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2004: We're Doomed
I know I always turn these end of the year recaps into bitchfests, and this year there's even more to complain about - a lot more to complain about, if you're sane and live in motherfucking JesusLand - but I'm going to try to keep it brief. Why? I have a pitcher of leftover eggnog spiked with Bacardi 151 just sitting around and it isn't going to drink itself.
Many humble thanks go out to the usual correspondents for their enthusiasm; occasionally the chatting turned to books (another passion) and music (which I actually get paid to write about once in a blue goddamn moon, so I'm a quasi-professional in that area, ha ha) and women (the source of seconds of joy and furious anger - Odie can testify). One love.
I regret to report that this site may have to disappear this year because of pressure from external forces and disapproving nods from certain friends and associates. I swore from the very beginning I would never review any movie that someone I know is involved with on any level (I happen to know more than enough part-time actors, heh), and I've managed to break that self-promise several times both this and last year (I even reviewed a movie, and I'm not saying what, in which one of my former students had a rather prominent role - she's outstanding in it, but that's besides the point). I may just beg the site's detractors to let me revise the content so I can stick to movies before a certain date - say, oh, anything that came before the year of my birth (early eighties) or in that general vicinity. I may just ignore everyone and continue with the bi-weekly capsule postings. Or I may join the Beeson-Black-Carlson triumvirate of terror and start a blog. If everyone else can do it, why can't I? *
Speaking of 'net folk, although I don't always say it, or e-mail everyone about it, or bow gracefully, I'm in continued awe of the devotion of the other cineastes and their passion for the movies. The Internet may be for porn, as Trekkie Monster from Avenue Q claims, but if porn equals addiction and addiction equals ritual and maintaining screening logs is just another ritual and if I feverishly check other peoples' screening logs every two days then that means the ritual-posting-and-ritual-reading of screening logs is actually a warped kind of porn. Or it means I'm just a dope. No matter: thanks to all of you, there's a direct purpose to some of my browsing; more often than not, your comments are enlightening and give me a lot to think about while I toil with the usual problems during the working day.
So please, I'm begging, keep it up everyone. I don't care who you are or what background you come from. Shit, you can even be a self-confessed Communist! Or an auteurist! I don't consider myself one, but I did find myself reading Neil LaBute's "Seconds of Pleasure" a few weeks ago because I like his first two films (there's a really fantastic one-two punch in the form of "Wait" followed by "Layover" - the first took me two readings to figure out, and the second shows off just how diabolical men can be). No matter what your ideology, no informed opinion's a bad opinion, I think.
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... er, except for Ebert's opinion of Napoleon Dynamite. That blows ass.
My Top Ten List, along with barely coherent blatherings, internship confessions and a last ditch plea for the love of not simply Eva Green but all lanky young brunettes everywhere.
John's Best & Worst of the Year.
[* Feb 2005 Update: As it turns out, the site's still floating around, just at a new URL. Whew, etc.]
© Copyright 2010 Matthew Lotti.
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