NOT QUITE LAZY
Excuse my infrequent posts, devoted reader. You see, I have another blog called "Some Calzone for Derek" that occupies a lot of my non-working time. It's a shame, because it's although I enjoy writing about baseball, movies are, and remain, my true love.
The problem is while I find it relatively easy to peel off a couple hundred words about a given topic in baseball, I find it much more arduous to write about movies. Maybe because I care more. I don't know.
I do know that I get considerable feedback at "Calzone" and my posts at "Batter's Box", and that helps keep me writing.
I think I can safely say that the state of internet baseball writing is very, very good. Certainly much better than 99% of the print, television, and radio media. It's a lucky coincidence. Bill James helped start the sabermetric revolution in the mid-80s (not that others like Pete Palmer weren't doing outstanding work decades before), and by the mid-90s a young baseball executive was starting to apply these ideas to running a baseball club. OK, we all read Moneyball. But it's a nice coincidence that sabermetrics and the internet started to go mainstream at roughly the same time.
Unfortunately, the state of movie writing on the internet is very, very poor. Sorry. Oh, sure, the net makes it easy to read the best critics all over the world. Every week, I check Armond White at New York Press, Jonathan Rosenbaum at the Chicago Reader, A.O. Scott at the New York Times, and of course the outstanding interviews at the Guardian. But aside from David Edelstein at Slate.com and the gaggle of critics at Salon.com, all of my film review reading is print-based content (and even Slate and Salon are essentially designed like print magazines--they just happen to be better than most the crap that sits on the news rack). I think slant is the only website that I go to for reviews that isn't print based (or trying to copy the format). It helps that Ed Gonzalez is a perceptive critics, but that doesn't speak well for the Harry Knowles of the world. Because I think the internet brings out the worst in would-be film critics. Just read the hateful, obnoxious message boards at Ain't It Cool News if you don't believe me.
You see, the good thing about that baseball revolution I was talking about is that it's essentially numbers based. OK, maybe that's not what's good about it. The baseball is what's good about it. But the analysis attempts to be quantifiable, and as such makes those who attempt to write about it accountable to something larger than their whims and fancies. I mean, if I say something crazy like Albert Pujols was a stronger MVP candidate last year than Barry Bonds, I'd better be able to back it up or risk looking ridiculous to a bunch of very bright, very perceptive people. So, I pull out my calculator, point and click, find some numbers, find some formulas, and try to justify it all. It doesn't mean I'm right. You could easily take another metric and spin it another way, and point back to Bonds. But that then forms the basis of a real back-and-forth dialogue.
That meeting of minds doesn't happen on the movie websites. The closest I've ever seen is the usually outstanding email exchanges Slate periodically publishes. But they don't let you post comments to them (which all things considered is probably a good thing).
So, what does all of this mean?
It means that I started "Jurgen Goes To The Movies" to try to do my part to elavate the tone of movie writing on the internet, and I've neglected that responsibility in favour of the easy fame of baseball writing.
Well, no more will the cinema play second fiddle to the diamond!
And so, with no further adieu, I give you my latest thoughts on the cinema!
Just let me finish up responding to this comment at "Calzone" about B.J. Upton's future at shortstop.
