I see a lot of movies every year. A ton. But this year I’ve decided I don’t see enough movies, so one of my New Year Resolutions was to simply see more. And to write about them. See, that’s the other half of the equation: I see a ton of movies, but I write about comparatively few of them. There are a lot of reasons, but they mainly boil down to the fact that I feel the need to do long form reviews, and sometimes – like in the midst of Sundance – I just don’t have the time.
And so was born this new blog! I aim to make an entry for every single movie I see in 2010. Some entries may be very short, some may be lengthy. Entries may take a couple of days to be posted. Let’s see how long this lasts.
One last thing: one of my main objectives this year is to rewatch more movies. I know this sounds like a strange goal, but there are films I haven’t seen since high school, which means it’s been almost a lifetime since I saw them. Recently I rewatched Black Christmas for the first time since the 1980s, and I might as well have been seeing the movie for the first time. I’m interested in getting a look at some movies I loved or hated twenty or even ten years ago and seeing how I feel about them now.
Let’s begin…
#1 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
2003
d: Peter Weir
It’s becoming more and more obvious that this movie is a masterpiece. Episodic and epic, fun and smart, Master and Commander is the kind of movie that should be winning audiences and Oscars, and instead it – and the hoped for franchise – sank into obscurity.
One of the great pleasures of watching the film is watching the actors running around a boat. A real boat. A big, real boat. Fuck CGI – your pixels will never give me the tactile beauty of the wood on the HMS Surprise.
One of the other great pleasures is watching Russell Crowe be good in something; the role of Captain Jack Aubrey is ideal for his manly charisma, and I’d say that no other part has ever capured the likability that I’ve heard the Aussie actor has in real life.