Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013 By the Numbers

I saw 397 "films" on a theater screen in 2013. For these purposes, a film is not just a feature length film but also includes programs (typically from film festivals) which consist of multiple short films. If it was categorized as a single program in a festival guide, it counts as one film entry on my list. Conversely, I saw several programs which consisted of a short film and a feature length film. For my counting purposes, those are counted a single film entry.

397 is my lowest annual count since 2010 when I "only" saw 385.  I saw 436 films in 2012 and 406 films in 2011.

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The top 10 venues in which I saw films in 2013 were:

1) Castro Theater (68 films) - primarily the result of Noir City and the SF Silent Film Festival.

2) Roxie Theater (52 films) - 17 films each at Elliot Lavine's I Wake Up Dreaming and IndieFest.  I'm counting the Roxie and Little Roxie as the same for this count.

3) Landmark Theaters (39 films) - 14 films at the Clay (French Cinema Now and New Italian Cinema), 11 films at the Embarcadero Center, 8 films at the Opera Plaza, 3 films at the Aquarius, 2 films at the Guild and 1 film at the Shattuck.

4) Pacific Film Archive (33 films) - Raoul Walsh, Jacques Demy and Rainer Werner Fassbinder series accounted from most of my visits.  This is the first time since I started counting that the PFA was not in the top three.

5) Vogue (31 films) - 15 films from Mostly British, 6 films from Hong Kong Cinema and 8 films from Taiwan Film Days.

6) Camera Cinemas (30 films) - 26 films at the Camera 12 and 4 films at the Camera 3.  I watched most  (all except one) of the Camera 12 films at Cinequest.

7) Kabuki Cinemas (26 films) - 8 films as part of CAAMFest and 18 films from SF International.

8) Viz (25 films) - 6 films from SF International, 6 films from CAAMFest, 5 films from Hole in the Head, 4 films from Zurich/SF and 3 from the SF Japan Film Festival.

9) 4 Star (17 films) - 5 films from the Chinese American Film Festival

9) Stanford Theater (17 films) - 8 films from the Preston Sturges/Marx Brothers program in December.

Honorable mentions: YBCA (11 films), Crest Theater in Sacramento (8 films), California Theater in San Jose (7 films) and the Balboa (6 films).

I visited the Great Star (San Francisco) and Guild (Menlo Park) for the first time in 2013.  I also saw a film in Davies Symphony Hall for the first time in 2013.

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On 234 days in 2013, I saw at least one film. The 2013 breakdown is:

On 131 days, I saw zero films.
On 116 days, I saw one film.
On 85 days, I saw two films.
On 23 days, I saw three films.
On 8 days, I saw four films.
On 2 days, I saw five films.

On Sunday, March 3, I saw five films at Cinequest.  Two days later on March 5, I took a vacation day from work and saw five more films at Cinequest.

Breaking down the number of films by month:

January - 33 films
February - 38 films
March - 61 films
April - 20 films
May - 45 films
June - 28 films
July - 28 films
August - 30 films
September - 19 films
October - 29 films
November 35 films
December - 31 films

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I've stopped counting the dollar amounts.  Partly out of shame but also because I've commingled money from different fiscal periods.  Frequently I purchase film passes and tickets in one year for use in the subsequent year.  Also, I have a hard time splitting out what is a charitable donation and what is the cost of admission.

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