Okay, so as we fall deeper into awards season I fall further and further behind with the actual seeing of the movies part. But I must write. As you must all know by now not being an industry professional and living in the UK (in a town with mostly mainstream cinema listings) getting to see all these movies usually requires a lot of waiting and patience from yours truly. But I get there in the end, and will no doubt shower you all with my opinions on those movies and all the joy and pain and wonder and politics that comes with them. My plan for this very website is similar to last year, to attempt to sweep up the movies and actors and actresses and writers and directors that are not getting much of the limelight. To write about them. Which brings me slap bang in the middle of all the awards season noise.
Spotlight. Bridge of Spies. The Martian. Steve Jobs. The Revenant. I can’t really comment on those at the moment having not seen any of them. I draw a certain line with Oscar predicting on those films yet unseen. I’m not the only one. But also a line extends to even bothering writing about those movies in any great depth at all sometimes. That comes across more bitter than intended, but I want to, as always, try and write the kind of stuff that just isn’t out there at the moment or indeed in two, three, four months time. Last year Birdman and Boyhood, J.K. Simmons and Julianne Moore, filled the awards coverage near enough on a daily basis, while I was passionately musing over Ida and Tracks, Marion Cotillard and Mark Ruffalo. Not as black and white as that, sure, I mean I was, like many of us, a real sucker for Boyhood and did write a heart-felt piece on it in the end. And what about Gone Girl? Indeed. The title itself literally suggesting so much about the state of the film industry and awards race.
So I am desperately looking forward to writing about what I like, and also encouraging discussion and awareness of the films and actresses and writers etc that are getting left behind, forgotten, ignored, dismissed as Oscar no-chances, marginalized. In fact those kinds of films and the films I like often co-exist. I know already I’ll be bringing Ex Machina from the dark and back into the light where it belongs through this site – someone has to!
So what else is coming?
A couple of Halloween-related movie articles. The ongoing Masterpiece Memo series too ought to pick up some memento once I get around to really shaking people up out there to sing and dance about their views on the classic movies they love. With a write-up of my all-time favorite horror The Exorcist awaiting that Halloween weekend. I am also going to attempt to set up as many interviews as I can with some of the important film writers out there following on of course from that insightful exchange with Sasha Stone. Add to that trying not to fall any further behind with writing up my yearly Film Honors – always an interesting discussion to simply go back and look at the best movies of the years gone by. And although not sure how I will tackle it yet I had an idea to write something on musicians and / or models in the movies – can’t tell you much about whether that will come into fruition or not any time soon.
And let’s not rule out more of the 100 lists after the epic success of 100 Films Made By Women and 100 Performances Oscar Forgot (not to mention those first half of the year posts). I sporadically come up with my next 100 list, sometimes keep it to myself, sometimes shout out to see who might be interested in participating. Of the many legitimate ideas I have for the next 100 list there are four that are almost certainly going to be produced. A diverse and essential list of 100 LGBT Films, a yet unspecified list of 100 Foreign Language Films, a damn good crack at 100 Great / Strong Female Characters, and also a some-might-argue-crazy try at a further 100 Films Made By Women. Head spinning? Tell me about it. Add to that my ambition to do more online live film watching / tweeting, as well as looking into a podcast and a Youtube channel, you can see how busy my mind is working before I have even put pen to paper.
Please, please, come forward from out of the shadows if you have any inclination to get involved in any of this. Your contributions or ideas or feedback will always be welcome – though the publishing rights fall with me at the end of the day. In fact any kind of discussion or banter or opinion or abuse is acceptable and encouraged – as long as any slander or name-calling is appropriate and backed up with some semi-decent evidence. I’m pretty easy-going like that. Email me at the usual address robin.write@live.com, make sure you like my Facebook page, stalk me on Twitter, and I also urge you to use the comments section in this and all of my posts, especially given my very recent surrender to the rather excellent and interactive Disqus. I look forward to talking movies.
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