2015, A New Beginning

OK dear readers (are there any of you left?),

2013/14 saw a noticeable reduction in activity here.  Oh sure, I can blame it on having a girlfriend or playing more soccer and being more social or any multitude of reasons.

But the plain and simple fact is this:  I didn't want to write anything.  I was burned out.

It's not that my love for film has vanished, quite the contrary in fact.  I still believe that film is the most beautiful art form in the world.  It's a medium that can transport you to another world, or make you confront deep dark fears, or make you fall hopelessly in love.  If done well, you don't ever feel like you're "watching" events unfold, you feel part of them.

I was lucky enough to grow up in whats considered a "golden age" of film.  The late 1970's brought us such technical innovations as Star Wars, Superman The Movie and new life breathing into tired genres from Halloween and Phantasm.

The 1980's brought more and more.  I was fortunate enough to have seen Escape from New York and Blade Runner on the big screen.   In fact, a friend of mine still "owes" me $100 after we made a childhood bet.  I said that by the year 2000, we would see a lot of that film in our society.  He disagreed.  I think we know how that worked out.  I even saw National Lampoon's Vacation on that 40 foot section of magic.

So what does all this mean for the blog?  Well, simple.  We're going to soldier on into the new year.  We are going to lose some features.  The running Oscars blog will go away.  I will still post my choices and the winners on here, but the running commentary we've had till The Walking Dead took over Sunday nights in Feb. will be no more.

We'll also drop all coverage of the Razzie Awards and the Golden Schmoes awards.  Also, we will no longer review every single film seen.  We'll focus mainly on films listed as Top Hits and the occasional under the radar gem that I find.

Top hits will stay, as will the Best of/Worst of lists.  We'll be sure to add more in depth reviews of the big films, as time will be more free by not feeling like I have to write a review of some crappy thing we decided to watch on Netflix one night just because it was a movie I watched.

This new leaner format will allow more focus and more time.  I watched 124 movies for the first time in 2014 (thats not even counting finding Top Gun on TV one boring afternoon or the yearly screenings of Christmas Vacation or ThanksKilling.)  So you can just imagine how overwhelming that can feel knowing you just watched 3 movies today and now you've gotta sit down and write a review, even a mini one, for each damn one.

Let's get to it friends, Top Hits for 2015 coming later today!!