It was 15 years ago this month - February 14th to be exact - I decided to start a movie blog. I had finished my last semester at Columbia College of Chicago where I had studied both journalism and film studies (aka film theory). My grand idea was I would become a movie critic. The New York Times seemed like a good place to work. Unfortunately, they weren't returning my phone calls. How would I get my first job as a critic?
This blog was a partial answer to that question. My other motivation was I wanted to create a blog that would celebrate the history of cinema so younger generations could learn about classic cinema - both from Hollywood and international.
As a film student in college I quickly became aware so many of my classmates were clueless about the history of cinema. The names of iconic filmmakers and their films were foreign to them. They were completely unaware of the great actors and actresses of cinema's past. Initially I was very discouraged by this. This was the next generation of artists? How could someone love cinema and know so little about it? I'm sure this side had a way to explain that but I wasn't interested in hearing it. Then one day I had a sudden change of heart. How could I blame younger generations for not knowing about classic cinema? Where could they turn to learn about it? Clearly their friends didn't know about these things either. A person isn't born knowing about the films of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, Luchino Visconti or Orson Welles. Someone has to bring these things to your attention. I didn't consider the fact my grandparents introduced me to classic Hollywood cinema at a very young age - before I was old enough to attend school. If I didn't live with my grandparents, would I know who Laurel & Hardy were? Would I have seen Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance together? Would I know Groucho Marx woke up one morning and shot an elephant in his pajamas? Probably not. So, I took it upon myself to create an outlet where hopefully college age film students could learn about the history of cinema.
I hate to brag but after 15 years I believe I have made good on that goal. If someone had been following my blog these past 15 years they would have a pretty good knowledge about cinema's past. They would know the names of the great filmmakers and their most celebrated films. They would know the names of the great film actors and actresses. I have written about a wide range of cinema from the silent era to modern day films like the latest superhero movie. And most importantly I have always tried to show the link between these things. To point out how the films of today were inspired by the films of yesterday. That is why I believe it is so important to understand cinema's past. The more you know and understand the history of cinema the richer your own creative process can be. You can make better movies or write better reviews. A rich knowledge of cinema's history can even help put societal history in perspective.
Writing this blog also opened the door for me to achieve that other goal - becoming a published writer. This blog lead me to connect with editors of various newspapers and websites. And I will forever be grateful to those editors for taking a chance and publishing a complete unknown. Over the years I have been published by the Toledo Free Press - unfortunately, it is no longer in existence - the Milwaukee Shepherd Express, the website 3rd Coast Review, The Budapest Times - a great honor given that I'm Hungarian - the website The Big Picture, a U.K. based on-line film magazine - and the magazine Nostalgia Digest - a great fit for me since it is dedicated to the Golden Age of film and radio. I even reached my ultimate goal and became a movie critic of a weekly Chicago newspaper, Chicago News.
As the years went on however a new motivation for continuing this blog emerged. My grandparents - the ones that introduced me to the cinema of their youth and infected me with their love of movies - died. First my grandmother in 2011 and then my grandfather in 2012. Now I had no one to talk to about movies that I truly love. There wasn't anyone whose brains I could pick that could continue to introduce me to movies I hadn't heard of. I was all alone. Or at least it felt that way. I continued the blog so at least I could pretend I was having a conversation with someone. Yes, it was a one-sided conversation but maybe someone would reach out to me and tell me they enjoyed reading my reviews. I had introduced them to new films. Maybe I could continue to have those conversations I had with my grandparents.
And then the last few years have made me question the continuation of the blog. Which may explain why I haven't been as active on here as I once was. Politics - unfortunately, from the left - made me question does a blog like this even serve a purpose anymore? When activists and various other movers and shakers began to condemn films from cinema's past for not matching the today's values, it seemed like younger people had no interest in learning about classic cinema. They would merely dismiss those movies and maybe even some of the artists behind them as racists or misogynist. If this would continue to be the way the political winds would blow would it make sense for me to keep writing about Charlie Chaplin or Billy Wilder? If the objective was to reach college age students to help inform them about cinema, it seemed to me they were saying, no thanks. Lets just erase those movies. And so I stopped writing for a while. My passion and motivation was drained.
I also became more and more disillusioned with modern cinema. When I would create my lists for the best movies of the year I would repeatedly write about the struggle to name 10 movies I thought were the best. I have steadily been rewarding fewer and fewer movies with four stars. I didn't even create a top ten list for 2018 and I won't create one for 2022. One of the problems, as I saw it, was young "artists" were inspired by trash. I used to listen to a movie podcast called
Switchblade Sisters hosted by former critic turned screenwriter, April Wolfe. It is designed around the female perspective on movies with only female artists invited each week to discuss a movie of the guest's choosing. I first started listening to the podcast to hear a different perspective but I quickly became aghast at the movies selected. Almost every movie discussed was made in the 1980s onward. If you wondered why bad movies are being made
this was a prime example - look at what is inspiring artists! Movies discussed on the podcast included "Adventures in Babysitting" (1987), "Beetlejuice" (1988), "Earth Girls Are Easy" (1988), "Gremlins" (1984), "Willow" (1988), "Sexy Beast" (2001), "Kill Bill" (2003) and "Addams Family Values" (1993). Astonishingly,
"Psycho" (1960) and "Bunny Lake Is Missing" (1965) made it into discussion. Today's filmmakers may have never seen such classics as
"The Big Parade" (1925),
"Greed" (1924),
"The Crowd" (1928),
"All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930), Fritz Lang's
"Fury" (1936) or "The Little Foxes" (1941). The main inspiration for "artists" of today is nostalgia.
Then there was political and social messaging in movies. There have always been "message movies", movies which held a mirror to society and showed us our flaws. It made us confront the world we live in and inspire us to change. Today however as political activists put more and more pressure on artists, "message movies" now show us the world they want us to live in and present it as reality. That is a huge difference. The politicization of art and movies in particular have also drained me of my passion for films. I simply hate the way society "talks" about art and politics. We are completely incapable of having honest conversations because no one is willing to admit their true motivating influences. And this seeps into art. How can anything be honest when it comes from a false narrative?
But I still love movies. I still have a deep appreciation for the arts. I have mentioned in the past, my father is a musician. I come from a family that celebrated the arts. When I told my family I wanted to become either a filmmaker or a writer they didn't think I was throwing my life away, chasing after a pipe dream. They encouraged me. Art was important. It had true value. It was more important than politics because art was supposed to be honest. Remember what I just wrote about the "message movies" of the past? Politicians were known liars. Society jokes about them. But art. That was special.
As I struggled to create a top ten list for the best movies of 2022, I thought to myself, why am I doing this? Why am I banging my head against the wall to create a list? For that matter, why am I bothering to write about modern movies and follow modern day Hollywood. Why bother to keep track of the trends. I have a notebook with every single movie released in Chicago dating back to 2014. I may have another one dating back further but I would have to search for it. I have tried to keep myself informed about what is going on in Hollywood so that when I wrote about it, it would be an informed opinion. Whether or not you agreed with me, I still wanted to keep myself atop of the trends and be knowledgeable about the business side of Hollywood. Now, I don't care.
Since the beginning of the new year you may have noticed a difference in this blog. First, no top ten list. But no modern movie reviews either. I'm done. I'm not keeping track anymore of what is being released. If this blog is going to continue, I am going to write about what I want to write about. That probably means this blog won't be of any interest to a lot of people. That's okay. This year I celebrate a milestone birthday. If you have noticed I have been reviewing movies celebrating their 40th anniversary. That is how old I will be. Throughout the year I will sprinkle a 40th anniversary review here and there. I have also dubbed this year, "the summer of me". I will be reviewing things that are important to me. Already this year I have written about Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Peter Bogdanovich, Laurel & Hardy and Milos Foreman. I will review movies that were important to me growing up. It is the first time in a long time that I am excited about this blog.
It has been an emotional journey for me writing this blog. A lot of life has happened during this time. It will be interesting to see where the next 15 years will lead me. I hope you will join me!
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