Bowen’s Cinematic

My Muriels friends have up and initiated the official website, Our Science is Too Tight, and have even been kindly linking to my recent pieces unbeknownst to me (I know, I’m some webmaster). I hope to eventually write pieces just for Science, in addition to pieces just for me and just for Slant, and have been invited along with the other Muriels people to do just that, so please stay tuned.

Until then check Science here.

…but the March thing turned out to be a bust in terms of keeping my one-picture-a-day promise. The challenge, in terms of time management, isn’t so much the writing (though that has challenges) as the actual watching of a movie a day. Tomorrow, we shall switch back to 2010, as I’ve recently seen a few interesting pictures worthy of discussion. Down the road, with perhaps more time to prepare, we shall try this again.

The other day I was discussing with a friend the importance of keeping one’s blog promises only to, of course, break my own blog promises. We shall return tomorrow.

March something marks the 3rd anniversary of Bowen’s Cinematic, an endeavor that has, perhaps sadly, given my life some sense of having a point. Since writing for BC, I’ve discovered a number of writers who’ve changed my approaches to movies, discovered not-sure-how-many movies, and have added some focus to what was once just passing time disguised as a pipe dream.

To commemorate the occasion, I’m going to revive a one-a-day gimmick in March, deliberately similar in structure to my “31 Days of Horror” of a few years back. The theme this time is a return to movies that I haven’t seen in at least five years (though I may cheat once or twice). That measurement of time isn’t quite as randomly assigned as it sounds: I’m now thirty, and have found that my movie-consciousness has altered/evolved quite a bit since I was jobless out of college a few years ago. The gimmick is a deliberate perversion of what is traditionally considered good form: critics are generally supposed to pretend, or imply, that their word is beyond such human trivialities as growth, change, or perhaps just a mood you may have been in at the time. A. I’m not a critic, not a real one, and B. that idea is bullshit anyway.

There are a few other things going on here: my writing has grown too self-conscious, I’m beginning to crave something “more”: a change, another evolution, and recent struggles (minor by the grand scheme yes, but who considers the grand scheme) have led to a desire to write things somewhat more personal, so beware auto-bio indulgences in the month of March.

So, starting March 1st, I will review a movie each day that I have recently returned to after several years. A few titles come to mind, but this could go almost anywhere, or just evaporate as another promise unfulfilled.

January is for the struggling ignored blogger what late November and December are for the critical elite: a time to see probably thirty percent of what everyone will be talking about from that given year (for a month or so that is). A few long catch-up pieces are coming (very soon, one should hope) but let’s get to the ten now, and begin our new year with some illusion of closure.

And, yes, the excitement is justified, 2009 is one of the very best years of movies I can personally remember, and there were several tough choices to make, but a critic has no right to complain of a movie’s indulgence if he can’t even resist cramming 30 movies into a list of 10.

1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Summer Hours
3. Everlasting Moments
4. Tyson
5. Fantastic Mr. Fox
6. The Hurt Locker
7. A Serious Man
8. Two Lovers
9. Julia
10. Orphan

Can be read here.

Can be read here.

Can be read here.

More stuff, for Bowen’s Cinematic, coming soon. I actually mean it this time.

A review of the recent-to-DVD James Franco/Sienna Miller Camille, by yours truly, is now at Slant, and can be found
here.

Busy week. Should be back in the next day or so though, so be sure to tune in, as they might have said in TV Land once upon a time.

I’ve been out of town a few days, but I still should’ve made something out of Paul C. and his Silly Hats Only kindly recruiting me as a jury member for this year’s Muriels, on online gathering blessedly free of most of the Oscar’s pomp and circumstance. Check out Silly Hats (on my blogroll) each day for a new award, with a few elaborations by yours truly along the way, climaxing on February 22, with the Muriel for Best Picture of 2008. Want to know what a Muriel actually is? Go ask Paul!