Have you had bad experiences with Tarkovsky DH ? There wasn't a whole Tarkovsky marathon in this case, they did an "Overlooked Auteurs" thing early on that had 2 Fuller, 2 Tarkovsky and 2 Ozu, so the super-long super-slow Soviet masterpieces were kept to a minimum. Coincidentally (unless my subconscious was trying to do something), quite some time passed between films at that particular point in my marathon because I was focusing on rewatches in anticipation for my top 100 Club month.
Dawn of the Dead was in the Horror marathon. Since you're doing your own version of Noir-vember it seems, you should definitely watch Strangers, since that's apparently considered Noir. Regardless, it's very good and Robert Walker is fun.
1. Very significant. Like, hugely, which is part of the reason I got into this. The vast majority of pre-1940's film I've seen are from this marathon, still.
2. I didn't really think about that. I don't see them as being substantially different... or at least I don't have a clear preference. I might look at the numbers to see if there's a noticeable difference, but I doubt it.
3. Well... To a degree, yes. I certainly dreaded Andrey Rublyov, even though I had loved Solyaris, and especially Birth of a Nation because that had a combination of factors working against it (which made it a relatively pleasant surprise, racism notwithstanding). The other I remember being weary of was West Side Story, and I loved that too, so I guess I just like long movies. Except The Wild Bunch, that was just unpleasant.
4. Absolutely. Looking at my ratings curve on Letterbox'd, 7 is my median overall... I guess I expected the average to be higher than this, but I think the bad ones are easier to get through because I know I'm watching them for a specific purpose (and can look forward to hearing whether or not Adam & Sam/Josh shared my experience).
5. There's no such thing as too many questions.
6. Solyaris (rewatch), West Side Story and Songs from the Second Floor.
7. Hmmm. Well if I look strictly based on ratings my favorite would be Animation, but... I knew I liked Animation already, and had already seen two of them. I think Hitchcock ends up being my favourite, because it's the one where I had the easiest time drawing connections between the films : I remember noticing early on that almost all the films featured stairs in prominent and interesting scenes, and then I got to Vertigo and went "well, duh".
As far as my least favorite... overlooked Auteurs, probably. It had my favourite and my least favourite films so far (Andrey Rublyov and The Big Red One), but mostly it just didn't have the benefits of a marathon, which is contextualisation.
Thanks, and will do.