…this Blog
Despite a brain overflowing with obscure movie knowledge just hankering to be shared with an unsuspecting and, mostly, disinterested public, I’ve struggled with the following question: Why do the Interwebs need yet another movie blog? The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t. That said, I’m hoping this blog is different enough to merit a read. Because it’s not going contain the kind of content traditionally associated with movie blogs, specifically discussions/reviews of the current cinema. We already have plenty of talented reviewers, guys like the Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips (my local guy) or The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane, whose reviews are often more entertaining than the movies he’s reviewing. All I can promise is this: the content will be unique, eclectic, sometimes educational (for the non-movie geek) and, hopefully, delivered in an entertaining manner.
…this Blogger
Why movies? Well, I find them endlessly fascinating. And I’m not just talking about the watching of them. Who doesn’t like to watch movies? No, what I’m saying is that I find every little thing about the whole process fascinating—from the financing to the writing to the lighting to the filming to the editing to the post-production to the distribution. Stranger still, I have the freakish ability to sponge up the aforementioned at a glance, lock away in my brain even the smallest, most irrelevant detail for future recall. If only I could pull off the same thing with finance or marketing or poker perhaps I’d be a rich man.
The surest sign of interest in a particular subject is, of course, the pursuit of further knowledge. You dig advertising? Read Ad Age. You relish lawyering, thumb through the ABA Journal. You love pottery? Subscribe to Kiln Weekly. For me it’s flipping through websites/magazines such as Boxoffice, Variety, Film Comment, American Cinematographer, Sight & Sound and Film Quarterly. Or memorizing the capsule reviews of movies in the back of the TV Guide. Or perusing stuff like Pauline Kael’s New Yorker film review compilations. Dorky, yes, but what can you do? Fascination is fascination. Embrace it.
…this Blog’s name
Why the word “conflicted?” Because for every Grand Illusion or The Conversation or Black Narcissus, I’m not too fancy for an Edge of Tomorrow or Captain America or Kingpin. Because you haven’t truly lived until you’ve seen Randy Quaid as an Amish bowling prodigy.
