Putting on a Couple New Additions

Cinema Geek is not just about me and it's not just about my cohort B-Sol. It's about love of cinema in all of its forms (even when we don't like a movie, we talk about it because we love the movies). That love is not limited to just us. With that in mind, we have expanded the roster of Cinema Geek's contributors to include four more writers. Meet the all-new Cinema Geeks:

• Ryne Barber of The Moon is a Dead World
• Dod of WGON Helicopter
• Andre Dumas of The Horror Digest
• Pax Romano of Billy Loves Stu

With such an awesome set of writers, the future of Cinema Geek is looking very bright indeed.

P.S. I apologize that the promised second part of my Inception essay never materialized. Maybe it will once the film arrives on DVD. Time shall tell.

The Return of the Great Unwatched

When I started this blog 11 months ago, it was devoted to a project called "The Great Unwatched," the goal of which was to watch 400 movies, all of which I owned and none of which I had seen, in a year. That project fell through in a month, even though I found parts of it extremely gratifying.

The goal was noble, but the pace was... well, stupid. It amounted to 1.1 movies a day, which might have worked if I wasn't the type of guy to balance two or three other projects alongside it (not to mention my 40-hour-a-week job and my social life).

Here's the thing: I seem to find all sorts of time to be movie fan, but I put aside less and less time to actually watch movies. I find making the simplest viewing choices excrutiating, as I try to balance a million questions -- Will I be able to sit through this movie, given my ADHD? Will I be able to review this movie for Classic-Horror? Can I watch this movie with my wife, who has aversions to films without strong plots and, well, pretty much all horror? Most importantly, what will this film add to my existing understanding and apprecation of cinema?

The last question is both the most important and the least relevant. Over the last week I've watched several films, letting my id choose whatever looked interesting in my Netflix Instant Watch queue. The films have mostly been horror (Strait-Jacket, The Cat and the Canary '27, Pin...) with exceptions like the Singapore-based Cyber Wars (original title, no joke: Avatar). Not every film has been a masterpiece -- some I didn't like very much at all -- but they've all added something to my filmgoing experience. Looking back on the single month of The Great Unwatched's first iteration, I realize this is generally true. Even the films that were really terrible like The Dark and Pick Up have stuck with me in some form or another (not so much Las Vegas Lady, but I did watch that with my then-girlfriend/now-wife, so it's not a total loss).

I figure it's time to revisit the experiment, but as a matter of quality over quantity. Every other week, I'm going to have a PHP script randomly select three films in my collection that I have not seen. I will watch at least two of them and publish my thoughts here. This new Great Unwatched will alternate with B-Sol's 52 Perfect Movies feature, so there will be new content here on a weekly basis. I'm looking forward to seeing the best and the worst my collection has to offer me in a variety of genres.

Strange Things Afoot at Ye Olde Cinema-Geek

Three quick updates on the status of this blog that I think are fairly exciting.

1. B-Sol of The Vault of Horror (who, as you may recall, recently contributed a list of ten overlooked Woody Allen films) has been made a permanent fixture here. He'll be using Cinema-Geek in much the same way I do -- as an outlet to discuss cinema that falls outside of the scope of his horror blog. He's planning a pretty cool series of posts right now, but I'll let him fill you in when the time comes.
2. As you probably know, my main passion is Classic-Horror.com, the running of which has overwhelmed me so much that I've been unable to update here as much as I'd like. Well, Classic-Horror is on hiatus for the next six months. There's a number of things I'd like to do in that time, one of which is to take some more time to explore areas of cinema that I've ignored, like the work of Ingmar Bergman and early silent cinema. Cinema-Geek will definitely get the benefit of these explorations. I may even do another month of The Great Unwatched.
3. ...but not just yet. Last month, in the midst of the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival, my girlfriend Erin became my fiancée Erin. Since we both work best under a deadline, we decided that an extended engagement wouldn't do. I'm in full event organization mode for a December 13th ceremony. Bonus of the date -- our four and ten-year wedding anniversaries will be on Fridays. We're getting married in a movie theater in a cinema-themed ceremony -- including a montage of movie clips in place of your traditional processional music. It's going to be legen--wait for it--dary. Legendary.

A Change in Name and Direction

As the complete lack of posts in the last week indicates, I've decided to put aside The Great Unwatched in its current incarnation. The final clincher came when I tried watching Godzilla vs. Mothra last Tuesday and failed. I don't think I actually saw more than thirty seconds worth, although I heard the movie from start to finish. I was just too busy working on other projects.

This blog isn't going away, though. It's just not going to be focused on The Great Unwatched exclusively. Instead, I'll be posting general movie geekery at a more relaxed pace, while still doing occasional Great Unwatched reviews as a regular feature. Given the change, I've renamed the blog to "Cinema Geek" (which is easier to remember given the URL) and whipped up new header image. I'll be cleaning up the tags and the sidebar content over the course of the week to reflect the new direction.