And I Would Watch 100 Films

And I would watch 100 more ... which is convenient, because Austin film institutions are tallying up lists of must-watch movies for me left and right. Is 2014 the year of the cinematic syllabus?

The Paramount Theatre set the ball rolling, with its Paramount 100: A Century of Cinema: 100 films, screening from January through May, that catalog the history of the silver screen. After three months of silent pictures – e.g., Intolerance, The Thief of Bagdad, Chaplin's The Kid – the Congress Avenue institution will barrel on toward contemporary classics. There's a break during the summer for the annual Paramount Summer Classic Film Series, but then celebrations will recommence in the fall as the theatre approaches its centennial in October 2015. Badges for the first segment are available now.

But then a little ol' chain called the Alamo Drafthouse chimed in, this time with a slightly less conventional – and certainly less chronological – collection. Cribbing from the personal desert-island picks of six of its programmers, the Alamo 100 simply celebrates favorites: From rom-coms like 10 Things I Hate About You and You've Got Mail to such cult classics as A Clockwork Orange and Pee Wee's Big Adventure, this list has "passion project" written all over it. And while it may be missing some obvious film history – Citizen Kane, for example – it's certainly not short on offbeat flavor. Leave it to the Drafthouse to unleash two of the Star Wars original trilogy, Step Up 2: The Streets, Joe vs. the Volcano, and more than half of Wes Anderson's oeuvre to date on one wild list. These picks, too, will hit theatres in January.

All of which is to say: I'm sorry. Your New Year's resolution to finally learn how to budget your moviegoing expenses like an adult just got way more difficult, but for all the right reasons.

Also, you know, I'm sorry you have the Proclaimers stuck in your head. Except not at all.