journal Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I've already done an "official" top ten list and all that year-end movie-critic jazz, but since today's my birthday I figured I'd spend an hour or two on a piece I'll simply enjoy writing. Most of the solid horror sites have done their own top / bottom lists, so I thought it would make sense to try a different approach. So let's start waaaay back in January and just tiptoe through the year in horror together. And then at the end we'll figure out how the horror geeks were treated in 2007. (All links lead to my review of that particular film, be it from FEARnet, eFilmCritic, DVDTalk, DVD Clinic, or right here at good ol' Cinematical.)

January!

01/02 -- Snakes on a Plane arrives on DVD. "The internet" still refuses to make it a hit. (0)
01/12 -- Giant croc flick Primeval advertised as a serial killer film. Doesn't help the box office. (-1)
01/16 -- Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning arrives on DVD. Thousands give it a second shot and realize it still sucks. (-1)
01/19 -- A predictably horrible remake of The Hitcher arrives in theaters. Nobody cares. (-1)
01/23 -- Saw 3 hits DVD and sells a whole bunch of copies, despite the fact that all the horror fans know a double-dip is arriving in 11 months. Weird. (0)
01/26 -- Blood and Chocolate. Ew, no thanks. (-1)
01/30 -- Forgotten Ricci flick The Gathering (finally) arrives on DVD. Turns out it was shelved for good reason. (-1)

January Total: -5 horror points!

February!

02/02 -- J-horror knock-off latecomer The Messengers hits theaters. With a PG-13. (-1)
02/06 -- The Grudge 2 hits DVD. Thousands realize oh yeah, there was a sequel. (-1)
02/09 -- A well-shot but horribly unnecessary prequel arrives in the form of Hannibal Rising. Collective yawn. (-1)
02/13 -- The "so good it's gotta be remade because it's foreign" 13 (Tzameti) arrives on DVD. (+1)
02/16 -- The comics nerds get a little (very little) horror infusion with the very silly Ghost Rider. (-1)
02/20 -- Lionsgate slaps the words "Open Water 2" onto a movie called "Adrift." (-1)
02/23 -- After Dark (brilliantly) chooses their dullest flick (The Abandoned) for a solo theatrical release. (-1)
02/23 -- Jim Carrey tries to get grim (and ends up goofy) in The Number 23. (-1)
02/27 -- The Return arrives on DVD. Hundreds remember that the movie exists. (-1)

February Total: -7 horror points!!

You arrived on the 15th. It's the 25th. Ten days and ten nights, a nice round number. Round because it's rolling over you, and you feel that weight. How is the cat doing? What about the mail? How are the plants? You left all these things in the hands of friends, but you still worry. You'd like to go take care of them yourself. Because then you'd be home. You still need to get thank-you gifts for the custodians of your keys, the cat, the plants. You've seen 24 films. You needed to go back through the press screening schedule to arrive at that number. Consult your notes, scrawled in a clumsy hand in the dark of the various theaters. Last night, you ran into a film critic for a weekly magazine you've gotten to know. He was leaving a film you were about to see. How was it, you ask. He offers a sentence and shrug. I've run out of opinions, he says. You know the feeling.

But opinions is what you're here for. You're a machine in this job -- you turn a movie into a thousand words, five hundred words, two hundred words, a paragraph. A sentence. A well-polished phrase for broadcast or another journalist. You want to be clever and insightful, because those things got you here. That and a plane. Now and then, a film doesn't work for you and you get up, get out. You step on feet. Pardonnez moi, Pardonnez moi. Apology is a universal language. You don't write about a film if you walk out of it. You have something like ethics, or maybe it's just standards. You're in it to win it, opening title to final credit. And if you walk out of something, maybe you can get to something else. The endless pursuit of the next experience. I heard this one was good. That one has no buzz. I don't know a thing about that film, but it's in competition. All your research has been used up. Now you follow the timing of the press guide, as if all of cinema was a bus line; you'll take whatever comes along next.