Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Review: Black Sheep

So the reason why I didn't immediately post my review of Black Sheep was because I got invited on to do movie reviews over at http://www.moviemarker.co.uk.  I decided to throw that review (and use any future movie reviews) over there.

You can read it here: http://moviemarker.co.uk/?p=2151

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

DVD Survivor: An Introduction

Alright, so in my last post I mentioned my concept of "DVD Survivor", wherein I have a list of DVDs that are teetering on the chopping block, and I watch them to determine whether or not they stay on the shelf.  Simple, right?  In Part 1, I will not only list all of the movies I'll be watching, but also do the first review.  Everything is listed in alphabetical order, which is also how I will be watching the films.

The List
  1. Black Sheep* (1996)
  2. Ed Wood (1994)
  3. Good Night and Good Luck (2005)
  4. Hero (2002)
  5. The Last Samurai (2003)
  6. Lost in Translation (2003)
  7. Saw II (2005)
  8. Shaolin Soccer (2001)
  9. Syriana (2005)
  10. Taxi Driver* (1976)
Some quick stats: Oldest movie: Taxi Driver (1976); Newest movie: Good Night and Good Luck / Syriana (2005). Percentage of movies with George Clooney in them: 20% (tied with 'Movies with Bill Murray in them).
* - Denotes a movie I haven't watched yet

Well, this should be interesting.  The first review up is 1996's Black Sheep (not to be confused with 2006's film about zombie New Zealand sheep)!

My original plan was to actually put the review here on the blog.  I've watched it, and written it, but for some currently secret reasons I am holding it back.  So how about we play a little game?  Let's go through the list and see which I think I'll Dump or Keep.  Even though I've watched Black Sheep, I can still give you my initial opinion when I first made the list.
  1. Black Sheep* (1996) - DUMP
  2. Ed Wood (1994) - KEEP
  3. Good Night and Good Luck (2005) - KEEP
  4. Hero (2002) - DUMP
  5. The Last Samurai (2003) - KEEP
  6. Lost in Translation (2003) - KEEP
  7. Saw II (2005) - DUMP
  8. Shaolin Soccer (2001) - DUMP
  9. Syriana (2005) - KEEP
  10. Taxi Driver* (1976) - KEEP
So, we shall see in the coming weeks/months!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

A Problem With Being Creative

Here's the thing.  There are currently a lot of things going on in my head creatively, and I find I am thinking about them constantly.  This is both a blessing and a curse (and not one of those cool superhero curse type of things); on the one hand, this is way better than being in a creative funk where you can't think of anything.

On the other hand, I feel sometimes that I've put too much on my plate.  There's so much that I'm trying to do, when I probably should be doing One Thing, and putting my focus on that.  Ostensibly, that One Thing should be my Podcast, but I think I should be trying to relegate that back into hobby territory.*

I don't mind that I'm working on several things at once.  What I would prefer is to set aside specific times in the week where I can just switch this on, rather than be thinking about it all the time and become frustrated when I can't do anything about it, or have no time to work on it.  Also, I have a lot of things going on at work right now, and I probably should be focusing on that, you know?  Instead, I am writing a random blog post to eat up some time at work.

Once again this comes back to time management.  I think I made that a resolution at the start of the year?  I'm not sure.  In any case I'm not going to re-visit my resolutions until June.  In the meantime, I plan on watching the first DVD of my "DVD Survivor" series soon...I just need to find some time in my week to do it.

* - This will help in my feelings of "wow this is not nearly as good as it could/should be" re: the Podcast.