Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Chronicling the Year-End Binge

This time of year, in regions (like here in Nebraska) where most of the year's films don't make it to town until very late - if at all - anyone plotting to compile a list of the year's best must consume an inhuman number of films in a mercilessly narrow time frame, this amounts to raiding the local art house theater, where films like Steve McQueen's "Shame", which just opened here, saw the bulk of its reviews hit the papers in late November. To Netflix, both on disc and instant watch, and to the lingering success of a few films that have found their way to the  local multiplex. The following is a brief rundown of what I've seen in the last 8 days. With any luck, I'll post micro-reviews of as many of these films as I can in the coming days.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Sorry for the Delay, Folks

It's been a while, no?

Perhaps I should have shared this earlier, but I've taken up arms as a contributing critic for efilmcritic.com. I'll be directing you to them here as they go up, which should be about once a week. My sole review so far has been "Take Shelter", available here, which was among the very best 2011 has had to offer me. Like our Facebook page for quick links to my eFilmCritic reviews.

With my formal criticism headed to a more prominent outlet, the format of this blog will likely undergo something of a change. Hopefully, chief among these changes will be a more consistent output. Me and Jon will still compile our annual Pantheon in the summer. I will engage more in the kind of 'first impression' criticism that one might find at, say, Richard Brody's "The Front Row" blog at the New Yorker. Keep an eye out for sporadic observations of any old film I happen to see. Keep an eye out also for my spontaneous "DVD of the Moment" segments. Finally, I'm in my year-end movie binge, catching up on all the movies of acclaim the year had to offer. My annual top 10 list will go up during Oscars week, along with some commentary on the myriad ways the Academy fouled up this year. For now though, because I'm behind I'm going to resort to the frantic method of micro-review clusters my esteemed colleague Jon employs over at The Film Brief.

All the best,
R