— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-तीन —
I was walking home from work last night, listening to my latest Apple Music playlist (I finally made one called "Dad"!—only 9 tracks so far, but I'll probably build on it a little over time; several are pretty long tracks so it still as a combined run time of 45 minutes), and suddenly found myself thinking about the movie reviews I write, and have been writing, and posting, now for over 17 years. Is it time, finally, to stop bothering?
It's natural also to wonder whether I would be considering such a thing now if not for the pandemic, particularly the first year of it, 2020, in which I did not see any movies in the theater between February 2020 and May 2021; and in which I posted all of one single review (in April 2020) between February and September 2020—a truly unprecedented dry streak. But, then I started reviewing movies again even though they were streaming, and I was feeling like I was getting something resembling my movie review-writing groove back.
Well, I guess you could say the groove is increasingly lost on me lately. This is largely because, I think, perhaps I swung the pendulum too far in the direction of reviewing movies I watch at home online. In late 2020, when movies originally slated for theatrical release were pivoting to streamers or VOD, their average quality was much higher. These days, the line is a lot more blurred, and I already noted how I reviewed five movies in a row last week and the week before that I had to watch online—and all of them merely ranged from "okay" to "kind of good."
I finally went back to see a movie in a theater on Sunday, and even that was just a solid B. Probably no one I know will see it, and probably few, if any, of the presumably few people who bothered to read my review will see it. In other words, what's the point?
I had two more streaming reviews planned for both last night and tonight, largely due to a podcast recommendation. But, both of them have definitively mixed reviews on average, so I had no reason to expect I would find them great either. I have been wanting to rewatch the 1984 action romance
Romancing the Stone, which I found on HBO Max, and so I watched that last night instead. Now, to be fair, the movie has not aged as much as I would have liked, and it contains a lot of gaping plot holes few studios would let slip by these days, at least if it were as high-profile as that movie was. Nevertheless, I liked it just as much, if not more, than I likely would have the mix-reviewed streamer, and I didn't have to bother with writing a review. I think I might just watch
Scream (2022) tonight on Paramount+ tonight for the same reason.
The point is, this is the question I am suddenly asking myself: is the number of reviews I write for movies I would never tell anyone else to go out of their way to see (which is anything from a solid B or lower) really worth it anymore? I love movies and I love writing about movies, but it no longer feels worth doing just for its own sake. It's beginning to feel like a whole lot of effort for literally no payoff.
I used to harbor a small hope that maybe one day I could get paid for reviewing movies. The days of any such hopes existing are now long past, not just in regards to my own abilities or ambitions but in regards to the very idea of getting paid to write anything, which nowadays would only ever exist online rather than in print. I have long been telling Gabriel that I don't give very many bad grades to movies because I can tell going in whether I am likely to hate it, and I'm not going to waste my time on an experience I know I'll hate when I'm not only not getting paid for my labor, but
I'm paying for the ticket. I mean, get real.
Well, I feel like the parameters may be shifting. It's not just the bad movies I am starting to feel like actively avoiding, but also the merely mediocre ones. I don't want to keep reviewing movies like
The Adam Project.
Now, to be fair, 2021 is shifting, albeit only slightly, toward a more conventional movie release schedule, and early-year releases tend to be barren wastelands of mediocrity. Still, I don't think I need to be making the same kind of effort on this as I used to. I'm not certain I want to stop writing movie reviews entirely, but maybe I should institute new parameters. Like, whether it's streaming or in a theater, perhaps I should only bother writing a review if I feel in any way passionate about it—whether I loved it, or really liked it, or hated it, or it made me angry. Really, my 17-year history of posting movie reviews online is starting to feel like it exists out of bizarrely self-imposed obligation rather than necessity, or certainly any real demand. Who is really getting anything out of it?
It's not like I would not still be writing in any way. I love to write, whether it's this very blog, or in particular, my email travelogues, which I now enjoy writing far more than I enjoy writing most movie reviews. And if I cut back on the movie reviews, I'd have more time for things like, say, reading a book! Granted there's now a ton of excellent television to watch but it's still a solid argument.
— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-तीन —
— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-तीन —
Romancing the Stone actually caught Ivan's attention while he was eating his dinner, and he hung out with me in the living room for its duration. A couple of scenes really made him laugh. He lay on the love seat as usual, although he did spend most of his time just looking at his phone. I suspect this just gave him an excuse not to spend those two hours just looking at his phone in his bedroom.
It was nice not having a review to write after the movie was done. I need to get over this drive to review 2-3 movies a week as I always did prior to 2020; I was getting close to keeping steady with that pace this year, and was trying to sort of get more in the can before leaving for Louisville on Thursday. Finally I decided, fuck it. I don't have to write any more reviews unless I really want to.
I retired to the bedroom after the movie, and was on Skype with Shobhit from India for a little while. I also created yet another playlist, this one all songs about money. I've had several versions of this over the years but it somehow disappeared even before the last time I synced my iPod Classic, so this time I had to recreate it again from scratch. I listened to the first 25 minutes or so on the way to work this morning and will listen to the rest while walking home. It actually makes for a good, solid playlist.
— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-तीन —
So . . . one more day of work this week. Tomorrow after work I'll do laundry and pack. Travel to Louisville, by way of a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday; Barbara will meet at my hotel so we can get dinner after I get there that evening. Friday will be the day trip to Indianapolis; Saturday the day trip to Cincinnati; and Sunday spent in Louisville, when we will also watch the Academy Awards together in my hotel room. Monday is the travel day back home. I've been tracking the weather in all three cities, it's a lot warmer there than Seattle right now, but will be colder for the days I visit—cloudy with highs in the low- to mid-fifties, and lows as cold as 30°, the warmest low being only 40°. It's set to be cloudy but right now no rain in the forecast, except for maybe a little in Indianapolis, which is fine. It's going to be a gray visit all around, it looks like, but that's okay. I'll still make the best of what I have to work with. And at least I know not to pack too lightly when it comes to jackets.
— पांच हजार एक सौ अस्सी-तीन —
[posted 12:38 pm]
