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I don't want to self-flatter that my writing has ever been powerful, but I used to feel power in the act of it. I used to see it accomplishing things - winning people over, showing my uniqueness, they were my hammer blows for shaping my future towards my desires.
At some point I just started wondering instead if it will ever make me money again. Everything else has sure felt futile lately. I call upon the words, and they might come out, but they just lay there, unable to make anything happen no matter how much I might want it.
I'm going to take a break from this, see what it does. I obviously need to re-orient myself in the world. Take some walks, take some pictures, be more flesh-and-blood social.
Also, even when I return to blogging, I'm going to stop being a movie critic. I'm going to just let myself be a movie fan for at least a little while. I gave it four years and I'm proud of my output in that time, but if I really intend to re-shape what I'm doing, it has to mean breaking a few old molds. For the record, 10,000 B.C. is air-headed spectacle, Braveheart sanitized for the crowd that likes its violence pretty. 21 has a charming new lead actor and hits all the necessary plot points, but fails to rise above its design. Doomsday is a consciously derivative pastiche that only occasionally achieves a delirious strangeness of its own. Run Fatboy Run is shallow but cruises on the charm and presence of its leads. And CJ7, in spite of the adorable creature at the heart of its plot, is a disappointingly square attempt at Chaplin-esque sentiment from a filmmaker who missed a chance to build on the reputation of his previous films.
Time to sleep, and eat, and face the sunshine. See you on the other side, friends.
At some point I just started wondering instead if it will ever make me money again. Everything else has sure felt futile lately. I call upon the words, and they might come out, but they just lay there, unable to make anything happen no matter how much I might want it.
I'm going to take a break from this, see what it does. I obviously need to re-orient myself in the world. Take some walks, take some pictures, be more flesh-and-blood social.
Also, even when I return to blogging, I'm going to stop being a movie critic. I'm going to just let myself be a movie fan for at least a little while. I gave it four years and I'm proud of my output in that time, but if I really intend to re-shape what I'm doing, it has to mean breaking a few old molds. For the record, 10,000 B.C. is air-headed spectacle, Braveheart sanitized for the crowd that likes its violence pretty. 21 has a charming new lead actor and hits all the necessary plot points, but fails to rise above its design. Doomsday is a consciously derivative pastiche that only occasionally achieves a delirious strangeness of its own. Run Fatboy Run is shallow but cruises on the charm and presence of its leads. And CJ7, in spite of the adorable creature at the heart of its plot, is a disappointingly square attempt at Chaplin-esque sentiment from a filmmaker who missed a chance to build on the reputation of his previous films.
Time to sleep, and eat, and face the sunshine. See you on the other side, friends.
posted by Nicholas Thurkettle at
7:36 AM
2 Comments:
"Doomsday" was a solid Carpenter junkie fix. And Rhona Mitra sells it. In any case: reviews available on IMDB, archival posts, etc. Many film blogs are not half as prolific. It's been cool.
By
Anonymous, at 9:12 AM
My review for Doomsday would have described it as a fast tour through a theme park with many movie-cliche-themed lands: Road Warrior-post-apocalyptic-car-fetish-Land, 28 Days Later-survival-horror-Land, Medieval-Land, and, most of all, John Carpenter's Escape From Land. And wasn't that first action sequence with the soldiers overwhelmed by Sid's mob straight out of Aliens?
Sing it with me: "They're coming out of the walls. They're coming out of the GODDAMN WALLS!"
I imagine I'll have a hard time holding my critical tongue as the movie-geek Manna starts rolling out this summer in the form of Iron Man, Indiana Jones, and Batman. So we might see the occasional revival.
By
Nicholas Thurkettle, at 1:04 PM
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