Ryan McNeil
I do believe that 2015 will go down as the year that my love for film and interacting with others who do took a turn.
Let me clarify that statement. I love film – always have, always will. I have found no more rewarding experience in my adult life than meeting others who share my passion and getting to know them as people…not just as film fans. None of that is changing.
What has changed is the amount of time I’ve allowed myself to dedicate to both.
To the former, I’ve found myself distracted with the long-overdue success of a baseball team I’ve loved since I was born and has been little more than a private passion for more than twenty years. What that has meant is three-to-four-hour blocks of time dedicated to watching their travails. In the past, this time could have been spent on watching a film or two, but now it’s all dedicated to me hoping one man can throw a ball 60′ 6″ and keep another man from running an additional 90′. For hours.
I love being invested in it, really I do…but at the same time I’d love to spend some of those hours seeing how well BEASTS OF NO NATION works for me.
As for the interaction, that’s taken a hit primarily thanks to my want of spending less of my downtime offline. Where in the past I would get into Twitter discussions about the cinematography of Wally Fister or why animated films should absolutely be eligible for Best Picture, nowadays my office keeps me too busy and my ride home keeps me too distracted. The result is that I’m less in-the-loop…discovering fewer voices…and feeling a step behind.
Heck, even this feature where I take a night every week and do a lap around the spaces I follow to see what others have on their mind has been in dry dock since midsummer.
So the question is, how do I feel about all of this?
My honest answer is “conflicted”. On the one hand, I feel like part of who I’ve been for eight years now has begun to slip away from me. It’s like I’ve taken on a new job, and can’t spend time with my friends the way I used to – but they keep getting together and having fun. On the other hand, I’m okay with it. I believe in evolving, in growing, in embracing change and maturity. I also believe in living a moment instead of bronzing it on social media…so sometimes that means watching things play out and giving myself over to a feeling, instead of coming up with something amusing to say about it on Twitter.
So, maybe all of this change is okay. Maybe I’m never going to be who I was this time last year again – maybe I’ll be better than that guy. Maybe I’ll be the guy who appreciates reading posts and hanging out with people more because he doesn’t do it as often. Ditto for all of those films I’ve been procrastinating on for baseball.
Maybe?
For your listening and reading fulfillment, I give you…
The Chicks with Accents have returned. I wonder if their episode dedicated to Mystery Movies is in honour of their mysterious podcasting break?
It’s only taken five years or so, but the UK film bloggers finally got together and had a drink-up…and some North Americans even made the trek! Check out Jay’s recap of the proceedings.
Hot off the press, Vanessa wonders what age is an appropriate one for young filmgoers to watch a horror classic.
Amir has found himself in a somewhat complicated relationship with director Jafar Panahi.
Over the last few years, I’ve really begun to love those dark stories put on film that aren’t horror exactly, but still leave you feeling gutted as the credits roll. DON’T LOOK NOW is one such film, and this week Hunter finally caught up with it.
One thing that always seems to give me a grin is standing in a spot where a film I dig was shot. Anna gets this. She’s been doing a really cool series on shooting locations for the last little while and this week arrived at Turner’s painting of The Fighting Temeraire in London’s National Gallery. She (rightfully) tethered it back to SKYFALL…but I must admit that I wish she’d doubled down and tethered it to MR. TURNER as well. Check out her complete series of posts here.
The Flick Chick is doing a cool series called 21st Century Essentials – which I’m all in favour of since it’s similar a series of posts on this space that I just finished! This week she dedicated a post to THE TREE OF LIFE, which for me handily remains one of the most unique and cerebral watches of this century.
I’m anxious for more people to see Charlie Kauffman’s new film, ANOMALISA…but right now it’s still making its way through the festival circuit. Simon caught up with it at The London Film Festival and had this to say.
Andrew Robinson had a curious reaction to SICARIO that I believe every cinephile experiences at some stage of their film literacy: the film split him down the middle. Allow him to explain.
Finally, we have the Tweet of The Week…which does go back a few weeks already. As we find ourselves knee-deep in awards season waters, Sam has an astute reminder…
Y’all need to remember the Oscars are a game. Always have; alway will be. Calm down your special snowflake selves.
— Sam Coff (@SamRS72) October 3, 2015
Enjoy!
Change is definitely okay, Ryan. Personally, I got burned out by doing my site and pulled back a lot from watching movies over the summer. Now I’m starting to get that itch again to see more. There’s an ebb and flow to any pursuit, and that’s totally cool.
I guess the other cool thing about pulling away for a bit is that a nice little pile collects for you to catch up on once you feel the need once more, right?
Definitely. There are a pile of home releases coming out that I haven’t seen, plus the obvious bigger ones hitting this fall and winter. Right now the enemy is having enough time to watch them. The motivation is back at least.
Thanks for the link Ryan! Much appreciated. It’s nice to know someone else has seen the movie I have been so obsessed with as of late. This movie really grabbed me, in part because of what you say; It has horror elements but is not a strict horror movie.
I know what you mean about that weird feeling of not seeing as many films after having a consistent habit of film watching. Happens to me everytime the semester starts back up again. Not bad, because I love what I’m doing, but I wish I had more time for some movie watching and blogging too.
Thanks again for the link. Cheers!
When I first watched that film four or five years ago, it was because a friend of mine brought it up in association with one of my all-time favorites: OUT OF SIGHT.
I know, I know – strange comparison, but stay with me.
He mentioned the way the editing of the latter was so clearly influenced by the former, especially where the love scenes were concerned. So if you’ve never seen OUT OF SIGHT…or haven’t watched it recently…might I suggest bumping it up the queue in light of your recent evening with Sutherland & Williams.
1) Love Anna’s site with he location scouting – already added her to my feed!
2) Thanks for the link to my Anomalisa review!
3) I’m with Dan – change is good. You must do what you love though- I always think of Dawsons Creek (when do I not?) as Dawson is challenged on his filmmaking: you can’t make films about films. Maybe Edgar Wright and Tarantino can, but they’re novelty acts aren’t they? I kid. Immerse yourself in literature, be passionate about sport and loop your favourite music: it all weaves the web of artistic integrity.
A small part of me wants to start doing location posts of my own, since Toronto shows up on-screen so often. Just this past weekend, I noticed it standing in for some small Ohio town in ROOM.
It’d definitely make for great social-tech – instagram, etc!
Change is neither good nor bad, just inevitable. I started my site in 2009 and dedicated a huge amount of time to it in the first year. I also spent a lot of time interacting with other bloggers. Then a year or two later as my personal and professional lives changed I found myself spending less time maintaining my site and much less time interacting with other bloggers.
It is a huge testament you us both that we are still here, many talented writers have disappeared from the community in the last five years. I have always been hugely impressed with two aspects of the way you work; firstly your commitment and dedication to post every day, even at the begining I was sporadic at best. secondly your sense of place and community. I have regret that I have been less and less involved in the movie bloggers community in recent years, but am happy with where I am with my site. I have one ongoing feature that I have maintained monthly for five years, any other post I get out is a bonus! My site is a fun hobby and not a commitment or burden.
However you decide to continue, please keep the matineecast going. True to your self deprecating style, I don’t think you realise how talented you are! And after talking about it for four years I still haven’t made my second appearance.
Thank-you for the shot in the arm mate. Even if I haven’t been able to post every day since taking my week off back in June, I do hope to get back to that rhythm sometime soon. Here’s hoping.
As for the podcast, I’d wager that even if I stop writing, I will always podcast in some fashion. If anything, stepping away from the writing would lead me to podcast even more! Fear not – my microphone isn’t getting unplugged any time soon.
Hello Ryan! Thanks for the link. I wish our podcasting break had some cool mysterious reason behind it but nope, it was relocating and scheduling 😛
Hi Ryan, thanks so much for the link! Don’t listen to Nik, our reasons are very mysterious indeed and include a homicide investigation and several unicorns.