Peter will be happy, I've been saying no more.
I've been declining writing up some films because I just don't want to spill the vitriol, others because I can't find the words to make the film not sound awful because it wasn't bad but discussing its good and bad points will make it sound bad.
And I've turned down some festivals because the effort to cover them isn't worth it. For example I am not covering New York Jewish because the last few years they have insisted that reviews only be capsules. I can't honestly spent hours to watch a film to not fully discuss it...when down the road the PR people for the regular release will ask me expand the review, often six or eight months later. I'll just wait for the regular release.
The plan this year is to (mostly) cover what want rather than what I feel obligated to cover. As a result I will be saying no more. Its something I really started to do in the last six months as my burn out made covering things less a possibility.
Related to that I am also doing it because the slow down in the last few weeks has resulted in some pieces I've been really happy with. The pieces I've been writing better. I want to continue to do that.
I'm still planning on a piece a day, but I don't know how crazy things will be.
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The next few weeks are going to be some films I saw here and there before I get to Dances with Films and then roll into Sundance (I've seen one short so far), Berlin and Rotterdam in whatever order they happen.
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A quick question - at what point did smoking become a character trait? I ask this because over the last few years a lot of directors have pushed the fact that a character smokes to the fore front. Its not so much mentioned but flaunted front and center and not woven into the story. This is especially true of historic film where how smoking was in decades past is presented unnnaturally.
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Is it me or are more and more people on social media following Quentin Tarantino's narrow minded view of cinema and basing it entirely on their film collection? Too many people are not looking backward at films that are in black and white and too many don't realize that others are remakes.
Seriously too many movie influencers and social media darlings have no idea what they are seeing or how it connects back. to older films or even culture in general.
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Sparked by a conversation with Peter I want to say I am tired of critics and writers doing things that will just get them noticed or things from the studios.
For many writers it is no longer about the films but the trips and the junkets and what the studio will slip their way.
This isn't jealousy, but just frustration as writers I like become more and more vapid as they adjust to what the studios want. I don't care about the studios, I care about the good films getting pushed out and the great filmmakers mortgaging their homes to make a short because they have to and no one will pay them to do so. I can't be jealous of bullshit that kills my soul.
Besides I am too entrenched in small films to be anyone that the bigger studios and PR firms care about (Look at my year end lists). I want to just push great films not meet stars (I've turned down numerous interviews with people I'm a fan of because I dislike the film they are in) or get things. I am incapable of doing something just to get noticed- if I get noticed its an accident because I truly said something I feel and it resonated. I genuinely love the small filmmakers and the small films and the thought of selling my soul to push many of the limited taleneted hacks loved by the studios make me ill.
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Going to have to try 28 YEARS LATER, it didn't work for me after 20 minutes,c so I turned it off. The opening bit seemed wrong and once we got to 28 years later it felt odd like it had to explain everything instead of telling a story and letting us find out.
I will revist
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