10 Years

Back in the summer of 2020, a user who goes by the screen-name of GODZILLA (that right there meant I could hardly ignore him) commented on the review I did for Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown and asked me what I planned to do for my tenth anniversary post. My answer was that I hadn't really given it much thought but, the real truth is that, until that moment, I didn't even think about this year being my tenth year of doing this blog. When I thought about it, I was like, "Wow, I've been doing this for ten years? Where does the time go?" But, indeed I have, and a lot of things have changed. For one, I'm balding in the middle of my head, whereas I had virtually a full head of hair when I started. For another, I've gone through quite a number of changes in my life, some minor and some major. Friendships have started up and others ended, acquaintances have come and gone, and my personal life is in a different, and much better, place than it was before. But, anyway, let's get back to the question at hand: what is this tenth anniversary post going to be about? I didn't think there could be one particular movie review I could do to mark the occasion, nor could there be any major list that would serve it either. So, I ultimately decided, why not just look back at the past ten years? I don't mean go over my "greatest hits" and whatnot but, rather, talk about the major things that have happened in my life, both on the blog and off, over the past decade, as well as maybe talk a little more about myself, why I still have this hobby and take it as seriously as I do, and some of my plans for the future. In short, let's just hang out for a bit and talk about stuff (Stuff would actually be a better title for this post).

I want to start off by saying the idea to do this blog was not mine. Rather, it was that of a guy named Shloggs, who was an acquaintance of mine on a message board I was once a part of and who also became one of my first followers. I don't if he still looks at my stuff, as I haven't heard from him in a long time, but regardless, when we were on that message board, I was writing a number of reviews on a thread where you would talk about the last movie you saw and I had a tendency to go pretty in depth on it. Shloggs took an interest in both me and what I had to say (a little too much so, in some cases, to the point where I had to put my foot down and put him in his place), and at one point, in early 2011, he suggested I start up a blog. Now, the thing is, I am a very computer illiterate person. I know enough to get by but that's it, and so, when he suggested that, I imagined having to construct the whole thing myself (that's why the blog's background has retained the same standard look it started out with, as I have no clue how to put anything there and, what's more, I don't know what I would put there anyway, as I hardly have the talent to create my own backgrounds). But, when he told me Blogspot would do that for me, I decided one day to have a go at it and I started it up. The generic name for it came out of thin air and I did a very green, amateurish introduction to it, talking about stuff I'll never review and also saying that people could suggest stuff, both of which you might as well just ignore now, as I'm not the same person I was back then and my viewpoints are very different. But, once I started going and really got into it, I was hooked. In fact, the first year of my blog, I wrote over 120 posts! Granted, while I still went into a lot of detail, it was nowhere near as much as I do now, and I wasn't using images back then, either, but I really was a machine that first year, and a big reason for that is because the blog kind of saved me from a swamp of boredom I'd been falling into. Being an unemployed, college dropout who has to depend on your parents for your housing and money leaves you with a lot of time on your hands, and I had gotten to the point a few times where I just had absolutely nothing to do. This helped fill that gap immensely and thanks to it, my life feels more full.

Another reason why I was so into the blog that first year was because it solved a problem that had plagued me for much of my life. I've loved to write about anything that interested me ever since I was a really young kid, be it movies, video games, or certain topics like the paranormal; in elementary school, I did it notebooks and then, when I got a computer around 2000, I began doing it on Microsoft Word. I would write movie reviews, stories of movies and TV shows that I liked, or anything else, and would often print them out and put them in a binder. But, I had a bad habit of starting projects and, after only a few days, if that, completely abandoning them, because I always realized no one was ever going to read this stuff, except maybe my Mom, friends, or possibly other members of my family. So, in that case, who cared? But once I started this, things became very different, as I now know that it's possible hundreds or thousands of people will read this stuff. Moreover, I do know of a handful of people who come regularly and seem to like what I do, so how can I possibly sit idle and fail you? That's probably the most important thing the blog gives me: motivation and the feeling that I'm contributing to something, and it's a good feeling.

However, that doesn't mean the blog isn't like work sometimes; in fact, it can be a little crazy-making, especially ever since I started adding images and I had to start dealing with Blogspot's constantly putting in updates that completely throw off the way the software works for me. In the beginning, my reviews were nothing more than text on a blank background because, again, I'm so illiterate when it comes to computers. But then, in the middle of 2013, I discovered how to copy and paste images into these reviews and, suddenly, I realized I could add so much more life to them. However, that also meant spending a lot more time and energy, especially since I was originally going looking for relevant images on search engines like Bing. Nowadays, I just take screenshots of the movie, TV show, or video game from streams I find online, which makes it a little easier (save for when I can't find a stream of the thing in question, which does sometimes happen, forcing me to cancel reviews altogether; yes, I'm that much of a noob that I don't know how to get images off my laptop's built-in DVD player). Unfortunately, I've learned in recent years that going so long with copying and pasting images was a big mistake, as a lot of them have since become null. Even worse, there was a stretch there where I had to manipulate the framing of the images to make sure they didn't overlap the text, as they wouldn't just line up automatically when I tried to align them with the paragraphs, and now, if I try to go back and correct them, I run into something weird: I'll erase the image and the empty space left behind by it will follow me around until I log out and then back in. This is what I meant when I talked about Blogspot's annoying and, for me, needless updates. In fact, last year, just as I was approaching the end of October Fest, they did an update that made it impossible for me to stack the images on top of each other, forcing me to use this new method of lining the images up with the text right below the initial ones, which causes the text to go between the images. Being a perfectionist, it drives me nuts that there's no consistency with the way my reviews look because of that but I guess it can't be helped.

That's another thing that adds to how stressful this blog can be sometimes: my perfectionism. I not only proofread each review before publishing it or putting it away until it's time for it to be published, but I also sometimes agonize over the screenshots I use, as they can be off by a frame and, as a result, aren't conveying what I want. My perfectionism is also what fuels this obsession I have with going back and updating my old reviews by adding images, going into more detail, and fixing the grammar mistakes, null images, and dumb things I said in an attempt to sound clever, which included taking funny remarks straight from other people's mouths (because of that, among other reasons, I seriously cringe when I go back and look at some of my old reviews). It's a need I have for everything to line up with the "evolved," if you will, methods and techniques I've developed over the years. Heck, I've even thought about giving that treatment to reviews I've already updated, as I still don't think they're good enough, so I guess I'm kind of like George Lucas with his constant tinkering.

While writing this, I got a comment on a post from someone who said they didn't feel I needed to talk about every little detail and that no one would read through all of it. That may be true in some regards, but it's my preferred way of doing things and, what's more, it's the way I was taught. My high school English teachers expected me to go into everything, and I mean, everything, when I was writing a paper about a book we'd read and, if I left anything out or just assumed that the teacher would know what I was getting at, I would get marked up for it. In order to graduate my senior year, I had to write and get a passing grade on a ten-page essay on Hamlet, and we're talking about a ten-page essay on just one aspect of the play. That right there beat into my head this need to talk about everything down to the smallest detail, so much so that, during my first year of college, I was turning in multiple page essays when only two or three pages were needed. (Speaking of which, I actually had to study Hamlet again for my first year of college's English class, which about caused me to yell, "Hamlet!" in a manner not unlike Captain Kirk screaming, "Khan!") So, if that person sees this, I'm sorry if you don't care for it but it's the only way I know how to do things and, regardless, I like doing it this way. I like listing and analyzing everything that happens, because it make me feel like I haven't left a single stone unturned. It may not appeal to everybody but it's just the way I am and the teaching I had in high school only amplified it.

But, I will say that method does slow me down considerably, causing me to go radio silent for weeks or even months on end, especially since I've started doing my October Fest series, where I write a review for each day in October ahead of time. I spend so much time on that, I often have very little time to do stuff for the blog outside of it (after June or July, you pretty much don't hear from me again until I make the announcement for it in September), which sucks because there's so much else I want to do. Trust me, as long as I've been going at it, I haven't even scratched the surface of the stuff I want to review, and so, I'll say it right now that 2022 is probably going to be pretty light in those terms. You'll still get an October Fest that year (I already have my theme picked out for it), as well as some other reviews here and there, especially in regards to one month in particular, but it won't be like usual, where I try to put out at least one review per month. What I will be doing, however, is writing a bunch of stuff that would make 2023 a rather packed year, as well as 2024, perhaps, so, hopefully this will be a case of good things coming to those who wait. I must say, I've come to like this habit of writing a bunch of stuff ahead of time and then scheduling for it to go up later; before, I would just write stuff one thing at a time and then put it up. That made my decision to review the entire Godzilla film series in 2014 in order to celebrate the release of the first Legendary Pictures movie, which was a big review bucket list item to begin with, a huge undertaking. Save for a respite that October, Godzilla took over my entire life from April to November of that year and, when it was all said and done, my brain was absolute mush and I didn't come back until the following March (and yet, I have the need to update those reviews because I used that copy and paste method on them and many of those images are now null). Afterward, I knew I couldn't do things like that ever again, and I had to beg off even considering doing it for the James Bond franchise when Spectre came out the following year. (You will see that review series some day, but it will be written far in advance of its actual postings.)

Besides pulling me out of the boredom I was once stuck in, this blog has also helped me get through some particularly rough times in my life. When I started it in 2011, it was about a year after my aunt, whom I was very close to, was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer and, because of it, I was often able to focus on something else as she deteriorated and ultimately died in July of 2013. I tell you, cancer is an evil monster that they need to find a cure for, and I feel great sympathy for those who've either experienced it themselves or, like me, have watched it slowly kill a loved one. In fact, 2013 was a shitty year for my family altogether, as my uncle on my dad's side was killed in a logging accident that August, my late aunt's live-in boyfriend committed suicide in October, and in December, another uncle, this one on my mother's side, was diagnosed with cancer as well (he's fine now, though). How I didn't go completely crazy during all that is beyond me but, again, this blog helped me through those bad times, as well as others like when my grandparents' house burned down in 2015 (they made it out, but that house, which had been there for years and was a place quite special to me, was totally destroyed) and when the COVID-19 pandemic began and the entire country went into lockdown.

If there is a major downside to the blog, it's that it's opened me up to something that's an inevitable hazard of the online world: trolling. I don't mind criticism, as long as it's not delivered in a condescending or dickish manner, but I have no tolerance for those assholes who just want to insult and start fights with people because their lives are miserable. Fortunately, I haven't gotten that many trolling comments, and most of the ones I have gotten have been so eye-rollingly juvenile that I've deleted them without a second thought. However, there have been a few that really struck a nerve. The worst of all was one where the person called me a "fat cunt" and threw my aunt in my face, telling me to go cry about it. It was over something I'd said on the message board where I met Shloggs but, instead of talking with me over there, the person decided to attack me on here so they could do it without any repercussions whatsoever. I still don't know who that person was to this day. In any case, that and some other things that have happened over the years have made me see firsthand what a nasty place the internet can be. Because of the anonymity it provides, a lot of people take it and use it to be the real heinous, disgusting, vile monsters they actually are but can't be in real life, taking out any pent up anger and bitterness they have on innocent people for no other reason than simply because they can. I've seen so much of this crap, either through actual comments left on YouTube videos or stuff people have told me has happened there, on Twitter, or on Facebook, that it's one of the reasons why I'm very low-key when I'm not on here. I do have a YouTube account but I don't post any videos, as I know that if I showed myself and put my opinions out there in that manner, people who will, inevitably, grow to hate what I have to say would have an absolute field day with it. What's more, save for my e-mail address, I'm not on social media at all. I don't have a Twitter account and, while my family does have a Facebook page, I myself never use it. As bad as things can get on YouTube, it's nothing compared to how toxic it often is on there, with people sending death threats, threatening to kick each other's asses, resorting to the most vile name-calling, and whatnot. Plus, I've heard how, on Twitter, the people who run that platform basically don't do anything even if you report posts that do violate their Terms of Service. Therefore, as much as it isolates how successful my blog is, I want no part of that crap.

While we're on the subject of comments, I'll now take the opportunity to mention how I've changed the way they're posted on here. Before, they would automatically post and I would get a notification on my e-mail account but, because I was getting a lot of spam, as well as some annoying comments, I changed the method to where now, when someone tries to post a comment, I'm first notified about it and then, after looking at it, I can decide whether to publish it or not. So, if you post a comment on here and it doesn't immediately get published, don't think there's something wrong or that I'm ignoring you, as I likely just haven't checked my e-mail and seen it yet (and I don't check my e-mail more than a couple of times a day, unless I know for sure that a message is coming). I'm only saying this because I've been getting a lot more comments than I used to, which is nice and something I truly appreciate.

My low online profile also stems from the fact that I've had bad experiences besides the occasional trolling comment here. In fact, I've been badly screwed over and blindsided by people who I thought were my friends but turned out to be massive douchebags who either only cared about what I could personally do for them or thought so little of me that they disowned me the minute I was somewhat critical of them. I won't go into details, as I don't want to cause more drama for myself, but I will say I've mentioned these people in past reviews but I don't mention them anymore. I will also say that they're tied to the message board I've mentioned before, which, by extension, is another reason why I'm leery of being that active online. While it started out well enough, that message board turned into an absolute cesspool where about 95% of the users, including the moderators, were either sleazebags or assholes. You would get attacked for differing opinions, the moderators didn't care whatsoever (one of them had a massive chip on his shoulder and just hated everyone in general, me included), and, worst of all, you could not let slip any sort of dissenting opinion about the people in charge of the website. Not only were they dickheads who treated other people like crap, sometimes to the point of outright ripping them off or causing them mental anguish, and had an undeserving high and mighty opinion of themselves, but if you made it clear that you didn't agree with what they were doing, you were either told to shut up, leave, or would get banned altogether. While I know one of the two people who ran the site has since regretted the awful stuff he did, the other has remained completely remorseless, feels he never did anything wrong, and is still trying to rip people off at every opportunity. I just happened to go back to that message board last year out of curiosity and I saw he made a post saying he was extending me an olive branch over any hard feelings, but he never reached out to me personally, save for a pitiful attempt at buttering me up with a comment on here, which I never posted or responded to. Because of that, even though other people have tried to talk me into it, assuring me that things would be different, it's highly unlikely I'll ever join another message board.

Because of how volatile people can be on the internet, it's made me somewhat choosy of the stuff I decide to cover on here, specifically in regards to anything that's very politically or religiously charged. While I tend not to watch movies and shows of that nature anyway (at least, not when it's presented in a very upfront, in your face manner), I shudder to think what would happen if I were to put my two cents in on examples which I have seen, such as Michael Moore's documentaries, the Unfit documentary on Donald Trump, and the like. I really don't have any political viewpoints one way or the other, and I don't subscribe to the mindset of any political parties (I've never even registered to vote), but I do have personal opinions on such matters, mainly coming down to what I think is right and wrong, and so, I would be able to do reviews on such films. But I know that I would be screwed no matter what I said, as you have severe extremists on both sides who are ready to tear your face if you don't agree 100% with their viewpoints. It's the same thing with religion, which I actually do have some strong viewpoints on (though not regarding any particular one but rather, the way in which they're individually practiced; in short, I don't care what you personally believe in, so long as you're not an asshole about it): you absolutely cannot win, no matter how concise and clear you make your stance. In short, while you won't absolutely never see anything that deals with either of those subjects reviewed on here (for instance, I really enjoy the movie, All the President's Men), expect to see it maybe once in a blue moon and even then, without any major, personal viewpoints of my own. Some may call me a wimp or a coward for that, and that's their prerogative, but this is meant to be a place just to chill and have fun talking about movies, TV, and video games, not to have potentially heated debates.

I hope I'm not coming off as a complainer, as it's far from being all bad. In fact, it was through that message board I've mentioned that I met Newt, who's on Blogspot as Double T's Blog of Reviews and is someone who's become probably my best buddy right now. Our first interactions there weren't the nicest, mainly because, not knowing him back then the way I do now, some of the stuff he said came off as kind of dickish (the most notable one was when he strongly advised me against seeing a movie and I, by that point, having had enough of people on that board trying to boss me around and tell me what I could and couldn't do, basically told him to piss off), but when he sent me a PM telling me he enjoyed my review of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, his favorite movie, we actually started talking and soon clicked. We learned that we not only had a lot of the same interests, particularly when it comes to horror movies, but also that we agreed that the way that place was being run was unacceptable. Little did I know that Newt had made his displeasure very vocal, to the point where the truly despicable guy who ran that place knew he hated him and the feeling was mutual, whereas I was being more tight-lipped because I didn't want any trouble (as you can see, I try to avoid conflict) and I also didn't want to rock the boat, because I did like being part of a community. In any case, he and I stayed in touch until I finally decided I had enough and left the site, shortly after which the forums closed. Following that, we started an almost weekly routine of talking to each other on the phone, which we've kept up ever since, and he's supported my blog every step of the way. Most of the time, he does compliment me on my reviews, but we don't kiss each other's butt, as he has told me that some of my reviews have been subpar, which I will admit to. And I, in turn, have called him out on some of his own BS and when I feel he's doing or saying something stupid, as he often does. I was even on an episode of a podcast he used to do, although, unfortunately, the site he hosted the show on lost the audio file, and Newt won't do the show anymore anyway (mainly because, among other things, he's too damn lazy to do it).

Like any friend, though, Newt has more than his fair share of annoying habits, like making the same, dumb jokes over and over again, his manic phases that make it virtually impossible for you to get a word in while talking to him, his unbelievably bad memory (he'll ask me if I've ever seen a movie that we had a long, detailed conversation about just a few days before), and his not being able to get it through his head that I was born in 1987, not '81 or '84, as he always thinks. However, the worst thing about him by far is his obsession with certain awful movies and his determination to get every single one of his friends to watch them. The best example is Vampegeddon, this horrendous, no-budget vampire movie he just happened to stumble across on a pack of horror movies and now, he's made it his life's mission to make this thing a cult classic. Every chance he got, he brought that damn movie, up to the point where I was basically screaming at him to shut up about it, at one point telling him to shove it up his ass and that I would never, ever watch it. Finally, I decided to just watch the movie and, while it was really bad, it wasn't the absolute worst thing ever, as he would have had me believe it was, which actually pissed me off more, in a way. I did a review for it for my "Schlocktober" edition of October Fest in 2019, so you can go read that if you're morbidly curious, as well as if you want to see more of me threatening to kill Newt. (He even expected me to put a link to where you could watch that thing in the review, which I adamantly refused to do.) And guess what? He still won't shut up about it! He's even bugged companies like Shout! Factory about giving it a special edition Blu-Ray, and they, much to my amusement, have wrote him back and, in so many words, have told him to leave them the hell alone. But I think the most insulting thing he ever said to me regarding Vampegeddon is when he said, "I didn't make you watch it. I just strongly suggested you do," to which I responded, "I should scissor kick you."

But enough of that. Let's start wrapping things up by talking about what you all can expect from me in the future. There are still big things on my review bucket list I play to get to, either soon or some day. The aforementioned James Bond review series is a major one, although I'm going to wait until after No Time To Die (if that damn movie ever does come out) so I can include Daniel Craig's run as Bond in one go. There are a number of directors I admire whose filmographies I've either never mentioned or I've touched on but should do a lot more with, chief among them John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Alfred Hitchcock (I plan on devoting every Sunday in a year to one of his movies), David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, and Hayao Miyazaki. I definitely want to try to tackle some more anime in the future as, at this point, I've only done two but there are plenty of others that I genuinely like. In a similar vein, I want to do more TV shows and I have an idea for an October Fest where I do nothing but horror on television. And finally, as for what's in the immediate future, March will feature a handful of reviews that are, in one way or another, relevant to Godzilla vs. Kong (man, I hope that movie stays the course this time, as the anticipation and constant delays have nearly been the death of me).

I know this wasn't much but I figured I'd do something a little different for this occasion. So, for those of you who are newcomers, I hope you've been liking what you see on here and are looking forward to what's coming next. And for those who've either been here since the beginning or for a long while now, thanks for the support, and here's to another ten.