That Time Of Year

Hey folks,

Its that time of year when I start prepping my "Best 25/Worst 5 Films of the Year" list. Last year, you may remember that I didn't post my list until after the Oscars because I hadn't seen that many films and couldn't fill out either list. In fact, I may have just quietly posted the list and been done with it.

This year, I'm offering an "epiphany" of sorts before publishing the list.

I'm 38. I'm married. I have a 2 1/2 year-old son and a second child due in late May/early June. To put it quite simply...movies don't matter much anymore.

Okay...now that everyone has done a spit take or gasped as if I've uttered some blashpeme, let me expand upon this and explain where I'm coming from before we start taking pitchforks and torches to my two college degrees.

I love movies. I will always love movies. From Citizen Kane to Ernest Goes to Africa, I have always championed any kind of film. A few years ago, I finally realized that a good chunk of what Hollywood puts out is just utter crap that isn't worth my time and my rule of "if I start it, I have to finish it" went out the window to fall in the pile of other stupid rules other humans have come up with throughout the millennia (we can thank The Whole Ten Yards for opening my eyes).

Granted, before this time I had seen A LOT of shit. But I always found the good within the bad. I no longer have the time or energy to do this. With the crap that gets churned out on a regular basis to fill the silver screen like so much diarreah, there was no longer time to devote to the passion of watching the magic of film.

Perhaps, unfortunately, the good got tossed out with the bad. Life took me in different directions and I wasn't even able to see all the "good" films either. Sure, I still caught things I wanted to see or felt I had to see, but some of the more acclaimed films had to wait. Netflix came in handy for a while, but eventually that had to go the way of the dodo in our household. We just didn't have the time to keep up with TV shows and life and movies. And while I missed a few things here and there, for the life of me I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I truly "missed" and regret. Sure, I've got a list running of movies I had an interest in seeing...but after a while of not being able to get to any of them, I forget about them entirely. Meaning they couldn't have been that great to begin with or else I'd remember them.

So...in looking over everything I did see this last year, we come up with just about 25 "films"...some of which I refuse to put in a "Best of" list. And I haven't seen anything so horrible as to even have a "Worst of" list. So what am I to do?

Well...I'm gonna have a Top 25 list...but I'm changing the rules somewhat. Since the way we as a society view "films" have changed over the last decade anyway, I'm catching up with the times somewhat. I will be adding "direct to video" movies to the list if they are worthy. They could be based on TV series, but they cannot be part of a show that is still on the air (so don't expect to see Battlestar: Galactica - Razor on the list...but there are one or two others that are eligible and may make it).

As far as doing something about the "Worst of" list, I'm going to list movies or trends in movies that I wish didn't happen...regardless of whether I've seen them or not (let's face it, while Airplane is still a funny film, does anyone think that Date Movie will be funny in 5 years when it wasn't funny to begin with). I believe I have enough "knowledge" of things to be able to espouse an opinion on these matters. If you have a problem with that, well...tough titty.

So that's where it all stands right now. The lists won't get published until just after January 1 as we're going to be seeing at least one other film in theaters before too long and I want to be able to add it to the list if it deserves to be there.

Anyway...I will be back with some other reviews and looks back in the next day or so while I'm relaxing in Napa.

Be seeing you.