I guess the last time I checked in was just after seeing
Man of Steel (2013), and, frankly, if I wasn't already about to bail on blogging for a while prior to seeing the movie, the third reel of Zack Snyder's Super-Opus might have gotten me to throw in the towel.
My movie-going is probably slowed a bit. That's been partly a monetary decision and a work/life/occasionally-being-home balance issue. And, I don't feel the need to see everything new that comes to the theater the way I might have once felt.
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If you want to get me talking, ask me about this fellow |
The curious thing about getting older is the mix of feelings that (1) you aren't really going to miss anything if you miss a movie, even a super popular one, and (2) you've kind of already seen this before in some form or another. In fact, one of the most baffling things I keep reading is how crazy
Guardians of the Galaxy felt, how staggeringly original. Look, I loved GotG, but "a rag tag group of lovable scoundrels get together and stop a menace/ save the day" hasn't been a fresh idea since before
The Magnificent Seven. And if you need a space version - I point you to a dozen low-budget sci-fi movies from the 80's. But... I guess they really haven't had one in a while, so it felt new to the current audience.
We'll talk a bit about the changes in audience expectations at some other point, but I saw a
newish article today that outright stated that trying something that wasn't a complete cookie cutter picture was "trolling" the audience, that it was the studio's "hubris" to try something that didn't already have widespread pre-awareness, vis-a-vis
Guardians of the Galaxy.
Y'all, that's just a @#$%ed up thing to say as a pop culture or movie writer.
As per my movie watching habits: I'm still watching movies off Turner Classic, cable, Alamo Drafthouse screenings of older movies, the Paramount Classic Film Series, BluRay, NetFlix streaming and now Hulu. The Alamo Drafthouse even hosted Noir City Austin, a multi-day Film Noir Fest with Eddie Mueller. Lots of channels for taking in movies. And I've seen some great stuff that way.
And, honestly, I've missed writing about it. And I miss being able to look at this site and review what I said about a movie I've seen (or even to check if I've already seen something I'm about to watch off cable).
To make the post overly long, I'll go ahead and talk about what new movies I saw in the theater with a sort of quick, judgey statement for each.