National Film Registry Project update: the new batch

Every year around this time, the Library of Congress announces 25 new selections to join its roster of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" films on the National Film Registry. The total number of films on that list now stands at 700. I am on entry number 31 in my attempt to see and discuss all the films on that roster in chronological order.

Are we downhearted?

No, actually. Nor am I daunted by Daniel Egan's excellent 2009 reference America's Film Legacy, which covers the same ground and which I discovered to my temporary dismay after I started the project in 2011.

I decided to press on, as I found that there was room for more than one voice on the subject, and mine is much more informal, irreverent, and opinionated (and uneducated). In short, I am still having a ball, learning as I go, and enjoying sharing what I find out with you. I hope you are enjoying it, too, and that this can be slapped into a more permanent form someday.

Meanwhile, here's a link to an excellent writeup in Deadline about the new entries. In effort to keep the chronology straight, after today's pending installment (Edward S. Curtis' 1914 In the Land of the Head Hunters), I will backtrack and treat two new additions to the roster that predate it -- Edwin S. Porter's 1903 Life of an American Fireman and D.W. Griffith's pioneering gangster film, 1912's The Musketeers of Pig Alley.

So, on we go . . . send questions, suggestions, and whatever money you have laying about. You may also want to track my parallel series on the National Recording Registry, which can be found at my brad-weismann.com site. Thank you!