Ryan McNeil
He Shot Cyrus is hosting a blog-a-thon this weekend entitled “My Best Post”. It was actually kinda tough to decide what I wanted to submit after looking through nearly three years of posts…and not because they were all so stellar!
In the end, I chose a piece that I wrote as a guest spot on another site…mostly because it finally gave me an excuse to post it here…
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When and how did this happen?
One moment, I’m watching movie after movie and soaking each one in for all it’s worth. The movies I watched furthered my amusement and cultured my opinion – sometimes all at once. But then I had to go and do something to screw that blissful existence up. The days of watching for watching’s sake were gone, and the days of near compulsion had begun. The seismic shift that set this tremor of geekdom off was seemingly innocent: one day, I started a movie blog.
It all started innocently enough. I was bored of blogging of my day-to-day life, and thought I might get more of a creative spark – and likewise the potential for a wider audience – if I focused my writings on a particular passion. Movie watching seemed the natural fit, since beyond listening to music it was the only thing I did excessively (sidebar: what would life have turned into if I’d started a music blog instead?).
So with a clean slate and a new url, I began to chronicle my own cinemania, and for a while everything was just fine. Then after a year or so, I started to notice a slight change in how I watched movies and what I watched. I was no longer just watching for watching’s sake. Any new movie I saw was seen through the eyes of a studious wannabe critic. I’d ponder star ratings mid-film, burn quotes into my memory for soundbiting purposes, and even began (horrors!)…taking notes!
That was bad enough, but it all got worse during the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. This is the time of year that I’m actually on vacation – yes, I take time away from work to watch movies nonstop. In ’08, this experience went from being nothing but fun, to actually becoming work. It wasn’t enough to watch three or four screenings a day, I started filling in the remaining free hours of the day writing about what I’d just seen.
The shift in my attitude was probably best exemplified the night I returned to my apartment at midnight, knowing full well I had to wake up at six a.m. the next morning. I thought to myself “I could write about one of the movies I’ve seen today, or I can hit the hay now and get a solid six hours sleep”. To paraphrase INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE: I chose…..poorly.
Am I now writing about the movies I watch, or am I watching movies in order to write about them? Have I become completely incapable of turning my analytical attitude off and quite simply be entertained by a movie I’ve never watched before. My nerdy movie obsession seemed bad enough with the fact that the “To See” list is literally never-ending. Soaking all of these titles in with half my brain focused on what I’m going to say about it later damn near takes that obsession and turns it into full on lunacy.
Now indeed, I realize, that the easy answer is to just “stop writing”. Believe me, this fact isn’t lost on me, and was actually underlined by a recent conversation with a pro blogger who reminded me that while I might not get paid to do what I do, I have the luxury of quite simply deciding not to do it. Unfortunately I fear that I can’t go back; that even if I was blocked from every port of access to the Internet, I could never again watch a movie “just for fun”. I’ll always be making mental notes just in case the movie comes up in conversation and someone asks me “what did you think?”
Sometimes, I think back to the first movie I saw. I remember being that wide-eyed five year old kid sitting next to his granddad and watching Pinocchio valiantly try to escape from Monstro the Whale in his tiny boat. I wonder if that kid would even recognize the hit-count junkie of a grown-up he’d turn into.
But before the shame can truly take over, I remind myself of one simple fact. That I’m writing about something I truly love. I’m doing it even though nobody is paying me to do it…I’m a champion of positivity in a very cynical community…and that I’ve met a lot of really great people, and had some truly exciting opportunities because of it.
So indeed, I might be past the point of just being able to “watch a movie”. I might have fed the figurative mogwai after midnight and now there’s no changing him back. But if that change affords that Monstro-fearing kid the opportunity to express his cinematic thoughts on a limitless scale…then indeed the Gizmo I once was is gone for good – I’m Stripe now, and watching movies just got a lot more interesting because of it.
Take a look at other fine entries in this Blog-a-Thon over at He Shot Cyrus.
Interesting…
That is all.
It's a nice post Hatter. Good send me off for my vacation. See you in a week. But don't forget about my blog either, I've still got posts scheduled for every day I'm gone 🙂
Nice post, Hatter… I too started writing my blog for different reasons. The first 2 posts on my site have nothing to do with movies and I leave them on there to remind me of how this all started. I originally just wanted to get back in the habit of writing regularly because I had slacked off in my screenwriting and thought a blog with a weekly deadline would be a good exercise. It took 2 weeks to realize most everything I talk about revolves around movies and the blog should as well. But I see the pit you fell in and that's exactly why I decided early on (for me) not to do reviews. I didn't want to say good or bad. For instance, today Heather and I have a post up about why Tremors Rules… Tremors isn't a great movie in the history of cinema but I absolutely love everything cheesy about it… and I just wanted to talk about something I love! And I try to do that every week!
WOW! That was like a therapy session… SORRY! 🙂
That was a nice post. Your attitudes towards writing and film are very similar to my own (and probably most other bloggers). There is a tipping point when one realizes that either we fidn a different hobby or we do this blogging thing for the long haul. We all chose the latter.
This was a great post, I can totally relate…most of the previous commenters have basically said everything I would say, but it's so true – the movie experience is different when you've blogged for a little while.
Oh how timely it is indeed that I read this post today, Hatter. I've been feeling a bit burned out lately and the writer's block attack last night just made it worse. So yeah, I can definitely relate! I started my blog on a whim after toiling with the idea for months, but I'm mindful that if it starts becoming a chore then I'm missing the whole point because it's supposed to be a hobby. And hobbies are supposed to be fun, right? But like you said, I can't simply go back to 'not writing' because it's become a part of my daily life now and I've met such great people (like you) along the way that makes the sleepless nights so worthwhile!
Thank you for writing this and for writing from the heart so eloquently!
@ Simon… Keep it down would ya!? I'm trying to blog here.
@ Univarn… It's already weird not having you around – hope you're havin' fun!
@ Kai… Don't ask me why, but I never noticed you don't do reviews. I think you should start writing something about the new films you see, even if it doesn't follow the usual format of crticising it and giving it a ranking.
That by the way, is what has taken some of the fun out the watching/blogging cycle…the feeling of there constantly being a scoreboard running in my head.
For that reason, my reaction pieces (Like the 1001 Series) are a bit more fun.
@ Edgar… Part of me wonders sometimes how long the long haul is actually gonna be.
I mean I've been doing this for close to three years, which didn't feel like much until I flipped through a lot of it to find this post!
@ Robert… (Thanks for reading!). I still have my fun at the movies, although these days such fun comes more from seeing things for a second or third time.
@ RTM… I have a knack of summing things up for you, don't I? I'd wager there will come a time where I don't want to write this anymore…but for now that's hard to envision.
Wanna know a secret? i'm on a mission to post everyday this calendar year. You think facing writer's block sucks? Try facing it with your own self-imposed rulebook mocking you!