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Good morning, afternoon, evening, wherever you are and whatever time it is. This is the first posting of my new (and first) blog which I hope I wind up sticking to. Too many times have I dedicated myself to projects like this only to lose interest over time and never complete or simply continue long enough.
To those who know me you know what I love more than most things and that's the cinema. To you, you already know what you're getting into but I still hope to provide new insight beyond what you already know from me. If you're new them I'm glad to see you reading this and hope you find my thoughts and opinions on film to be at the very least worth reading at all.
So what am I hoping to accomplish? The purpose of this blog is to rate, review, and provide extensive thought on the films in my own personal collection. On and off I'll mention related films but only one rule applies for extensive reviews. I have to own the film. Anything rented/borrowed/seen in theatres won't count until I purchase it for myself (Like you'll need another opinion about The Dark Knight Rises among the rest when it comes out.)
I am doing this more more than one reason:
-The first is motivation to visit and revisit my collection so I don't leave them collecting dust.
-Another reason is my constant need to be creative. This gives me a chance to create and get out of the daily grind that doesn't always fulfill this need. The only other creative projects I've been working on have been a major project I'm writing for my wife and a couple original stories (a play and a novel) which I'm writer blocked at.
-Lastly because this is one of my favorite things to talk about. Some of my college friends who I would talk with about these things extensively I don't see or talk to very often. Thank the good Lord for things like blogging.
Another detail about these reviews is they will not be chosen in any sorted of planned way. They will be spontaneous and whatever I'm in the mood for. One day I'll watch National Lampoon's Vacation, Requiem For A Dream the next, and then I'll finish it off with Crank and The Notebook... just to put things in perspective.
Before my first official review I'd like to tell you a bit about my history with film and what brought me to this blog today.
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Growing up I spent a lot of time on the couch. Sounds lazy. It was but it became a passion. A passion for couches not laziness. I wasn't as lazy as some may believe. I did try some sports. I actually stuck with baseball for a while. I also rode my bike a lot. I fell in love with couches. Their comfort, style, uniqueness, so many things about them. I am still waiting to finally get my own "turn couch." The type of couch that has a corner. Known by most people as a sectional couch. On the couch is where I first started seeing these stories that would live with me for the rest of my life.
The first film I ever fell in love with was Lady and the Tramp. The first few years of my life on nearly a daily basis I would call out to my parents, "LADY! LADY!" because I wanted to watch it again and again and again. Sadly over time I saw it less. My family eventually seemed to lose a lot of our old Disney tapes over time with few remaining. This being one that wasn't there. It wouldn't be until this last Valentines Day when my wonderful wife would get me the recently released bluray filled with wonderful special features. I fell in love with it all over again.
We all had our childhood favorites. We can name 'em off in no time. My favorites from my very young age included: All Dogs Go To Heaven, Scamper the Penguin (where my penguin love first started I believe), Aladdin, The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under, The Land Before Time (there's a very tragic story about the actress who played Ducky you can find here. Readers beware as it may destroy your pure image of the film) and if I kept going we'd be here all day. These were ones that stood out as absolute favorites, though.
I also had the fun experience of seeing some movies well before I should have. Ironically some of these titles eventually sparked my very strong interest in horror films. Psycho was an early one that sparked my interest. Then came the big one when I saw The Shining for the first time. The terror I felt lasted for years and after countless viewings parts of it still send a chill down my spine.
Overall I had the same sort of experience most people did when they were kids. I saw a lot of the popular movies and a good number of movies my parents liked from when they were younger. Then when I grew older into my pre-teen/teenage years it was still a lot of the same. There was a point in time when I thought Adam Sandler was absolutely hilarious. Things change in time. And speaking of change... this was a time when I would look at the artsy fartsy movies that were being nominated for awards as movies that nobody saw and were probably really boring. Like I said, things change.
There is one film that changed my life. One day I went from everyday movie guy to a film a buff with a whole new perspective. It was when I rented 2001: A Space Odyssey. I could write an extensive review about why I love that film more than most (It's in my top 5) but I'll be brief for now. Everything about it mesmerized me. It's length didn't bother me, I loved the vision, I loved the style, the music was amazingly tuned with the visuals and story, and then the last large chunk of the film even creeped me out a bit. Between the strange visuals and the horrifying music it made for quite the last act. After that experience I knew there was something better out there than what I've been spending all my time with up to that point in my life. No worries, I didn't lose my love for the old favorites. Those have a VERY special place in my heart.
So the exploration began. It started off really pompous where I think I even viewed myself as "above" the average viewer because of my film choices. In the end it helped. I went from one extreme of average viewer to the extreme of an artsy viewer. This way in time I was able to level off and find what really tripped my trigger when I sat down to a film. Since then I fell in and out of love with genres, types, styles, actors, directors, but it all brought me to where I am today.
This has been a very abridge version of my experience with film. In the following blog posts I know I will be mentioning more experiences and favorites when they become relevant to a review or a topic. I will finish for now but the next post I'll be listing is my current collection. It will be from that list that my full reviews will come from. I will also have general topics that I will go through in separate blogs. Will the reviews be all positive? I wouldn't say so. Of course since they're in my collection I have favor toward them in some way. But I am not afraid of being critical to even my favorites.
I hope you enjoy this journey through film as much as I do.
