2009: A more sensible approach

"Did they get an X-ray of your wife's jaw at the hospital?"
"No, they got a moving picture instead."

In between my incredible growing work load (mostly stuff I omitted to do in 2008, really) and putting together a 1,500-photo slideshow of my Canada trip, I've been thinking about new features for Moving Pictures. As this is not a full-time job (yeah, I've been bitching about that since forever), I see that I have to be realistic about what I can—and can't—do here. This blog is fast becoming as meaningless as the joke above.

I've been too ambitious in the past, thinking I could come up with essay-length film reviews every week, on top of the news, the updates, and also the commentaries. In the end, I did a half-assed job of just about everything, except maybe for the piece I wrote on The Hustler and The Color of Money. (Or maybe I screwed that up too.)

Anyhow, I've just finished updating the "new and upcoming" all the way up to the end of February. Also, try the new search bar by Google. It's definitely improved a lot: it displays the search results neatly in a box right on top of the posts, and they arranged in hits from this blog, links from this blog, results from the blogs I subscribe to, and finally the web. Like I said, neat.

I've also just recently tried cataloging all the DVDs and Blu-rays I own on a Google Docs spreadsheet, but discovered that the "My Movies" function on IMDb might actually more user-friendly. I used to have an account on DVD Spot, but it unfortunately stopped operating late last year. I haven't made up my mind if I'll ditch the online spreadsheet thing; I can't get it to display images for each title or link to the relevant movie pages on IMDb either, but I managed to use a formula to calculate the number of movies I own, and break the number down into DVDs and Blu-rays. "My Movies" can't do that, but it makes information about each much more accessible, so my family–and me as well–won't have go blind looking for something to watch on a Friday night.

Now, as for reviews, I haven't quite fixed on a formula yet, but I'm looking at something like this: capsule reviews that summarily give my opinion of a film, and if it's a DVD or Blu-ray title, my opinion of the picture and sound quality, as well as the supplemental features available on the release. One important bit I will DEFINITELY include is this: if it's a catalog release on Blu-ray, and I have both the DVD and the Blu-ray, I'll let you know if it's worth the upgrade. In times like these, we'll be watching pennies before Blu-rays.

Ok, I gotta catch some sleep. (Yeah, work tomorrow.) I'll be back with some release news before the week is over, and I'll also have a review of Ip Man as well as think piece on the current state of HD home entertainment and what its ramifications for us Joe Blows. In the meantime, feel free to poke around.

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