Here's the challenge: commit to reading 50 books and watching 50 movies in the next year, 2012! (Find out more...)

Here's the challenge: commit to reading 50 books and watching 50 movies in the next year, 2012! (Find out more...)
The good news is, there are no real rules. We do have a few suggestion though! (Find out more...)
Doing things together is the best isn't it? Come sign up with us and then we can cheer each other on! (Find out more...)
You can win the power of self edification. You can win bragging rights. You can win over your soul mate! Or you could just not win anything. (Find out more...)
Kick the challenge up a notch by picking a themed major and minor for your movies and books. Can we suggest a few? (Find out more...)
For 2011, I read a book every week for my blog's Book-a-Week Challenge. Guess how many people participated? Maybe three, and I was one of them. So when I heard about the hundreds signing up for the Fifty Fifty Me challenge to read 50 books and watch 50 films by the end of 2012, I knew I had to join. These were my people.
As someone used to reading one book a week, I'm not too worried about that piece of the challenge. Finding time to watch 50 movies? That will be the real push for me. It means eliminating several shows from my TiVo list. And that's going to hurt a little.
Why in the name of all that is holy would I add one more thing to my already teetering tower of to-dos?
Here is my answer: I'm conquering the Fifty Fifty Me challenge through the eyes of an aspiring novelist. I've written two terrible novels where the scenes and settings are somewhat amusing and even "moving" in parts, but the plots lack tension. The conflicts are too simple, and the characters sound too much alike. Instead of constructing solid, compelling stories, I wrote 300-page situations.
Nobody ever stayed up all night tearing through a book because of an "interesting situation." We lose ourselves in books for the love of a good story. We watch movies for the same reason. So how do the novelists and screenwriters make that happen for the audience?
Let's talk in January 2013 when I hope to answer that question like a professional. Some people are adding "majors" and "minors" to their Fifty Fifty Me challenge. They're reading all of Hemingway for example, or watching films staring Ryan Gosling. I'm majoring in "the art of the story" and minoring in character development.
Courtesy of Monica | Monica's Tangled Web | Originally posted 1.24.2012
Why am I doing it? Why did I agree to participate in a challenge that requires me to read 50 books and see 50 films in one year? Well, I didn’t do it for the films. Seeing 50 films is what I’m pretty sure I already do every year.
No, I did it for the love of reading. Because I adore being transported and carried away by a good read. Only, in my adulthood, I haven’t been reading nearly as much as I once did, from childhood, all the way through to my college years. Life’s demands and responsibilities have come between me and my passion for reading. And, if I’m going to be honest, I must confess that the number of TV shows I watch each week, hasn’t helped either.
So, basically, for the last 30 years, reading has been at the bottom of my To-Do list. Which, when I think of all my wonderful memories associated with reading, I have to wonder, how could this be? What made me sacrifice my love for the written word? Was it my work? The advent of the ability to record programs? Did VHS kill reading? Or was it simply the need and desire to raise and spend time with my two kids? Probably all of the above.
My memories of reading start with my childhood in Queens. Every Saturday morning, my mother would drive me to the local library and drop me off at its door, returning a few hours later to pick me up. It was a routine I grew to love. The children’s section was located on the lower level and I remember the circular staircase that led to it. I’d join the other kids there for story time with the librarian. After which, I’d pick out the books I wanted to borrow for the week. Some of my favorite books included, the Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik and Maurice Sendak, and both the Pippi Longstocking and The Children of Noisy Village series, by Astrid Lindgren. Ah, bliss.
In sixth grade, I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, and I remember curling up in a comfy chair, reading nonstop until I finished the book. So engrossed was I in this beautiful novel, I imagined myself to be Francie Nolan, the protagonist, and cried profusely when she lost someone very dear to her.
In seventh grade English, I was assigned to read A Lantern in Her Hand, by Bess Streeter Aldrich. I absolutely loved this story about a young woman who marries and heads west during the days of pioneer life. She had so many dreams, one by one they whittled away, because being a pioneer wife and mother got in the way. She had many children and eventually, each of them grew up and ended up fulfilling their mother’s dreams, in their own way. I remember loving this book so much, I read it aloud to my mother, who didn’t have time for books at all. Those were special moments.
In ninth grade, I made a friend who changed my life, when she introduced me to an array of classic works. Like the Bronte sisters’ Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, along with books by Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, O. Henry and the like. This opened new worlds for me and I’ll be forever grateful to my friend.
When I was 15, I spent nearly a year attending school in Caracas, Venezuela. I craved books written in English. The private school I was attending had a small shelf in the library devoted to such books. One of them was Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I had never read this book before and became completely immersed in the story.
Around this time, I saw a book review in an issue of Time magazine that caught my eye. I wrote to my oldest brother, Michael, who was back in the states, and asked him to send me a copy of the book. Well, he sent it along with another book, that I hadn’t requested. He included a note.
“If you’re determined to read the book you ordered, then please, also read this one. It’s better for you.”
The book I asked for was Love Story, a real tearjerker by Erich Segal. Tucked underneath was The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I loved them both, as I did other books my brother sent me, such as The Godfather by Mario Puzo and Catch-22, by Joseph Heller.
In college, I was deep into mysteries: Mary Higgins Clark, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross McDonald, and so on.
When I first married, I realized I had never read The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. There were nine in the series and, in a few weeks, I devoured them all. Such wonderful, adventurous stories!
When I think back on how so many good books have touched my life, this much I know: That it is for these glorious and meaningful memories that I do it now.
So, tell me, what are your favorite memories about reading?
Please check out my new Fifty Fifty page. And hey, it’s not too late to sign up for the Fifty Fifty challenge. If I can do it, anyone can!
In our second episode, we're excited for the official start of fifyfifty.me because it's finally the new year! We talk a little bit about if books and movies quit halfway through should count, and then we share how we can help people find other participants. We're also looking for guest bloggers and we'd love to interview someone soon. Could it be you? [14:37 min]
(direct MP3 download link)
Checking our Twitter feed over the holiday weekend, I was seeing someone shoot through movies as they jumped out to a big start on the challenge. Admittedly I was in a bit of a panic as I felt immediately behind! Turns out Ashley is cranking out movies so she can stay ahead of the game when school starts. Here's her first 50/50 post and the four movies she knocked out in just two days!
Courtesy of Ashley | reader-girl.tumblr.com | @Ashl3yC | Originally posted 1.3.2021
Okay so the challenge is to read 50 books and watch 50 movies by the end of 2012. Whenever I complete a book or movie I will post it here with a brief description of the book or a review or both. If you want a challenge join, go to the website above and sign up it's as easy as that.
Now you can choose a major or minor for books and movies I have chosen a major and minor for both. I encourage you to do the same.
BooksI hope you enjoy learning about my fifty fifty me challenge and I encourage you to join in and make 2012 a great year by participating in this challenge!
Major: Teen sci-fi/ adventure and survival
Minor: Kathy Reichs
Movies
Major: Books-to-Movies
Minor: Shirley Temple
Originally, Eric asked us for "bad cinema" recommendations but we'd say he's the reigning expert! We love everything about this post and am now inspired to watch Robot Jox and other good yet bad movies. Or was that the other way around?
Courtesy of Eric | thelemur.net | @saintehlers | Originally posted 12.21.2011
So I have been asked what I mean when I say “Bad Cinema.” The thing is, it’s not an easy thing for me to encapsulate any other way. Which is, after all, why I settled on the phrase.
One proposed definition is “movies that are so bad they’re good.” And to be honest, Bad Cinema encompasses a lot of these sorts of movies. Robot Jox is a good example of this. Robot Jox is a B-movie, set in a post-apocalyptic world, where the remaining nations (the Soviet Union among them) have agreed that instead of full on wars or weapons of mass destruction, they will settle disputes with what amounts to Ultimate Fighting Championships - between giant robots. There’s no rationale for how on earth societies settle on this, or why they even abide by it. The budget was so low that the props and costumes were made primarily out of bits you’d find in any local Radio Shack.
What did the film have going for it? Well, they managed to avoid wholesale copying of “mecha” style robots. Otherwise… not really anything.
But I like it. So by default, I throw it in the Bad Cinema category.
But that doesn’t work for the main body of what I consider Bad Cinema.
The second simplest way I can put it (since “Bad Cinema” is the first simplest way) is that these are movies that have at least one flash of absolute brilliance in them. Something genuine and real, and almost objectively well done - but that are otherwise so poorly made that they have no chance of commercial or critical success.
Many movies with cult followings fit into this category: Buckaroo Bonzai, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (the camp approach on the last one walks the brilliant line of farcical silliness without ever crossing into just plain stupid, which is the problem with so many spoof movies, including all of Tomatoes’s sequels.
They all have that one piece of inspirational awesomeness that draws certain people who are able to overlook the flaws. Highlander is another example. By all objective measures, the TV series was a better made production. Critics collectively gave the movie a “meh.” If it weren’t for international audiences, the theatrical release would have been a loss for the studio.
All the same, the ideas and the story that lay under the movie were enough to inspire Queen to sit down and write a bunch of songs for it. It launched a multi-film and multi-media franchise. The catch-phrase “There can be only one” is widely known these days. Taken as a whole, it’s not a brilliant achievement. But the component parts of it reveal some wonderful creativity and some powerful ideas that can be truly moving.