There's a new movie reviewer in town.

well, part of being a professional is being internally consistent. I recall a discussion earlier of ways to say "this movie was not to my taste, but is a fair representative of the genre, so if you like the genre, you should like it."

I'm either too blunt to be a good reviewer or candid enough to be a great reviewer - but I don't really need to add another thing to my to-do list, and I don't know if I want to do it as an ongoing thing.

If people are asking for your opinion it means that you are doing a good job, and just as importantly are getting a reputation for honesty, accuracy and fairness. My experiences in recent years have shown that such things are rather unusual, or at least hard to find, in any sort of reviewer - many tend to be...Well not dishonest as such, but often get swayed by other pressures. For example a lot of mainstream reviewers are wary of saying anything too bad about anything released by the larger companies because they rely on money brought in from advertising which comes from...the same companies. They are also wary because they often reply on those same companies for 'exclusives' that help sell their publications.

It is probably no accident that the better reviewers tend to be more independent, either working alone (which with the changes UTube has made recently is at risk) or for publications who make money from other places. For example I consider film and game reviews on Forbes as more reliable than from elsewhere, since Forbes is not dependent on advertising from either the film or game industries.

I'd say stick with it. Yes, you are going to see a LOT of bad films. And chances are that a lot of other films will annoy you because you've seen similar scenes once too often - I'm going to guess that if you haven't already, you will find that your taste in films will shift from the more 'mainstream' blockbusters to the smaller Indy films simply because the latter become a nice change in pace.

There was/is a British film Reviewer called Barry Norman, who hosted the BBC's flagship film program 'Film {year}'. People often made fun of the fact that he tended to give mainstream films worse reviews than smaller, Independent and often foreign films. What they forgot was that he ended up presenting the series for 26 years, after which time the luster of the big films wore off and the hype they attempted to generate stopped having any effect.

I think the trick is trying to find something you can watch which feels 'refreshing'. Since you are reviewing films I'd suggest looking at TV series, not automatically new series but maybe older series you used to enjoy as a kid and can get as a full series box set on DVD. (Just don't try watching the whole series in one go, trust me on this). TV series are probably the right way to go, because they can't rely on special effects to tell the story and tend to be somewhat more consistent (at least in terms of individual episodes, old shows tend to have little in the way of series/season consistency). I'd take a look at what is available online, pick up one or two episodes to watch and then decide if the series still feels fun enough to watch. (Magnum PI springs to mind as an older series that is still fun to watch, Friends might be another. It all depends on what your individual tastes are.)

Problem is, we're down to one functional DVD player in the entire house.

After looking over my finances earlier this year, I formed a plan: if things didn't pick up with the newspaper, then I'd begin to downsize my possessions and get a number of projects completed. This way, I'd be able to leave for a town with a better overall job market. It'd simply be a matter of loading my laptop, my church bag, some clothing, and some supplies into my car and leaving. I'd miss my cat, and he'd miss me, but I'm coming up on 31 and so I really need to get things done.

Thing is, just about everything I've needed to have in place to get this done has either broken down or otherwise failed.

One of the projects was "watch all of the DVDs I picked up." I took advantage of the garage (re: boot) sales in the area to acquire a large number of DVDs on the cheap, the idea being that once I made sure they played properly I could flip them and use the money to help pay for college. I got my MBA over a year ago, but I still have boxes upon boxes of DVDs that I need to go through. Yet with only one functional DVD player - that being in a part of the house where it's literally standing-room only - that limits the speed at which I can go through them.

This is all a part of a much larger series of incidents.

The scrap pile in the back yard that I need to break down and haul off? The one day I had the time to get at it, I couldn't find a screwdriver set I needed to finish dismantling something. By the time I found the set, we had storms moving through the area again.

The DVDs? All but one player is down.

The books I need to read through? The days I tell myself that I'm going to get them read are the days I wind up so busy that I barely get to the morning papers.

My laptop? Still needs to go to the shop.

My car? I'm hoping that it's just a pair of bad modules.

It's like the universe would rather I stay right where I am for the time being.

I honestly don't know what movie I'm going to be watching tomorrow. This is the closest to the wire a decision on my part has ever come.

Godzilla has the hype from the nerds and fanboys, while Million Dollar Arm has the hype from being a Disney movie. As such, I've got push both ways.

Normally, if I can't decide between movies, I employ one of two tie-breakers.

#1 (which one's shorter?) doesn't work as both movies are almost the same length (123 minutes vs. 124 minutes).

#2 (which one ends sooner?) doesn't work as both movies have their first screening within 5 minutes of each other.

I think it's ultimately going to come down to how early I can get to the theater. Not only am I likely to be working late tonight (which will make it harder to get up in the morning), my car's still down for repairs and so I'll have to depend upon someone else to give me a ride.

I'll likely go see it today.

However, I've been having stomach trouble lately, and so the film's 2.5 hour run time seems a bit daunting in that light.

Thanks.

I had a bleeding stress ulcer back in 1992, and my stomach hasn't been the same since. I also somehow succeeded in injuring my bladder about two years ago through means that I still have yet to determine. Because of this, unless I'm simply not feeling well I have to fast each Friday. Aside from one or two peppermint disks to keep my mouth from going dry, I can't eat anything within 4 hours of the film's start time so as to make sure that my stomach and bladder are empty.

As you can imagine, I'm not keen on longer movies. And it's been years since I've sat through a double feature ("Sum Of All Fears" and "Dragonfly" at a regional drive-through).

Fortunately, I've learned to keep jerky, pretzel sticks, or another non-perishable item in the car alongside some water or shelf-stable juice. As soon as the movie gets out, I just head to the car, have a quick snack, and finish my errands.

My everyday life involves going about my business when I realize that I've got cuts, bruises, and even scars in places I don't even remember getting injured in.

In fact, just two weeks ago my first indication of having sliced my finger open came when I went to grip something and felt liquid running all over (the liquid being my blood).

I just keep trucking along as best as I can.