Hello all and a pleasant day to you. On Monday, April 20th, TOERIFC (The Oldest Established Really Important Film Club) hosted its fourth monthly film discussion and it was once again a smashing success. The film, Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg, was selected by Bill of The Kind of Face You Hate and for the fourth straight time comments exceeded 175! Thanks to all the TOERIFC members for continuing to make it such a great place to gather once a month and discuss film.
The great thing about TOERIFC that we have all discovered is that it allows everyone to really hash out the whys, whats and hows of a particular film in a concentrated yet loose jam session of ideas. The selecting member chooses the film, writes it up at his or her blog and then anyone who has seen it is encouraged to jump in and start discussing ideas with fellow members.
Of course, not everyone can spend a whole day doing that and we all understand. As such there has developed in the first four discussions a core group of commenters: Ed, Bill, Fox, Marilyn, Rick, Pat, Flickhead, Joe Campanella, Kassy and myself (whew, that was a lot of linking). Those names represent the ten who commented on the last discussion and the other discussions have had a few others comment as well, but to the best of my knowledge, those ten, henceforth known as the TOERIFC Ten, have commented on all posts thus far.
Now, some others, Kimberly, Arbogast and Piper, have supported our efforts on their blogs and I want to thank them for that. As a result I have added them to the TOERIFC sidebar as members, whether they actively engage in the discussion or not. Kimberly did in fact join in The Tin Drum discussion and will discuss others when she can. Piper has asked to make a selection and other bloggers, Mykal of Radiation Cinema, Joe of Cinexcellence, The Film Doctor and Matthew Lucas of From the The Front Row have also asked to join. On top of that, Miranda has had to back out of selecting a film but still wholeheartedly supports the enterprise. So...
I'd like to put Pat Piper in Miranda's September slot. Tom Sutpen has announced on his blog about his October posting and others like Krauthammer, Ibetolis and Joseph may feel comfortable with the slots they have as well in November, December and January. However, since they made their selections before Piper I will be happy to move everyone up a month and Piper can take the January slot. Tom, Krauthammer, Ibetolis and Joseph - Please let me know your preference!
That leaves Mykal, Joe, Filmdr and Matthew. Now, I'd like to ask my fellow administrators, Rick and Marilyn, as well as the other members of the TOERIFC Ten, as well as everyone involved in this post, if they agree or disagree with the following suggestion: Since we have a core group of commenters that I believe should stay directly involved in the club by doing posts I was thinking that we could take the TOERIFC Ten and have them in continuous post rotation in the current order of Marilyn in the first position to Joseph in the tenth position. Anyone else discovering the club and wanting to contribute can be positioned anywhere in the rotation at any time. If they have a great experience with their post and want to continue they can go in the permanent rotation too. The idea is this: For everyone here from the start, I don't want anyone to lose interest because they're only getting to write up a movie once every two or three years. I'd like it to be more of a once every 8 to 10 months kind of a thing. Now I also notice that Kassy hasn't volunteered for a selection so Kassy, please let me know if you would like to.
There are a lot of questions in this post and I want everyone to know this isn't a set in stone/cast your vote yea or nay situation. Just a feel for everyone's opinion, thoughts on the process and the like. Let me know what you think of the ideas presented here.
And don't forget: Next month's selection is Dancer in the Dark, the 2000 film by Lars von Trier. It was selected by Pat of A Doodad Kind of Town where it will be written up in May. Pat, I've got the countdown running based on an arbitrary date of May 15th at 10:00 a.m. Please let me know exactly when you actually want to do it and I'll adjust the counter. And remember, anyone but ANYONE can join in the discussion. All we ever ask is that you have recently watched the movie or know it very well already so that the discussion will be both lively and informed. Thanks again to everyone for making TOERIFC such a success. See you in May!
