The Road To My 100th Review, Part V : The Final Chapter

Well, there you have it: as difficult and as wrenching as it was, there went my 100th movie review on this site.

Boom.

Poof.

Like that.

All of that agonizing and stretching it seems silly now but at the time it was really one of the most difficult decisions I'd ever made in my life.

As it is for anyone who is a blogger and really and truly cares about their content and what it means to those who read what you post and care about what you have to say. Believe it or now, what you have to say matters to someone who reads you.

And even if they don't click that "FOLLOW" button, they do read you.

They do care.

It does matter.

Oh, I'm sure there's be more mental anguish to come (believe me; I have a lot more movies to go), so as far as what to post, I'll still suffer over what goes next, what goes where or simply what goes. At least I know you'll be out there, reading me, concerned about what the next review is going to be.

And well you should be.

After all, I have a copy of Showgirls here just begging to be watched again.

Just stick around; I'll get to "The Road To My 200th Review" eventually.

Dope out.

- TGWD

The Road To My 100th Review, Part IV

Everyone can relax: I think I'm getting closer to a decision as to what review #1-0-0 will be (finally), but I still have a reflection or two to go to relieve myself of my writer's angst.

A few months ago, I read somewhere that someone wrote that bloggers shouldn't consider themselves writers because ANYONE can blog - it takes soul to be a writer.

Really?

Seems to me that with the advent of blogging, there have been so many more blogs created that are a series of video postings, rants, misspelled words and uninformed opinions.

Uh....

don'tlookatthesubtitleofmyblogandlet'scontinueokay

Part of the work that goes into writing is creativity and when it comes to the Internet, it has proven a canvas onto which many forms of art can coincide peacefully. For the most part, the greatest area of this is in the written word; I myself have read so many blogs that have created many esoteric ruminations on subjects both great and small.

Whenever anyone can, through the power of the printed word, motivate the reader to think as strongly and as passionately about a subject as they who wrote it, then there you have a case for making bloggers the speakers for the artistic movement of a new age. Whether concerning itself with the inherent artistry in paintings or poetry or music or television or, of course, movies, a blogger has the power to bring Van Gogh to the masses, explain Goethe to a wide audience or expound on the virtues of "My Mother The Car".

I guess if anyone would read this blog, the main thing they'd leave with is the notion that sometimes bad movies can be the best ones to watch. I mean, they at least hold the most joy for a poor weary movie-goer like me.

Which makes this 100th review I am to do all the more important. We're talking lousy movies here; it's a safe guess that my review won't be of a GOOD movie. This still leaves me a lot of leeway, seeing that there are a lot of really bad movies out there I have yet to review. And I have many more I would love to get my grubby, sweaty mitts on.

Come now: who else do you know who'd love to own movies like Humanoid Woman, Pod People and Jan-Gel: The Beast from the East?

So yes; blogging is writing and, by definition, bloggers are writers. So there you go.

And I look forward to continuing my writing career for a long while after this. I have a soul that needs voicing.

And it wouldn't hurt to get myself a copy of Humanoid Woman, either.

Dope out.

- TGWD

The Road To My 100th Review, Part III

Holy carp; what with all this whining and aggrandizing-about, what with wondering how I even got to where I am review-wise, I still haven't decided what it is I should review next.

A movie, ostensibly, but what kind?

Cuz don'tcha see; the kind of movie that I review for my 100th review will forever define who I am and what my site is all about.

If I review the wrong kind of movie - POOF, there goes my credibility.

...

Stop staring at your monitor like that; your face'll freeze that way.

So anyhoo, what shall I review?

A COMEDY? Sure, that's always an easy-out; after all, they make thousands of them a year and the classic ones always bring a smile to my face. However, are there enough really really bad comedies out there to sully my screen with? I know I have yet to touch on the legendary badness of Gigli, the soul-scarring ineptitude of White Chicks, the Bette Midler banality of Jinxed, and the low-budget folderol of Assault of the Killer Bimbos. Like I said, though, comedies are always easy to kick down, especially when they're badly done. Always a possibility, though....

A HORROR MOVIE? I do those all of the time, and the worse the better of course. It would have to be something pretty darned special, seeing as we reach That Magical Number. Maybe Exorcist II: The Heretic, since it has so much going for (or against) it. House of the Dead is a good choice, seeing as I've completely ignored the works of Uwe Boll. Frankenstein Island? Maybe...uh, what? Frankenstein Island??? Hmmm, well....

A SPLATTER? lots of 'em to choose from: Dead Alive, Pieces, Shaun of the Dead (or is that more a comedy?), The Burning, maybe one of the Halloween movies AFTER the first Halloween movie. That would certainly be artless and bloody enough, seeing as I've already done my share of Friday the 13th flicks, thanks anyway.

AN UNRELEASED GEM? One of the many OOP (Out-Of-Print) movies I have in my vast, cobwebby collection? I've got gems the likes of The Boogens, Curse of the Blue Lights, Deadly Prey, Starship Invasions or even Yor: The Hunter From The Future. So many to choose from here, and not very many good ones, either, so any would be a winner in my book.

So as you can see, this isn't simply a matter of just choosing one and going with it. I have to be very picky now, seeing as immortality hinges on my next choice.

Or...maybe I'll just put titles in a hat and draw straws. Either/or.

Well, I'll make a decision before too long.

Of course, if anyone has a suggestion for my 100th review, please throw your hat into the ring and I'll see if it fits.

...Metaphorically.

Dope out.

- TGWD

The Road To My 100th Review, Part II

As hard as it is to believe - and I'm sure I'm not the only blogger who will admit to this - the class I hated most in school was English.

Why? Not because they made us read...they made us WRITE.

Euuuugh....

Not like Calculus and French were pieces of cake in comparison, but all that time you spent having to write a report on something you'd just read or on the life of Geoffrey Chaucer or whatever could have been better spent scarping five-penny nails across a chalkboard for a few hours.

Suffice it to say my senior year English teacher was not impressed with my apparent lack of initiative in the fields of creative writing. No matter the topic (even when I did a report on the Academy Awards, of all things) it was commented on as being underwhelming, badly constructed, poorly plotted out, I always screwed up my references and misspellings were always an issue.

In other words, not too much different than my writing style today.

You know what the difference is from what I wrote then as to what I write now? Simply put, I felt very restricted by what was assigned to me because of the fact that I HAD TO WRITE ABOUT IT. It was homework, man, and homework sucked.

(I know; great attitude, right? Stay in school, kids.)

It wasn't until after I left school that I felt more inspiration to write. It wasn't something that was going to be graded and condemned for being badly written or not being an interesting subject. No one was looking over my shoulder and instituting guidelines, restrictions, deadlines or grade point averages for what I did. That was all me.

I felt it, I wrote it, I tweaked it, I edited it, I rewrote it, and I read it over and over again.

I wrote poems, short stories, movie screenplays, narratives, beatnik recitations (those never turned out well) and mostly-forgotten stories that I hae no idea whatever happened to them.

Funny story: I had an inspiration one day and decided to write what would become an all-encompassing subject for the next three years of my life and created a teenage comedy about three high school geek boys who become involved with hookers running away from their pimp, local government corruption, a city-wide religious crusade against indecency and wrapped everything up in the end with a nice courtroom showdown involving incriminating audio tape evidence, a car chase, spoiled rich kids who dressed out of "Miami Vice" and a teenager who worships Franz Kafka.

The screenplay had over 30 MAIN characters and was over 400 pages long.

It's long gone now but, believe me, it was funny.

So yeah, I love writing and, whenever the muse strikes, I write.

Which explains why this blog is such an important part of me. And also why I love writing about the movies that I write about. What better way to express yourself than through two things that you love?

This should also explain why I am agonizing so much now over what, in fact, my 100th movie review will be. What kind of movie? Who stars in it? Have you even HEARD of it? Have I even heard of it? I plan on doing a lot more agonizing until I make a final decision.

If only my senior class English teacher could see me now.

Dope out.

- TGWD

The Road To My 100th Review, Part I

Well, let's look at it this way: as far back as July of 2005, I never thought I'd post 100 of ANYTHING.

Flash forward to now, where I stand on a mountaintop of 99 movie reviews, realizing I have set a bar for myself so high that I'm going to have to pack oxygen with me when I jump.

Holy carp, people: I have one more movie review to go to mark my 100th; do you know what that means? Do you?

Well...neither do I, theoretically.

All I do know is that I have watched a lot of movies that have shaped my life, for good or bad, and have shared 99 opinions with you - my faithful few who have sifted through all of the rantings, the stupid video posts, the erratic links, the MST3K love notes and disco music. My gosh, I put a lot of stuff on this blog that I have no idea what I was thinking at the time.

Even so, when it comes to movies, I at least think those reviews through and make the most of every singe neuron that has fired off whilst watching everything from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn.

(funny; I just realized my first and 99th reviews both have colons in them. Oh well....)

What I'm getting at is when it comes to getting this next movie review up, I'm going to have to be careful. This is a monumental occasion, you know. And as far as deciding exactly which of the 700+ movies in my collection I'll review, what kind of a movie blogger would I be if I didn't agonize over which one, exactly, it should be?

A comedy? I got lots of 'em. Drama? Several of them, too. Action? A bunch. Horror? Ooo yeah. Out-of-print movie? You'd be surprised. Chick flick? I dunno; does Showgirls count? No? Well no, then.

Looks like I have some thinking to do before I post my next movie review. Yeah, I know; when has that ever stopped me before?

Dope out.

- TGWD