Well my blog reached a milestone yesterday, 100 reviews, 100 blog entries. So I thought it was a good time to take stock of "Critic Picks w/ Alex Udvary" and discuss how I felt the blog is going.
Ultimately I view this blog as a failure. I had such high hopes for it. There were so many films I wanted to write about, I had so many ideas floating around my head when I started this and nearly none of them have been accomplished.
Ultimately I view this blog as a failure. I had such high hopes for it. There were so many films I wanted to write about, I had so many ideas floating around my head when I started this and nearly none of them have been accomplished.
This blog was invented for a few reasons. One of them was to be able to show editors or publishers from newspapers some writing samples. And I have used it for that purpose. The second reason I started it was because I was getting tired of amazon.com. I hated the sense of competition. Competing to get "votes" and "helpful comments". I wasn't looking to compete with anyone. I simply wanted to do what I love, writing about movies. I wanted my writing to stand on its own. I wanted to have the final say. And this, in some ways, leads to my third reason to start to blog. Freedom. I can write about anything I want. Any movie my heart desires whether or not amazon.com has it as part of their catalogue. And that was really what inspired me most about starting this. But that dream has slipped away.
One of the biggest problems any writer faces is understanding their audience. When you work for a newspaper or a magazine there is a built in audience, you understand the demographic the publication reaches out to and then you know how to write accordingly. With my blog, I don't have a clue who reads this. I don't know what you know. Also because I send this out to editors and publishers, I feel I have to write about contemporary films, to show I know what it going on currently in cinema, but, if I am honest with myself, I have little to no interest in writing about modern cinema. What would give me the most joy to discuss in this blog are films which inspire me. But then we go back to my point, who reads this blog?
Some of you may wonder, how do I decide which movies to review. There is a method to my madness. I try to create a balance between contemporary American films and contemporary international films. The "Masterpiece Film Series" was created so I could write about older titles which have inspired me. It would be a collection of films I feel are essential viewing. Films I place above all others.
My favorite films are American films from the 1920s to 1940s. I love the work of Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Charlie Chaplin, King Vidor, Clarence Brown. I love watching movie stars like Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Laurel & Hardy, Mary Pickford, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Myrna Loy, Humphrey Bogart, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. All directors and actors I have not reviewed yet. I've discussed "Modern Times" and "Gone With the Wind" among this era. But no reviews yet for Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Eddie Cantor, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart or Joan Blondel.
Besides my love of American cinema from this time period, I also love international cinema. Think of all the great directors I still have not reviewed films by; Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Eric Rohmer, Francois Truffaut, Istvan Szabo, Andrei Tarkovsky, Werner Herzog, Roman Polanski, Akira Kurosawa, Jean Renoir and others. But, who would want to read a blog filled with movies starring or directed by all the people I mentioned?
I'm sure eventually I'll get around to including some of these films in my "Masterpiece Film Series" but it is the damn modern films which take up all my writing time. It's not that I have something against modern films. I still go to the theatre and watch movies but I get more satisfaction writing about classics.
This may also lead some to wonder how do I select titles in my "Masterpiece Film Series". The film must have been made before 1980, otherwise I deem it too contemporary. Mind you, I'm not saying just because a film was made in say, 1982, does not mean it is not a good or even great film, but it won't be included in my series. I recently reviewed the Austrian film "The Counterfeiters" and called it a "masterpiece" in the review, and so it is. A modern masterpiece.
The reason for the 1980 cut off is because I'm not sure if anything after that time is really long enough for a film to have been tested. Has the film earned the right to be considered with some of the great films of the past. Sure some may argue with me that several films from the 80s are now generally considered classics. Perhaps you are thinking of "Raging Bull", "Fanny & Alexander", "Platoon", "The Last Emperor" or "Ran". They are all great films and are indeed considered great films but they won't be included in my series. That doesn't mean I won't review them however. I'm sure I will. But I think it is more important for people to see older titles first. If I were in a video store with you and you brought me two movies; "Raging Bull" and "Casablanca" and asked me which one you should see first, 10 out of 10 times I'll tell you "Casablanca". Yet another movie I haven't reviewed yet!
So now you perhaps understand this blog a bit more, understand my "rules" and why I consider my blog a failure. I may change some things and stop writing about so many contemporary films but don't worry, whoever you are, I'm sure I'll review something you like.
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