
I’ve been looking back at my film commentary for this here
blog, and it didn’t surprise me that most of the films I wrote about were not
current releases. “So what’s up with that?” you ask.
Here's what’s up with that:
1. Though I do prefer seeing films in a theater on a big
screen with an intelligent, film-loving friend, the reality of my life is I
watch many more films at home alone. This isn’t a bad thing. I get to watch
them more than once and I get to rewatch any part of the film I desire.
2. Going to movies is expensive for a guy currently surviving on rice and beans.
3. When a film is released in theaters, there are thousands of reviews circulating in print and on the Internet the weekend of its release. Do we need one more at that moment?
4. I’m something of a shut-in.
5. I know my strengths and weaknesses. My strength is in rumination. The longer I have to think about a film, the more thoughtful my response to that film is going to be. Being pressured to write about a film within 24 hours will not benefit me or the film.
6. Many of the films I write about are not mainstream. They’re not obscure, necessarily, but for the most part they never had the giant Hollywood publicity and marketing machinery behind them. These films deserve the ink, or rather, the pixels.
7. Finally, and most significantly, writing a review for a film’s release date was rendered meaningless when VHS emerged. Thom Powers, the documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival, summed it up nicely in his essay on the lack of good documentary criticism “Wanted: Documentary Critics”:
Don’t obsess over pegging a review to a release date. That timing had more relevance when a film played only one week in a theater or one night on TV. Now audiences are more likely to access at their own will on DVD or download. As with books, a review has just as much relevance published weeks or months after its debut.
Or years even.
Any questions?
(On the TV, Werner Herzog's The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner.)