2021 Challenge Ideas: Discussion Thread

[sol]

2021 Challenge Ideas: Discussion Thread

Before I set up polls in October to vote on 2021 Challenge options, this thread will be open for two weeks for you to put any suggestions forward.

On September 19, I will release some preliminary polls where we can vote for which of the options suggested here should make the final poll.

As per last year, I would like participants to limit themselves to three new challenge suggestions. While I don't like to place a cap on creativity, we were very much swarmed by the extensive number of suggestions that participants in 2018 put forward. By capping it at three, it is my hope that participants will carefully choose ideas with lots of potential and which are likely to receive solid support.

NOTE: This thread is not a poll, but rather a discussion thread about poll options.

This is the current schedule that I am working on prior to the 2021 Challenge Series beginning:

Spoiler

September 5 - open a discussion thread for 2021 Challenge ideas

September 5 - open a discussion thread for voting and challenge permanency discussion

September 5 - open a discussion thread to talk through the Country/Region Challenges currently scheduled for 2021

September 19 - open preliminary polls to see which Challenge ideas will make it to the final polls

September 26 - open a single poll to vote on 2021 Challenge options

And then either (see other thread)

October 3 - close the single poll (if we have a public vote) and discuss scheduling for successful Challenge ideas

OR

October 17 - close the single poll (if we have a private vote) and discuss scheduling for successful Challenge ideas

November ?? - open a thread to discuss Challenge rules and feedback before the 2021 Challenge Series begins

NOTE: There is SOME room for me to be flexible with dates, but I've tried to make the dates coincide with Saturdays and when I am on holidays in order that I can actively contribute towards discussions.

The following Challenges are currently permanent and will placed in the 2021 schedule without being voted on:

<400 Checks (permanent)
Horror (permanent)
Noir (permanent)
Documentary (permanent)

All non-permanent 2020 Theme/Genre/Decade Challenge options will be automatically be placed in the October poll. These are:

Run the Director
Sci-Fi / Fantasy
Directed by Woman
1000<400
Animation
Unofficial
Western
Blaxploitation/African American
Comedy
Doubing the Canon nominees
Low IMDb rating
Silent Era
1970s
1960s
1980s
1990s
1950s
Academy Award nominees
Crime films
TSPDT + TSPDT 21st Century

The following five options were immediate runners-up in last year's poll and will be automatically be placed in the October poll. These are:

1930s
1940s
Criterion / MoC
LGBTIQ+/Queer
Musical

The following options have been suggested by forum users on this thread.

These will be voted on in a series of preliminary polls, with the best performing options added to the October poll:

Travel the World (suggested by blocho)
War (suggested by blocho)
Run the Actor (suggested by Lilarcor)
Run the Music Composer (suggested by hurluberlu)
Justice (trials, lawyers, social justice, political systems) (suggested by hurluberlu)
The Seven Deadly Sins (suggested by hurluberlu)
Directed by Person of Colour (suggested by blueboybob)
NSFW: R18+, NC-17 and Unrated (excluding XXX) (suggested by blueboybob)
Runtime (watch a 1min film, then a 2min film etc) (suggested by blueboybob)
One Film From Each iCM List (suggested by Traveller)
Run the Film Series/Franchise (suggested by Lonewolf)
Birth Year (suggested by Daviddoes)
Run the Writer (suggested by OldAle1)
Run the adaptations of the same story (suggested by OldAle1)
Rewatches (suggested by St. Gloede)
Thegreatestbooks.org adaptations (suggested by mjf)
Run the Years/One Film From Each Year (suggested flavo)
Kids and Family (suggested flavo)
Coming-of-age (suggested flavo)
Surrealism (suggested by St. Gloede)
Experimental/Avant-Garde (suggested by St. Gloede)
Waves from around the world (suggested by RogerTheMovieManiac)
Starring Children (suggested 3eyes)
Biopics (suggested 3eyes)
Disabilities (suggested 3eyes)
Love stories with inanimate objects (suggested by blueboybob)
Short Features - under 90mins (suggested by RogerTheMovieManiac)
Long Features - over 135mins (suggested by sol)
Watches two cuts of the same film (suggested by maxwelldeux)
Non-human animal as protagonist/focal point (suggested by peeptoad)
Action and Adventure (suggested by RogerTheMovieManiac)
Miniseries (suggested by blueboybob)
Food and Eating (suggested by maxwelldeux)
Actor/Actress Linking (suggested by maxwelldeux)
In Competition at Cannes (suggested by AB537)
In Competition at Venice (suggested by AB537)
Mystery/Thriller (suggested by psychotronicbeatnik)
La Cinetek top movies https://bit.ly/3mwLUWh (iCM list pending) (suggested by AB537)
Banned Films/Video Nasty (suggested by sol)
Martial Arts (suggested by sol)

Please also note that Country/Region Challenges are being handled separately on a rotational basis so all suggestions here should be theme or genre-related.

[blocho]

Two suggestions:
War
Travel the World (see one thing from each country)

Both were successful challenges in 2019.

[Lilarcor]

Run the Actor

could be fun

[hurluberlu]

Run the Music Composer

Justice (trials, lawyers, social justice, political systems)

The Seven Deadly Sins (films with one or several capital vices as main theme)

[blueboybob]

Directed by women is great but can it be expanded to directed by a POC or maybe a POC Director challenge?

Since quarantine may still be real next year why not a "Not Safe For Work" challenge, ie movies you may not want to watch around other people.

make the runtime challenge official? "watch a movie of 1 minute, then a 2 minute one, then a 3 minute one, etc."

[sol]

What an intriguing mix of ideas!

Directed by women is great but can it be expanded to directed by a POC or maybe a POC Director challenge?

I'll add this in... though it would automatically cover a lot of international films, unless you want to do American, or maybe English language films directed by POC.

Since quarantine may still be real next year why not a "Not Safe For Work" challenge, ie movies you may not want to watch around other people.

Yeah, um, I know you had a lot of fun watching all of those porn experimental erotica films last month, but I don't know if we need an Official Challenge for that.

It could be an interesting idea if you didn't just mean sexually explicit films though. Like films with lots of horror and coarse language are not strictly SFW either, though I also wonder if that will leave the challenge a little broad and loose. I'm generally not in favour of "watch whatever you like" sorts of challenges and a NSFW Challenge could easily equate to an "anything not G or PG-rated" challenge.

I won't add this one into the mix for the moment, but if you want to reword and present the case for the idea again, let me know (we could always do NSFW excluding Adult Films).

make the runtime challenge official? "watch a movie of 1 minute, then a 2 minute one, then a 3 minute one, etc."

No idea how that would interfere with max's Challenge Olympics, but it would be, er, very hard to tabulate I'd imagine, since you would still need 60 minutes of shorts to score one point. Let me think about that one for a bit too.

I'll add in your POC Director idea though!

[blueboybob]

for the NSFW, I am thinking anything NC-17 or "Unrated"? Like Human Caterpillar type stuff.


for run time its just "who got farthest" not "nummber of seen". So the winner could be the person who made it to a movie running 124 minutes or something.

[sol]

for the NSFW, I am thinking anything NC-17 or "Unrated"? Like Human Caterpillar type stuff.

Ah, I see. Will add to the OP.

for run time its just "who got farthest" not "nummber of seen". So the winner could be the person who made it to a movie running 124 minutes or something.

Well, I can add it in. It would just be that whoever gets to 124 minutes will not get 124 points because a whole bunch will be shorts etc.

[Traveller]

One film from each iCM List

[Lonewolf2003]

Franchises/film series.
Preferable with rules similar to RTD; that you have to see 3 or 4 films from a franchise before you can move on to the next.

With franchises people probably will first think of the current popular blockbuster ones. But film history been full of franchises from all over the world: although people didn’t call them that always, from classic franchises like Charlie Chan, Abbott and Costello and Tarzan to modern classics like Dirty Harry, Vacation and Pink Panther movies, the various horror franchises from Hammers Dracula to the countless slashers franchises, various animated ones like the Lupin 3rd series, there are spaghetti Western franchises f.e. Sartana, there are many Japanese franchises as the one about my namesake or the various kajiu ones, Jackie Chan’s Police Story is an example of a franchise from Hong Kong , there are the French Lemmy Caution movies and many more I probably don’t even know the existence of. So plenty to explore for all kind of movie fans.

[psychotronicbeatnik]

Franchises/film series.
Preferable with rules similar to RTD; that you have to see 3 or 4 films from a franchise before you can move on to the next.

With franchises people probably will first think of the current popular blockbuster ones. But film history been full of franchises from all over the world: although people didn’t call them that always, from classic franchises like Charlie Chan, Abbott and Costello and Tarzan to modern classics like Dirty Harry, Vacation and Pink Panther movies, the various horror franchises from Hammers Dracula to the countless slashers franchises, various animated ones like the Lupin 3rd series, there are spaghetti Western franchises f.e. Sartana, there are many Japanese franchises as the one about my namesake or the various kajiu ones, Jackie Chan’s Police Story is an example of a franchise from Hong Kong , there are the French Lemmy Caution movies and many more I probably don’t even know the existence of. So plenty to explore for all kind of movie fans.

I like this idea a lot and see great potential for a fun challenge. I'll gladly second the suggestion.

[Daviddoes]

Birth Year Challenge - watch stuff from the year you were born

[3eyes]

We've had official war challenges before. When we do, I always play Run the War - as many different wars (including rebellions) as I can find movies about (War of 1812, Punic, Indigenous Taiwanese vs Japanese occupiers, etc.)

[OldAle1]

I love the run-the-franchise/actor/composer suggests - particularly the franchise one. So I'll add Run the Writer. This could involve either watching films from the same screenwriter (we'd have to discuss whether that should include writer-directors as well) OR adaptations of a particular writer (Agatha Christie, Shakespeare, etc). It's something I've done myself intermittently and many years ago on IMDb I tried to get a thread-series going on it - didn't really go anywhere alas mostly due to my own indifference at keeping it going.

Suggestion two: Same story, multiple films. Watch at least 3 adaptations and/or remakes of the same story/screenplay/novel/etc. 4 Little Women or 6 Postman Always Rings Twice or an infinity of Christmas Carols. You get the idea. Compare and contrast!

[blueboybob]

"Rewatches Only"?

This would require posting the thread like a week before the challenge starts. You have to say you will participate. The OP downloads your watches from iCM. Then checks against htat? Or we trust people.

[St. Gloede]

I LOVE the rewatch challenge idea, especially as people will be more encourage to revisit films they love and/or want to give a second chance, with many of them being seen by far more people than in the usual challenges. I think it will:

1. Encourage people to write reviews/observations/thoughts
2. Have people respond

Exactly what we need!

Franchises/series also interest me, but I am not sure if I would actually participate and what I would watch for it as most of the main franchises are not that interesting to me. I suppose I could finally catch up on those classic Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films, maybe jump on another one of those Japanese crime franchises, i.e. finally see New Yakuza Papers (only seen the first), or work in Rohmer's Moral Tales and the Up series. Some wiggle room.

[mjf314]

I suggested this in "Future challenges" but I'll mention it here as well.

Is anyone interested in a thegreatestbooks.org challenge (this website is like TSPDT but for books)? The goal is to watch film adaptations of the most acclaimed books from the list on the website. We can limit it to the top 200 or whatever people think is a good cutoff.

[St. Gloede]

Book Adaptations might be an interesting new challenge in itself, not sure if I would be overly motivated by this challenge, but many bibliophiles (is that the word) likely would be.

[flavo5000]

Lots of good ideas coming up in here! I'm glad the Run the Director challenge has knocked people out of the generic <genre> challenges (although those can be fun too...just don't want nothing but those).
Speaking of genre challenges, I'd welcome a return of the Cult/Grindhouse challenge.

Also, not sure if this would count as a Year-based or theme challenge but in the spirit of things, how about a Run The Years Challenge where you start in an arbitrary year and watch one film per year between 1896 or so until 2020 until you loop back around to whatever year you started and go again. Or alternatively, do it at a decade level. Pick a decade and watch one movie from each year of the decade until the end of that block of time then pick another decade. Like a micro-version of the usual year challenges.

Also how about a Kids/Family/Coming of Age challenge?

[St. Gloede]

I suggested a poll for best films focused on children a while ago, a challenge would also be great, excellent suggestion.

I would really love to see a Surrealism challenge. We never did one before, nor a Surrealist poll, and it is about time.

I'd also second (surely it was suggested above) an Experimental/Avant-Garde challenge, if only for an excuse to focus a month on PdA's list.

Waves From Around The World would also be interesting, allowing people to zoom in on specific movements/periods from around the world, but which are still (typically) quite connected.

[RogerTheMovieManiac88]

I love and wholeheartedly second Gloede's suggestions regarding Experimental/Avant-Garde and Waves From Around the World (what a lovely, inspired name for such a potential challenge!).

[St. Gloede]

I love and wholeheartedly second Gloede's suggestions regarding Experimental/Avant-Garde and Waves From Around the World (what a lovely, inspired name for such a potential challenge!).

[sol]

Did a quick OP update. Please remember, guys, that you're limited to three choices. So if come up with a good fourth one, you'll need to take one of your previous ones out of the mix - unless somebody else seconds it. On that note, Roger, I have put you down as the 'waves' suggester since Gloede otherwise would have four suggestions against his name. If you don't want me to use up one of your votes for that, that is fine, let me know and I'll re-edit the OP when I get the chance.

No time to update the other thread at the moment...

[St. Gloede]

I see I got blueboy's Rewatches as well, nice shuffle, I'm ok with it.

[Lonewolf2003]

What an intriguing mix of ideas!

Directed by women is great but can it be expanded to directed by a POC or maybe a POC Director challenge?

I'll add this in... though it would automatically cover a lot of international films, unless you want to do American, or maybe English language films directed by POC.

That was my question about this idea too. Those would be only about film directed by POC in Western countries? In countries where POCs are minorities? Cause otherwise it would include every none-Caucasian director from any country ever. And if so, isn't there a large overlap with the African American/Blaxploitation challenge? Maybe those could be merged?

[3eyes]

My 3:
Biopic
Disabilities
Starring children


@blueboybob: To me the term "Person of color" is virtually undefinable. It's bandied about a lot in my Quaker meeting but seems in practice to mean African-American (and we already have a challenge for that). Our 4 Asian members don't feel it has anything to do with them, they have their own mutual support group. One of our older African American members, since deceased, was terribly upset - she grew up in the Jim Crow south and to her it felt like a return to being called "colored." I don't get to Meeting much anymore and so haven't got to know our Hispanic members, who are younger.
So I guess my difficulty with it is partly a generational thing.

Also, would this be limited to American movies or include all films by directors of Non-European descent, or what?

[sol]

What an intriguing mix of ideas!

Directed by women is great but can it be expanded to directed by a POC or maybe a POC Director challenge?

I'll add this in... though it would automatically cover a lot of international films, unless you want to do American, or maybe English language films directed by POC.

That was my question about this idea too. Those would be only about film directed by POC in Western countries? In countries where POCs are minorities? Cause otherwise it would include every none-Caucasian director from any country ever. And if so, isn't there a large overlap with the African American/Blaxploitation challenge? Maybe those could be merged?

From what you and 3eyes have said, I agree that it's too loose a topic in it's current form.

directed by a POC or maybe a POC Director challenge?

Blueboybob - can you please clarify what you meant? Otherwise, I'm going to change the option to "US and UK films directed by POC". Was that your intention??

[flavo5000]

What an intriguing mix of ideas!
I'll add this in... though it would automatically cover a lot of international films, unless you want to do American, or maybe English language films directed by POC.

That was my question about this idea too. Those would be only about film directed by POC in Western countries? In countries where POCs are minorities? Cause otherwise it would include every none-Caucasian director from any country ever. And if so, isn't there a large overlap with the African American/Blaxploitation challenge? Maybe those could be merged?

From what you and 3eyes have said, I agree that it's too loose a topic in it's current form.

directed by a POC or maybe a POC Director challenge?

Blueboybob - can you please clarify what you meant? Otherwise, I'm going to change the option to "US and UK films directed by POC". Was that your intention??

PoC just seems super vague to me as well. Depending on how it is interpreted by the host and run, it could just end up being a 'Not starring or directed by white people' challenge which basically would encompass like half of all films ever made. My condolences to any brave soul that would want to host this one.

Also I brought this up in the African American/Blaxsploitation challenge but the idea of having one challenge with a focus on both African American films in general and blaxsploitation films is sort of at odds with one other. Blaxsploitation as a genre was basically created to capitalize off of and exploit black Americans by putting a black person in a lead roll and focusing on themes of sex and violence. These were generally produced by old white guys to make money and weren't intended to pay homage to black citizens in any way. So it seems a little contradictory to have the challenge actually co-titled Blaxsploitation which is really more at home in the Cult/Grindhouse challenge. The criteria for how that challenge was run was also sort of weird with movies being allowed or disallowed sort of arbitrarily depending on how much they focused on the "Black Experience" which I'm pretty sure wasn't how the challenge was originally proposed.

[sol]

PoC just seems super vague to me as well. Depending on how it is interpreted by the host and run, it could just end up being a 'Not starring or directed by white people' challenge which basically would encompass like half of all films ever made. My condolences to any brave soul that would want to host this one.

Also I brought this up in the African American/Blaxsploitation challenge but the idea of having one challenge with a focus on both African American films in general and blaxsploitation films is sort of at odds with one other. Blaxsploitation as a genre was basically created to capitalize off of and exploit black Americans by putting a black person in a lead roll and focusing on themes of sex and violence. These were generally produced by old white guys to make money and weren't intended to pay homage to black citizens in any way. So it seems a little contradictory to have the challenge actually co-titled Blaxsploitation which is really more at home in the Cult/Grindhouse challenge. The criteria for how that challenge was run was also sort of weird with movies being allowed or disallowed sort of arbitrarily depending on how much they focused on the "Black Experience" which I'm pretty sure wasn't how the challenge was originally proposed.

We could separate the ideas for revoting next year if there is the appetite to that... but dunno, I kind of like an all-compassing challenge for films starring black actors and featuring multiple African Americans in prominent roles.

[OldAle1]

Agree with most of flavo's post - POC here in the US seems to mean essentially anybody that isn't non-Hispanic white. And there is enough cinema from Asian countries, and Latin American countries such that bringing them into the same fold would be pointless. My proposition would be that instead of the African-American i.e. Black History Month challenge we just broaden that a little bit to make it "African diaspora" - any film directed by (or maybe about - but that's another discussion isn't it) people of African descent outside of Africa. So making room for French or German or Canadian etc directors who happen to be black. It'll still mostly end up American films anyway, but this allows for a bit more promotion of minority films from other "white" countries as well.

Haven't seen any discussion here on the low ratings challenge - one of my favorites personally, and nicely done in conjunction with run the director this year. I'd personally love to see it run every year but I realize it's hard to make room for everything, so my proposal would be to have one permanent slot for a "schlock" challenge - it could rotate between low ratings, cult/grindhouse, banned films, etc. And this would encompass most blaxploitation films as well to get back to that theme.

[sol]

my proposal would be to have one permanent slot for a "schlock" challenge

Hmm, I don't think that could be justified, but I don't think it will be an issue either. If memory serves correctly, Low IMDb Rating was one of the five most popular challenges in last year's poll, and we have run it every year since 2018, so maybe let's discuss making it permanent next year if it gets selected with tons of votes for 2021 also? Remind me next year. Assuming I'm still up to hosting next year's discussion.

[Onderhond]

As a "non-player but participant" of the challenges, I would like to add that the Run-The-Whatever challenges are for hardcore players only. While I don't mind logging/discussing some films in the challenge thread or filling open slots according to the running challenges, I'm not going to play entire successions of films.

Which isn't to say these challenges should not be held of course, but I wouldn't overdo it as it severely limits wider participation.

[3eyes]

As a "non-player but participant" of the challenges, I would like to add that the Run-The-Whatever challenges are for hardcore players only. While I don't mind logging/discussing some films in the challenge thread or filling open slots according to the running challenges, I'm not going to play entire successions of films.

Which isn't to say these challenges should not be held of course, but I wouldn't overdo it as it severely limits wider participation.

What I said above about how I approach the war challenge by doing "Run the War" -- that could be a specialized subchallenge of a War challenge. Could any other "Run the... " ideas be subchallenges of a larger challenge? (Top of my head, haven't really thought about it.)

[Lonewolf2003]

Agree with most of flavo's post - POC here in the US seems to mean essentially anybody that isn't non-Hispanic white. And there is enough cinema from Asian countries, and Latin American countries such that bringing them into the same fold would be pointless. My proposition would be that instead of the African-American i.e. Black History Month challenge we just broaden that a little bit to make it "African diaspora" - any film directed by (or maybe about - but that's another discussion isn't it) people of African descent outside of Africa. So making room for French or German or Canadian etc directors who happen to be black. It'll still mostly end up American films anyway, but this allows for a bit more promotion of minority films from other "white" countries as well.

Haven't seen any discussion here on the low ratings challenge - one of my favorites personally, and nicely done in conjunction with run the director this year. I'd personally love to see it run every year but I realize it's hard to make room for everything, so my proposal would be to have one permanent slot for a "schlock" challenge - it could rotate between low ratings, cult/grindhouse, banned films, etc. And this would encompass most blaxploitation films as well to get back to that theme.

I like both ideas.

[blueboybob]

Remove the POC I guess because it doesnt work. Help me flesh this one out.

A challenge that is "broad" but you can't watch an "obvious" movie. IE "love stories" but movies where a person really loved the sandwhich he ate. Or the girl really loved the long shower. I dont know something silly. Forces you to write up your reason it fits in the category.

[3eyes]

Remove the POC I guess because it doesnt work. Help me flesh this one out.

A challenge that is "broad" but you can't watch an "obvious" movie. IE "love stories" but movies where a person really loved the sandwhich he ate. Or the girl really loved the long shower. I dont know something silly. Forces you to write up your reason it fits in the category.

Sounds like movie synopses by my autistic daughter once upon a time. She was into water so she loved The Swimmer. The Mouse that Roared was about "a lady taking a bath" (there was a brief shower scene). I didn't show her Psycho.

[St. Gloede]

3eyes brought up a great idea in one of the iCinema topics, namely shorter challenges, possibly also more focused, ie a specific mini-list and running over a short time.

I don't think this will make it into the structure next year (and to be clear it is not a specific idea in itself), but what if, for instance, there was one month with 4 separate week long mini-challenges? This could even in incorporated into popular ideas such as Latin America, where 4-5 countries could be picked with 1 week each. Definitely a little hectic for many, but could be a way to promote more focus and discovery.

[RogerTheMovieManiac88]

I'm glad to take temporary hold of Gloede's ''Waves...'' idea, so that it remains in the mix.

Using up one of my remaining slots...

Films 90 minutes or under

I grew up loving Republic pictures, Val Lewton horrors, RKO noirs, and the like. So much can be achieved in a short running time, and this challenge would be for those sorts of films that often succeed because of their limitations, compactness, atmosphere, and brevity.

[sol]

(and to be clear it is not a specific idea in itself), but what if, for instance, there was one month with 4 separate week long mini-challenges? This could even in incorporated into popular ideas such as Latin America, where 4-5 countries could be picked with 1 week each. Definitely a little hectic for many, but could be a way to promote more focus and discovery.

As a bonus challenge - yes. As a challenge on its own no. Volunteer to host Latin America NOW if you want to include that bonus challenge, Gloede.

Using up one of my remaining slots...

Films 90 minutes or under

I like it - especially the purity of the challenge since short films would (obviously?) be excluded.

That reminds me: I was going to suggest a long films challenge this year. Maybe I still will. Let's see if anyone else suggests it first.

Will update the OP after work: in 9-11 hours time.

[RogerTheMovieManiac88]

(and to be clear it is not a specific idea in itself), but what if, for instance, there was one month with 4 separate week long mini-challenges? This could even in incorporated into popular ideas such as Latin America, where 4-5 countries could be picked with 1 week each. Definitely a little hectic for many, but could be a way to promote more focus and discovery.

As a bonus challenge - yes. As a challenge on its own no. Volunteer to host Latin America NOW if you want to include that bonus challenge, Gloede.

Using up one of my remaining slots...

Films 90 minutes or under

I like it - especially the purity of the challenge since short films would (obviously?) be excluded.

That reminds me: I was going to suggest a long films challenge this year. Maybe I still will. Let's see if anyone else suggests it first.

Will update the OP after work: in 9-11 hours time.

I suppose so, Sol. I hadn't really thought about short films. I'd have no problem leaving them out.

What would constitute a ''long film'' for you? I tend to think of something over 130 minutes as long. It could be an interesting one, but I don't think I'll put it forward. I have a couple of ideas swirling around in my head for my third and final suggestion.