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I’ve Watched Over 200 Movies This Year: Here’s How They’ve Rewired My Brain

An observation on the art of filmmaking and its ever-evolving nature.

Ezra James
7 min readMar 3, 2022
Photo by Dennis Fischer | Getty Images

It all started when I realized how despite calling myself an avid movie watcher, I haven’t come close to sniffing the glorious number of 1,000 films to my viewing credit. I know more about movies as a concept than as an experience. Most of my knowledge comes from books and the goddamn internet. A similar realization about music last year resulted on an exploration of the many music genres I listened to. The results were a newfound appreciation on the art and its history, and it was with the success of this in mind that I decided to embark on this visual journey of what the auteurs call cinema. The goal is to watch 1,000 films by the end of the year; with 200 already on the board, I can either continue this aggressive focus or mellow down a little for what will amount to a big push come Summer. Can’t say I’ve decided what to do yet, but the clock is always ticking. I figured that in the meantime I can take a moment to reflect on the endeavor.

No matter how much you read about a certain subject, there comes a point in time where the only way to continuously expand your knowledge on any given field is practical experience with the material. The scope of what’s available in theory…

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