily obtainable awards.

Which probably explains why I "only" have 116 awards despite ranking inside the top 160 users.

My own "weak spots":

IMDb's Sport op 50 - 1 film away from a Bronze
IMDb's Documentary Top 50 - 3 films away from a Bronze
Jerry Beck's Cartoon Gift List - 3 films away from a Bronze
Cannes Film Festival - Grand Prix - 4 films away from a Bronze
Slate's The Black Film Canon - 4 films away from a Bronze
The Times's 100 Best French Films - 5 films away from a Bronze

With all of those, I could easily cross the threshold into Bronze territory; I just don't feel like it based on what is left unseen in the lists.

What I would like to get a Bronze on eventually:

TSPDT's Ain't Nobody's Blues but My Own - 53 films away
ICM Forum's 500<400 - 106 films away
Doubling the Canon - 219 films away

I think I have about 10 more titles that I could watch for Ain't Blues. I have several dozen that I could easily watch for 500<400 and DTC, but not enough to get up to a Bronze without digging further. I think.

[weirdboy]

My weak spot by far must be the Sundance list. I have very few checks on that list, and none of them ever really seem to coincide with other stuff I watch.

[beavis]

Sundance is also a weird one for me! I am 6 away from bronze, but there is not a movie on there that I feel I must see atm (including the winners of the last three years!), while I do have a great interest in American independent cinema!?!?!?

EDIT: looking a bit more closely... maybe... Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002) and/or Smooth Talk (1985)... but that feels like really it

[beavis]

My own "weak spots":

IMDb's Sport op 50 - 1 film away from a Bronze
IMDb's Documentary Top 50 - 3 films away from a Bronze
Jerry Beck's Cartoon Gift List - 3 films away from a Bronze
Cannes Film Festival - Grand Prix - 4 films away from a Bronze
Slate's The Black Film Canon - 4 films away from a Bronze
The Times's 100 Best French Films - 5 films away from a Bronze

With all of those, I could easily cross the threshold into Bronze territory; I just don't feel like it based on what is left unseen in the lists.

I have a few lists like these, but that was not exactly the question. I also do not go for an award if there is really nothing of interest to me, the gaming element is not that big of a pushing factor at all really. The question if more the other way around, where you have an interest and could with relatively little effort get to a bronze, and yet you don't seem to get there any time soon (but I could be in the minority with the amount of stuff that is interesting to me, so not sure if this is a topic with broad appeal... )

[maxwelldeux]

I mean, I've been tracking ICM stats pretty diligently for 4.5 years now, so none of this is homework for me...

I'm less focused on awards at the moment, because they'll come. I'm more interested in improving rankings on individual lists, so that's where I identify my weak spots. Like I'd say a major weak spot for me is 21st Century Drama, esp. non-English. They just never seem to come up in my whims of what to watch - after a frustrating day of whatever, an emotionally charged drama doesn't hit the spot. Something light and funny or actiony usually wins out.

I also let the challenges largely dictate what I watch, and it's almost never the country challenge that wins out. Last month was mostly Horror, with a smattering of 1990s escapist stuff. This month is Noir, with a decent amount of unofficial escapist stuff. Next month will certainly be documentaries. We don't have "Drama" challenges. And since I'm a relative newcomer to cinephilia, I'm watching much more "classic" good stuff than "modern" good stuff.

My 7 Lowest Ranked Lists are:
- European Film Award (3676)
- AV Club 2010s (3216)
- Cesar (3099)
- WWBox Office (2536)
- IMDB 2010s (2530)
- TSPDT 21st Century (2375)
- BBC 21st Century (2349)

[brokenface]

Sundance is also a weird one for me! I am 6 away from bronze, but there is not a movie on there that I feel I must see atm (including the winners of the last three years!), while I do have a great interest in American independent cinema!?!?!?

EDIT: looking a bit more closely... maybe... Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002) and/or Smooth Talk (1985)... but that feels like really it

Watch In the Soup

[Torgo]

Just working on my weakest lists recently

This thread looks like a more thorough approach of lowest ranked lists, I might come back later

[beavis]

Watch In the Soup

1992, buscemi and jarmush... yes, i go for that. This feels hidden, so fingers crossed for a gem. Thanks for the tip!

[beavis]

IMDb's 2000s Top 50
AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers
IMDb's Sport Top 50
IMDb's Mini-Series Top 50.

These are my lowest ranked lists. They are at the bottom because I have no interest in them, therefore i also find it not very interesting to discuss them

[xianjiro]

IDK, with only two lists where I'm ranked over 200, can I be considered weak on any of the official lists? I'm sure I can track down another EuroHorror flick to bring that one back under 200. I do have have two (maybe three, but think one lacked subs) Turkish films en queue, but so far haven't had much luck finding Turkish films by my usual means.

As for the other lists lacking bronze, again, it's not a function of not trying and as I work through my backlog some of those will get much closer. But as mentioned, something like Pinoy is going to take a lot more effort to get bronze on than that EuroHorror list. I have bronze or better on all 'easy' lists, most if not all 'moderate' lists, and many 'difficult' lists. (Bronze or better on 177 of 208 - or over 85%)

[Fergenaprido]

I set goals for almost every official list at the start of each year. Some are award-based, others are just things like "beat friend X" or "watch 2 films". I aim for incremental gains instead of focusing on one or two lists and watching everything available.

I don't think I have any outstanding lists that I'm interested in but are hovering just below an award. I finally hit Gold on the Canadian list last month after letting it languish there for months. The only other exceptions are the imdb lists. Some lists have been sitting at 37 or 44 for quite some time, but there's a lot of fluctuation in those lists, so even if I watch films it doesn't always translate to a gain, which doesn't then motivate me to bother achieving the award. The only obvious one for me is the platinum on the Shorts list: I only have Punisher: Dirty Laundry left (knocked off the Winnie the Pooh short a few weeks ago that recently joined the list), but I still haven't seen The Punisher yet, and I keep putting that one off, probably for a few years now.

When it comes to the goals I set for myself, though, there are plenty that just sit there, 1 or 2 films away from completing... but that doesn't really bother me much.

[Onderhond]

like "homework" to you

Pretty good description of what ICM is to me.

No lists I'm actively working on (366 looks the most interesting but mostly/exclusively old films remaining there). My weak spot is clearly noirs though, since my bottom 2 lists are noir ones (IMDb & Top 1000)

[Torgo]

like "homework" to you

Pretty good description of what ICM is to me.

But you do enjoy ICM in some way, do you?

[Onderhond]

I was never against homework and/or proper schooling.

[flavo5000]

I'm similar to sol where there are several I have like one or two movies away from an award whether it be bronze, silver, gold, platinum, but just for whatever reason, I don't feel like watching something in that list. For instance, I've been one away from Platinum on these for a while:
Certified Weird (Maelstrom... not sure why I haven't watched this yet. I think I just keep forgetting about it)
Empire Top 500 (The Son's Room)
Personal Journey with Scorsese (Land of the Pharaohs and Indiana Jones Chronicles)
Spaghetti Westerns (Arizona Colt, Ruthless Four...meant to watch these for the western challenge for forgot)

As far as rank goes, I'm by far ranked lower on the Turkish list and Dutch list than anything else. I'm guessing there are just a lot of Turkish and Dutch people on the site that have seen a lot of the movies on these lists? It seems to require many more watches to get a higher rank on those lists than many of the others.

[Ebbywebby]

Belatedly noticing this thread....

I don't directly work on ICM lists much. I have my own hard-drive watchlists I've created and mostly draw from those. When I do work on ICM lists, they're usually lists where I'm already "strong." Like 366 Weird or TSPDT.

I scanned the 81 lists where I fall short of a Bronze and, really, the only ones I ever consciously "work on" are 500<400, the Criterion Eclipse series, Spaghetti Westerns and the Golden Foundation of Czech/Slovak Cinema. Though I've become much more interested in Brazilian cinema lately and might start aiming at that list too.

The lists where I'm closest to a Bronze are Black Film Canon (5 films away), 100 Film Musicals (5), IMDb Sport (4), Cahiers du Cinema Annual Top 10s (3), European horror (3), Venice Film Festival (2), IMDb Documentary (1) and 100 Animated Features (1). But I don't pay much attention to any of those lists. Let's see, if I were to watch another animated feature just for the sake of Bronze, it probably would be The Jungle Book or The Triplets of Belleville. And for the documentary list, well, Baraka happens to be one of the top items in what's left of my Amazon Prime queue.

[Torgo]

Baraka happens to be one of the top items in what's left of my Amazon Prime queue.

Every cinephile should have seen this film, really. Maybe even the more casual movie fans should. (Except if you already hated Koyaanisqatsi - then it's probably not going to be worth the trouble. But only then.)

[Tim2460]

Saw Baraka on the max liner cinema at Paris. First 4k experience. Still remember it as one of my 5 top experience at a theater. But I did like koyaanisqatsi..