Thursday, January 3, 2019

EDITORIAL: Red Eye Into 2019

Greetings, readers! I hope the holidays have treated you well, and Happy New Year! I hope you are all starting 2019 off on the right foot. Yes, I'm still here, and yes, I still intend on regular output.

The unwritten rule of film criticism is to publish some sort of 'Best of the Year' list. I will not be doing this, purely because I didn't see the majority of movies that were released over the course of 2018. That said, if I had to pick a #1 favorite out of what I did see, I highly doubt there's any topping Alfonso Cuaron's masterpiece Roma. That movie was truly something special. On a side note, the charming Isle of Dogs is a solid close second, something I never thought I'd say about a Wes Anderson movie. 

But my favorites of 2018 aren't the purpose of this post.

It's been just shy of a year since I started Red Eye. Though there's only a small number of you reading, I want to thank anybody and everybody that has stopped by and continues to stop by. The reception I've gotten has truly been amazing and inspiring to continue with this blog, which I hope will transition to a legitimate website at some point in 2019. This brings me to my next topic; what to expect in 2019. Well, still more or less the same as what you've been seeing. I've already went over some of this in my Update from 8 November, but here we go again:

First things first, Weekly Recaps will now be Monthly Recaps. I have two reasons for this: 1) because most of my readers are acquaintances on Facebook, I'm not too fond of spamming you guys with mini-reviews of old movies that you probably aren't as eager to hear my thoughts on as, say, something newer. 2) As most, if not all, of you know, Red Eye is purely on my own time, and sometimes real life has to take priority. I'd like to think you all respect this, but it's still kind of embarrassing for me to have to admit that there will be no Weekly Recap due to X. 


On a side note regarding the Monthly Recaps; you will be seeing mostly releases throughout the current decade. Of course there will be old titles from time to time, but 2020, the end of the decade is a year away, and I would like to do a big "Best Films of the Decade" piece, so it is my full intention on catching up on as much as I can throughout 2019.


Next off, and I can't make too many promises on this, but I am aiming to have a legitimate Red Eye website up, along with a dedicated Facebook page - I'm considering a Twitter page as well, but I've never once used Twitter in my life. While I have zero expectations to make a living as a film critic, it is still my desire to make a name for myself outside of my immediate social circles. 

And, finally, we saved the most exciting for last: starting with the first weekend in February, I want to try and get back into regular reviews of new releases again. Once again, I emphasize "No Promises" because of real life, and trips to the theater are very busy and very expensive - I don't mind one or the other, but I can't do both, as I've discussed before. Since I'm still relevant to only a small circle of folks, here is how I'm going to do things: firstly, I will be seeing no more than three movies a weekend (with possibly one indie release throughout the week). Obviously, there are going to be weekends where there will be more than three releases, so how will I decide what to see? Well, I'm here for the people, and I'm here to see what the people want to hear my opinion on. 

Every Monday, I will post a Facebook poll with the weekend's upcoming releases, asking which movies do the readers want to hear my thoughts on the most. Whichever gets the highest amount of votes will be the first movie seen/reviewed that weekend, then the second and third place movies will follow suit. So, for those that are friends with me on Facebook, make sure you're looking out for those polls!

Well, that's all I've got for you. Here's to 2019! Let's hope we get some great cinema this year!

Best regards, 

Jakob.



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