Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to all my readers. As you know 2009 will mark the year where I attempt to view 9 movies from 9 categories and blog about those. I have changed two of the categories to make them fall more in line with the typical posts for this blog:

1. 9 Hammer Movies
2. 9 Movies directed by Hammer directors (non-Hammer)
3. 9 Movies starring Hammer actors (non-Hammer)
4. 9 Movies starring Hammer actresses (non-Hammer)
5. 9 Movies that I haven't seen before starring non-Hammer Horror icons (such as Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff)
6. 9 Rivals of Hammer (Movies from Amicus or Tigon, 1960s and 70s Brit Horror in general)
7. 9 Mario Bava movies
8. 9 Giallos
9. 9 Movies to be watched in the cinema (i.e. 5 more than I managed this year, sad I know)

We also have another four blogs that are willing to give this a shot. It would be great to have at least 9 blogs in total involved in this exercise, so if there's anyone out there who is interested in participating, please let me know. It is not too late to join yet and a number of the other 999 Challengers have also opted to not just limit this to films only.

Avalard's 999 Challenge has already hit the ground running with two posts on the first day of the New Year dedicated to Twilight and Nightmare Before Christmas 3D. The relevant 9 challenges for Robert are:

1. 9 different interpretations of Sherlock Holmes
2. 9 instalments of "Avalard's Box of Obfuscation" podcast (if I don't add this, I'm worried I might get lazy as the new year starts...)
3. 9 novels (considerably more than I manage most years!)
4. 9 Hitchcock films (need to work my way through the acres of dvds I've got cluttering the office)
5. 9 films at the cinema (I see plenty, but I never write about them!)
6. 9 Michael Caine films
7. 9 classic Britcom television series (only 1 episode of each!)
8. 9 British horror films
9. 9 episodes of the Avengers (at least one from each year of the original 60s run)

Doug from Divine Exploitation will focus on:

1. 9 Jess Franco Films I haven't seen
2. 9 films with people from Franco films that he didn't direct.
3. 9 zombie films I haven't seen
4. 9 minicomics.
5. 9 movies in the 50 pack I bought last year and and still haven't gotten around to watching.
6. 9 novelizations of movies. (The movie had to come first.)
7. 9 non fiction books dealing exclusively with film in some fashion.
8. 9 viewings of the film A Virgin Among The Living Dead with a write up of each time and what I may have missed each time.
9. 9 exploitation films made before 1950

Comic Artist Extraordinaire and all round nice guy Neal Vokes from That's All, Vokes will concentrate on:

1- 9 western films (but only ones from the 90s-1990 to 1999- to keep a theme going here-westerns were virtually non existent by then-should be a challenge-lol )
2- 9 horror films (the same goes for these and the next couple film genres-this helps keep me more focused i think-besides, i haven't bothered with a whole lot of "new" films in the horror/comedy/sci fi/foreign genre-should be enlightening)
3- 9 comedies (same)
4- 9 Sci Fi films (same)
5- 9 foreign films (same)
6- 9 TV series on dvd (I'll keep it to one episode per show to be realistic -
i have at least nine box sets of various shows sitting amongst my dvd collection)
7- 9 books (i have more than nine on my "to read" shelf already-and just added more this Xmas!)
8- 9 albums/cds (again i want to try to listen to bands i haven't before-or at least paid little attention to-also between 1990 to 1999)
9- 9 chapters of a comic strip (i borrowed this idea from fellow blogger Davy Z) I'm not sure about what yet-something i haven't done before, i think-maybe semi autobiographical in nature?
as soon as i've picked the exact films,etc that will be on the list I'll update the entry...;o)

And last not least my buddy Davy Z from Tomb It May Concern (just love the name of this blog!) will accept the challenge with the following categories;

1) 9 Jess Franco films that I have already viewed more than twice. (Every time I revisit a Franco after a few years-and several other films-they tend to inform each other. I'm going to revisit some favorites and see what has changed.)
2) 9 Videogames that are not First Person Shooters. (I play a lot of shooters and love the genre-so it is time to go for something different. RPG, Racing, Casual gaming...we'll see what pops up.)
3) 9 complete runs of horror comics produced between 2001 and 2009. (I have had a lot of trouble connecting to many recent comics-but with some searching, I bet I could locate nine series that would be interesting. For my purposes, mini-series are going to count as one, though I won't cheap out and simply read a bunch of 30 Days Of Night books. The art might make my eyes bleed if I did.)
4) 9 British Horror films. (I'm fairly weak on my britsploitation knowledge. This won't change that fact at all, but may shovel a little sand in to the tide of my ignorance.)
5) 9 Eurospy films that I have not seen. (So many to catch up with, this should be easy!)
6) 9 Peplum Films. (I have a 50 pack that is only 1/3 watched!)
7) 9 Spaghetti Westerns (There are dozens piled up in my backlog)
8) 9 Guy N. Smith novels
9) I'm wondering if actually creating a work of fiction in 9 parts would count. I'll ask those involved and see if it does. If so, then I'll post a 9 part story in 2009. If not...I'm sure I can find something else!

Again, there's ample room for more bloggers to join us. It should be a very fun, productive and focused year for us all. :-)