Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Self-aggrandizing Me, Myself & Movie Blogging


Vanity, Cinema reviews & iconoclasms

I have been seeing a rather unusual upward spike in my Blog Traffic this year. New visitors, loads of comments and plenty of new subscribers! So, if you’re new to this blog, here’s how it works. 

Along with my fellow bloggers in crime, I ramble on and on and say whatever comes into our head - mostly films, music, everyday life, etc but by and large its Cinema (or at least if you consider all the recent posts). I think Peter Weller’s “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” released in 1984 is a cult gem. Wait a minute, did I say Buckaroo Banzai? I know what you’re thinking. We should be crazy but then everyone has opinions about movies! 

Here’s how it started many years ago! I was moonshining for an indie men’s magazine based at Seattle, and I got invited to write a weekly movie/music review column to give it a little zing and color. Well, I gave it tonnes of vim & zing and my contribution was tremendously popular (honestly). 

In a country-wide poll, my movie review column was voted the best new thing in recent issues - better even than the hot busty babes in the center spreads. I’m usually a diffident humble sort of fellow, but I confess that I could immediately see column syndication, international recognition, a potential best selling book, and incalculable prosperity just ahead. 

Then, all of a sudden, in one of those tragic ironies of job life, I was booted out - a victim of editorial jealousy or my editor would want to believe ‘corporate downsizing’. Maybe as Scott ‘Dilbert’ Adams would say, I got “happy-sized.” 

My only consolation being, a lot of people who still had their jobs at the mag, some of them the inept editors responsible for ousting me, were (and probably still are) night after night stupidly bringing DVDs of horrid movies like Cop Out, Gigli, Alexander, Blood Rayne…and later saying to their spouses, “Sorry, honey, I guess that wasn’t a good choice - I do wish Websnacker still wrote that video column.” Poor dumb slobs. 

Meanwhile, my column enjoyed a short but happy revived life in the web edition of a popular but (now dead) ezine, until my old blog was born (now, that’s dead too)! Ok! Enough of the self-aggrandizement! 

Let’s just say the column has continued in different reincarnations including this blog – a way to reassure my loyal readers and a welcome to a whole new generation of film devotees with energizing blend of cinematic criticism and inspiring movie iconoclasm. Well, at least until I burn all my savings, close my current company and lose my web capabilities. 

And for those of you who don’t know what I mean about that movie iconoclasm stuff, I’ll give you an example. Here’s a scandalous declaration: This year's Oscars sucked and Spielberg’s Lincoln was a unnecessarily long, boring, bad movie and the stuff they made about Slavery in the US – utterly and historically untrue! 

There, I said it. Now, if you feel weak, bend over, puke and put your head between your knees or drink up a Red Bull, go to your nearest library and pick a good history book!

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...