Not a whole lot of films come out this month that I’m interested in checking out. In fact, one whole week goes by with nothing that even registers on my radar at all.
04 January 2011
03 January 2011
200 Films of 2010
It's been a habit of mine to compile a list of 200 films that are released during each year, looking for trends, idea swipes, or themes that the medium just doesn't seem to get away from.
02 January 2011
Preamble to The Movie Sasquatch blog
When I was a kid – say, 11 or 12 years old – if someone would have told me that growing up was actually going to be pretty cool, I never would have believed them.
I grew up in the middle class, also known as the majority fifty percent of the 1980’s socioeconomic bell curve.1 I had a relatively sane, fun, average childhood; I was able to wear at least two pairs of Air Jordans during my youth and adolescence, while also being clowned for wearing clothes from Wal-Mart, referred to then as "buddy" brand clothes. No one wanted to wear buddy clothes.
While much of young life was spent playing ball in its various forms – base, basket and foot – and getting in the occasional fight, a lot of indoor time not spent buried in homework & books was spent watching moving pictures.2
Toys, grades, accolades and admonishments, and relationships all would flourish and flounder, holding attention one moment, only to lose it in the next. Movies always stayed. Among my fond memories are those I have of spending nights with my grandparents – Fridays with my mom’s mom, Saturdays with my dad’s parents – watching late night horror movies, Saturday morning cartoons, Saturday Night Live, and Sunday matinee clusterfuck shows on public access, programs that would throw together a Three Stooges short, a Fleischer Superman cartoon, a serial chapter, old school trailers, and a B-movie western, science fiction or horror film.
As I aged out of those nights with family for the sake of nights with friends or working some minimum wage job for a bit of disposable income, the love for films & motion pictures never relented. All manners of reciprocal interests became involved as well, including genre television, animation, and pro wrestling. Any form of visual storytelling was my sustenance (and still is, hence this forum).
I suppose, like any kid who tells his parents following the disappointment of a toy request being unfulfilled, "When I grow up, I’ll be able to get anything I want," and then grows up and does exactly that, accumulating "toys" in whatever sense of the word exists upon adulthood, I dug into purchasing movies on videotape when I realized there was more to enjoying film than renting movies from the Movie Place.3 The first movies I ever purchased were "House on Haunted Hill" and Lon Chaney’s "Phantom of the Opera."
The more hours I worked, the more money I made. The more money I had, the more access I had to films I wanted to see. (Granted, yes, I certainly spent money on more than movies, as I’m not some obese asocial recluse that has done little with his everyday life. But then, I’m not writing "The Everyday Life Sasquatch," so beware: Here there be movies.)
Soon came college, and with it, less time for my movie hobby. Then employment happened, both for the sake of sheer survival and for furthering professional experience. More money turned into more movies. Then I went to grad school, and I found myself soon after professionally employed to the turn of an actual annual salary. And then came DVD.
Goddamn, did it ever.
The digital medium for films was incredible for several reasons: Access to films that had somewhat lapsed into obscurity and had never been seen on VHS now had a cost-effective path laid before them, and the consumer level cost to own said films, while often in varying states of flux, was very satisfactory.
A sizable VHS-based film collection would explode into a grand DVD-based film collection. Once the bills were paid and the bellies were full, a-huntin’ I could go. A lot of films I have and that I’ll discuss herein are part of the memories I had growing up. Some films I’d pick up due to a certain notoriety or a collector’s whim; for example of this latter point, one time I got this book, "Fangoria’s 101 Horror Films You’ve Never Seen," read it, and replied, "I’ll take that bet!" And there are some movies because, hell, someone either mentioned/ recommended/ wrote about/ talked about/ had a conversation about that I overheard in passing/ gave an interview about/ reviewed in a magazine, and I subsequently was able to find it for sale somewhere in a range of $5-10 and said, "Ah, why the hell not?"
I write a lot; once I even had several ideas for screenplays, comic books, short stories, and one or two Great American Novels, et cetera.
I think a lot, too; I never profess to be a genius, but sometimes I think so much, so fast, in so many different directions that I want to stop, I have to stop, and I try to preserve as much of that as I can.
I have a lot of movies that I need to watch – some even to rewatch – and the run through almost every genre imaginable, ranging in quality from classics to absolute cinematic shit (ahem, "Ebola Syndrome").
I wear a size 13 shoe and have a bunch of movies to watch, review and put into the perspective afforded to me, in a forum with which I’ve grown comfortable. This makes me a cinefile Bigfoot, a "movie Sasquatch" of sorts.
Also, among the movie talk, occasional book reviews, research article-style ramblings, and general complaints and swearing at the foibles, feasts and famines of life in general, there’ll be multimedia projects I’m hoping to put together, including a radio project in particular that, at this writing, has been in development for almost a year, maybe even a hair over.
Basically, my goal is moreover to reflect on life, as any good journal is supposed to help its writer do. Maybe this will even entertain some friends, the occasional random passers-by, and it could serve as a record left for family as they grow and mature. Or maybe it’s all one big vanity project. Either way, I’ll enjoy writing it.
The footnotes? Ah, don’t worry so much about those. I once read a great article on writing, written by novelist Elmore Leonard,4 which accurately stated that sometimes an author may take a flight from the main body of work, and that writing can take away from a reader’s enjoyment. For me, the footnotes are there to read along with the articles, but you can ignore them and not lose a bit of what I’m using my literary voice to say; the footnotes are my hooptedoodle.
Alright. Enjoy your stay.
1I include this for anyone reading this in posterity who was born in 1990 forward, because as time progresses, sometimes I wonder if erosion in the socioeconomic stratification will see the demise of a "middle class," leaving behind the ninety percent "poor" and ten percent "rich." If that happens, at least this will serve as a soft reminder of a time when this wasn’t so.
2It amazes me that, with the advent of digital photography, there will be a point in the future where the concept of multiple still images being manipulated to give the illusion of movement will be as foreign and as "dead" as Latin.
3The Movie Place, owned by local entrepreneur Fud Ball, was my hometown’s first video rental business. With the arrival of VHS, I watched the hell out of every Godzilla movie, Abbott & Costello romp, and G.I. Joe cartoon I could convince my parents to pick up.
4Leonard, E. (2001, July 16). Writers on writing; easy on the adverbs, exclamations, and especially hooptedoodle. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com.
I grew up in the middle class, also known as the majority fifty percent of the 1980’s socioeconomic bell curve.1 I had a relatively sane, fun, average childhood; I was able to wear at least two pairs of Air Jordans during my youth and adolescence, while also being clowned for wearing clothes from Wal-Mart, referred to then as "buddy" brand clothes. No one wanted to wear buddy clothes.
While much of young life was spent playing ball in its various forms – base, basket and foot – and getting in the occasional fight, a lot of indoor time not spent buried in homework & books was spent watching moving pictures.2
Toys, grades, accolades and admonishments, and relationships all would flourish and flounder, holding attention one moment, only to lose it in the next. Movies always stayed. Among my fond memories are those I have of spending nights with my grandparents – Fridays with my mom’s mom, Saturdays with my dad’s parents – watching late night horror movies, Saturday morning cartoons, Saturday Night Live, and Sunday matinee clusterfuck shows on public access, programs that would throw together a Three Stooges short, a Fleischer Superman cartoon, a serial chapter, old school trailers, and a B-movie western, science fiction or horror film.
As I aged out of those nights with family for the sake of nights with friends or working some minimum wage job for a bit of disposable income, the love for films & motion pictures never relented. All manners of reciprocal interests became involved as well, including genre television, animation, and pro wrestling. Any form of visual storytelling was my sustenance (and still is, hence this forum).
I suppose, like any kid who tells his parents following the disappointment of a toy request being unfulfilled, "When I grow up, I’ll be able to get anything I want," and then grows up and does exactly that, accumulating "toys" in whatever sense of the word exists upon adulthood, I dug into purchasing movies on videotape when I realized there was more to enjoying film than renting movies from the Movie Place.3 The first movies I ever purchased were "House on Haunted Hill" and Lon Chaney’s "Phantom of the Opera."
The more hours I worked, the more money I made. The more money I had, the more access I had to films I wanted to see. (Granted, yes, I certainly spent money on more than movies, as I’m not some obese asocial recluse that has done little with his everyday life. But then, I’m not writing "The Everyday Life Sasquatch," so beware: Here there be movies.)
Soon came college, and with it, less time for my movie hobby. Then employment happened, both for the sake of sheer survival and for furthering professional experience. More money turned into more movies. Then I went to grad school, and I found myself soon after professionally employed to the turn of an actual annual salary. And then came DVD.
Goddamn, did it ever.
The digital medium for films was incredible for several reasons: Access to films that had somewhat lapsed into obscurity and had never been seen on VHS now had a cost-effective path laid before them, and the consumer level cost to own said films, while often in varying states of flux, was very satisfactory.
A sizable VHS-based film collection would explode into a grand DVD-based film collection. Once the bills were paid and the bellies were full, a-huntin’ I could go. A lot of films I have and that I’ll discuss herein are part of the memories I had growing up. Some films I’d pick up due to a certain notoriety or a collector’s whim; for example of this latter point, one time I got this book, "Fangoria’s 101 Horror Films You’ve Never Seen," read it, and replied, "I’ll take that bet!" And there are some movies because, hell, someone either mentioned/ recommended/ wrote about/ talked about/ had a conversation about that I overheard in passing/ gave an interview about/ reviewed in a magazine, and I subsequently was able to find it for sale somewhere in a range of $5-10 and said, "Ah, why the hell not?"
I write a lot; once I even had several ideas for screenplays, comic books, short stories, and one or two Great American Novels, et cetera.
I think a lot, too; I never profess to be a genius, but sometimes I think so much, so fast, in so many different directions that I want to stop, I have to stop, and I try to preserve as much of that as I can.
I have a lot of movies that I need to watch – some even to rewatch – and the run through almost every genre imaginable, ranging in quality from classics to absolute cinematic shit (ahem, "Ebola Syndrome").
I wear a size 13 shoe and have a bunch of movies to watch, review and put into the perspective afforded to me, in a forum with which I’ve grown comfortable. This makes me a cinefile Bigfoot, a "movie Sasquatch" of sorts.
Also, among the movie talk, occasional book reviews, research article-style ramblings, and general complaints and swearing at the foibles, feasts and famines of life in general, there’ll be multimedia projects I’m hoping to put together, including a radio project in particular that, at this writing, has been in development for almost a year, maybe even a hair over.
Basically, my goal is moreover to reflect on life, as any good journal is supposed to help its writer do. Maybe this will even entertain some friends, the occasional random passers-by, and it could serve as a record left for family as they grow and mature. Or maybe it’s all one big vanity project. Either way, I’ll enjoy writing it.
The footnotes? Ah, don’t worry so much about those. I once read a great article on writing, written by novelist Elmore Leonard,4 which accurately stated that sometimes an author may take a flight from the main body of work, and that writing can take away from a reader’s enjoyment. For me, the footnotes are there to read along with the articles, but you can ignore them and not lose a bit of what I’m using my literary voice to say; the footnotes are my hooptedoodle.
Alright. Enjoy your stay.
1I include this for anyone reading this in posterity who was born in 1990 forward, because as time progresses, sometimes I wonder if erosion in the socioeconomic stratification will see the demise of a "middle class," leaving behind the ninety percent "poor" and ten percent "rich." If that happens, at least this will serve as a soft reminder of a time when this wasn’t so.
2It amazes me that, with the advent of digital photography, there will be a point in the future where the concept of multiple still images being manipulated to give the illusion of movement will be as foreign and as "dead" as Latin.
3The Movie Place, owned by local entrepreneur Fud Ball, was my hometown’s first video rental business. With the arrival of VHS, I watched the hell out of every Godzilla movie, Abbott & Costello romp, and G.I. Joe cartoon I could convince my parents to pick up.
4Leonard, E. (2001, July 16). Writers on writing; easy on the adverbs, exclamations, and especially hooptedoodle. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com.
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