Saturday, January 2, 2010

a message from the management...

Happy New Year!

Year One of the movie project has come to a close. 365 movies down, and I started with 437, so there should be only 72 movies left, right? Wait a sec, the math's not adding up right...oh, yeah, well, I did add a quite a few movies to the list along the way, either by direct acquisition (Damn you, $5.99 DVD store!) or by association (finding that perfect movie on the pay channels to complement another on a double-feature homemade DVD) so the list right now has about 397 to go. So I only made about a 40-movie dent in the overall total, which means it will take, let's see, carry the 1, crap, about 10 more years at that rate... I've just got to get tough, and not add just any old movie to the list. This is about watching the classics, the movies I should have watched before, and I've just got to try and stick to that.

Essentially, I've climbed atop a mountain of watched DVDs, only to discover that I've scaled K2, and Everest is looming in the distance. Well, it wouldn't be logical to scale down, just to climb back up that other mountain, so while I'm in the zone, it makes much more sense to pause here at base camp, and then strike out for that higher peak.

So I'm starting up Year Two - and if I watch another 365 movies, great - but I've already proven it's possible, so if I only get to say, 350 or so in 2010, I've just got to plan to be OK with that. Again, it's not that I think I'm accomplishing some laudable goal here, it's one that most pro movie critics reach just in the course of doing their job. But I'm not a pro, just an amateur, and I have to maintain my real jobs, relationships and hobbies, and that's the tricky part.

What's coming up in the New Year? Well, January looks to be all about fame - movies about music, movie and TV stars getting it and losing it. February's always good for romance movies, then I've got a tribute to Jack Nicholson, a bunch of time-traveling films, and hopefully some Stephen King when Halloween rolls around again. I don't like to plan these things out much more than that - oh wait, yes I do.

I made a dedication last Jan. 1 to my grandfather - and the year is over. So I'm dedicating this year's efforts to the memory of Lyn Clerget, who I worked with for 2 years or so back in the late 80's. Lyn taught me how to manage an office, work a spreadsheet, run payroll, and at least a dozen other things that have kept me employed for the last 2 decades. Also, she knew the importance of snacks in motivating employees. She paid it forward and I never got to pay it back, since she left the planet much, much too soon.

Reset the counter, and fire up the DVD player...and please pass me the Mountain Dew and the chocolate-covered espresso beans.

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