Fun resolutions rewarding, too

The Mary Poppins song goes, "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." Experience tells me nothing helps NyQuil or Theraflu go down, but the phrase makes sense in a bigger picture. Put in something sweet, and the more difficult endeavors aren't that bad.

This is the time of year where people are trying to stay strong on their resolutions for 2012. Mine are like most — exercise more, eat less horrible foods and find ways to save for rainy days.

It only takes five or six weeks for a resolution to become a routine, according to Men's Health Editor-in-Chief Dave Zinczenko. So I figured I might make the trip a little sweeter.

Before I tell you how, I need to bring you up to speed on something else. I watch a lot of movies, something evident to many readers. The Thursday Ticket section features one movie rental review from me. I lost count at 450 DVDs, and I have more than one movie streaming service. Add in whatever I see in theaters, and you're easily talking 75 movies per year.

My late friend Mickey had a giant CD collection, and always said, "The more you have, the less you have," and I'm finding the same is true with movies. The more DVDs you have, the more incredulous a friend finds it when you haven't seen his favorite movie, and the less worthwhile you feel as a movie buff.

And that's where 2012 is going to be sweeter for me. I decided I would watch a movie I'd somehow missed every week. I call it the 52 Discs Project.

I asked friends for what movies they'd recommend, and I got almost two dozen recommendations. I got about 10 I'd seen before, five quotes from "Dumb and Dumber" and a friend who asked if I'd post the winners once this whole thing was over — as if it were a contest.

I took 20 of them and added a bunch of others I was thinking. Then I went online for a list of 2012's weeks (Jan. 1-7, Jan. 8-14, etc.), copied it into a table and added a movie title and who suggested it.

The fun resolution keeps the difficult ones in your mind, and justifies the work you do leading up to it. While I'm watching, "Amelie (Feb. 6-12)," I'll remember I need to skip out on Valentine's Day candy to justify it. And when I'm struggling through that third cycle of weights, I'll say, "I'm earning the right to watch, 'Ghost Rider' (June 18-24).'"

I've considered writing about each movie — why I picked it, what other movies it reminded me of, why I liked/hated it and how it made me feel. I can't help but think writing 52 more things will help me be a better writer as well

I hope that by the time I've watched "Fear of a Black Hat (Dec. 24-30)," and the 51 films that came before it, I'll have proven not every resolution has to be horrible, and even the fun resolutions can make you better off overall.

My list is written, but it's not set in stone. If you have a movie you'd like me to add to the 52 Discs Project, feel free to suggest it. I'm sure 2012 will have plenty of bitter medicine, so I welcome whatever sugar you might offer.

Kevin Wilson is a columnist for Freedom New Mexico. He can be reached at 763-3431, ext. 313, or by email at [email protected]