I had a pretty low-key New Year's. I was invited to a couple parties, but I realized that I simply wasn't that into going to any of them, which in its own way, made perfect sense in terms of how I felt about much of 2008.
I decided to stay home and get to work on a few of my resolutions early. I also decided to pop Singin' in the Rain into my DVD player. I needed to make sure it would be done before midnight (had to catch some Kathy/Anderson and/or Dick/Ryan action, of course) to fit in with one of my annual traditions/obsessive compulsions in which the first feature film I see in the new year must be my choice for top film of the previous year. Considering that means that some time this afternoon I'll be heading to the Sunshine to watch Synecdoche, New York, it seemed like a great idea to finish 2008 - a not particularly happy year for yours truly - on a high note. (I literally don't allow myself to watch any other films until I've started the year off right; last year I went to an early afternoon screening of There Will Be Blood and then the door was opened to watch anything else.)
Singin' in the Rain is one of my all-time favorite movies, and by saying that, I do mean I also think it is one of the all-time best films every made. It regularly sits in my top five pantheon, and as I watched it again last night (for probably the 40th or 50th time, but first in well over a year), I was reminded exactly why. The best decision I made in all of 2008 might have been simply choosing to wrap-up the year watching Singin' in the Rain, grinning virtually non-stop for 100 minutes, and singing along here-and-there with nobody to hear me. Watching that film is always an experience of pure joy mixed with that weird feeling of nostalgia I often have for times and places that I've never actually known myself.
Nostalgia is an odd thing, and more recently, I've been feeling the nostalgic pull of Out of Focus. It's been nearly five years since I started this blog, but more importantly, it's been over a year since I've treated it as a regular part of my life, and (give or take a few moments of hardcore attention), over two years since I've made this a place that anyone would truly want to check-out on a regular basis.
So why do I care now? Or do I? Part of me would like to say no.
When I started Out of Focus, it was because I had an urge to give myself a place to applaud and rant. It was a rebirth, in some respects, of the column I used to write for the UCLA Daily Bruin in the early 1990s. When I started Out of Focus, it was also at a time when I was in a job I found thoroughly unsatisfying, and commenting on the world of entertainment - focusing primarily on film and TV - whether via my own criticism or offering thoughts on news and events was a great distraction; so was reading those other people who were out there occupying their own little corner of this quickly expanding universe.
And yet, somewhere along the way, everything not only changed but became super-overwhelming. Once upon a time, in 2004, I felt I was coming late to the blog party. I was following lots of people whose writing I found clever, interesting and exciting. "Professional" writers (especially those who covered the popular arts of film, TV and music) seemed to look down at us "amateurs" and Gawker was basically the only big kid on the block. (Weblogs, inc. ... yeah yeah ... blah blah.)
Of course, we've moved far beyond that now. We've moved to a place where blogs are now big business; where every professional publication has not one blog but several in order to highlight different writers; where those same people who criticized all of the online writers during the middle years of the decade now blog as much or more than anyone.
Is there a place for Out of Focus in the online world today? Well, of course there's a place in the great populist experiment that anyone can join, but is there a place I actually care enough about to put forward the effort? The online world has simply become so overwhelming, I've found myself questioning even my original feelings about this site: I wrote for myself. If others enjoyed it, even better. If others disagreed with me, maybe better still. If nobody read at all, well ... that might even be OK too. But I always knew that on some level in some way, someone would occasionally find this space and check-out what I was sharing.
Now, it's hard to know where to start anymore. I'm old enough to remember when cable television first arrived. My dad's first cable box had a horizontal slider to change the channels. When "Video Killed the Radio Star" launched MTV, the "Music Television" channel was one of maybe only 20-25 we received. Now there are hundreds, and new niche channels that most people will never even hear about continue to launch every year. And yet, with hundreds of channels available, sometimes it's still difficult to figure out where to start and what to watch. Meanwhile, as the transition to digital television arrives in February, we're suddenly all going to become aware of the multiplexing of channels not simply by the premium cable networks like HBO and Showtime, but of local ones like WNBC and WABC. (How many people already know about Channel 4.4 -- you've probably had it on your cable system for a few years already. Or WABC's 24 hours "Eyewitness News Now" channel? It's there too.)
But cable's expansion has been tortoise-slow compared to the internet and the blogosphere. For my money, the world of blogs reminds me more of astronomy than cable - the Big Bang led to an ever-expanding universe with new planets and stars forming at exponentially increasing rates (at least for the first several million/hundreds-of-millions years). When was the internet big bang? Somewhere around the turn-of-the-century with people's livejournals? I don't know ... but approaching the current universe of blogs -- film-oriented or otherwise -- I see a rapid expansion that simply feels more confusing than invigorating. There was a time when even the "pro" blogs (i.e., someone hires someone else to write about something) maintained the personality of its editor/writer. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore in a world where even those blogs have become more like online magazines which demand that its writers fit into the blog's personality. I'm not criticizing this; there's certainly nothing wrong with it whatsoever; but it's had me wonder, simply for myself, where to fit in, if any place whatsoever.
And yet, something keeps drawing me back. Some desire to keep ranting. The last two years have been interesting and illuminating to me on a personal level, and Out of Focus is just one of many pieces of my world that has been adversely affected due to a lack of care and even responsibility. So ... we're going to try to again. New year; new start; new discipline? Maybe Of course, even this new year doesn't start in a vacuum, so for now, I'll still probably be doing a fair amount of looking back at the old year. But that's OK too, because (especially for the time being), I may just be chopping down trees in a forest with no sound.
Either way, it's not a resolution nor is it an unattainable goal. I do not intend to cry wolf in the woods anymore talking about what I do or don't plan to do in this space anymore. I often put too much pressure on myself or play the role of perfectionist, and yet when I do, I wind up getting nothing done due to too much adherence to the ideal, "If you're not going to do it right, don't bother doing it at all." Fuck that. For me, the only plan I have for 2009 is to turn myself into Nike.
Success or failure at doing so awaits. I'll let you know this time next year. Until then ... I'm off to the movies ... and sitting in front of my TiVo ... and headed to the theater ... and working my ass of for the festival .... and just .... alive, I suppose.
Happy New Year to all. (Well, maybe not to you ... over there ... in the back. Aw screw, it. HNY to you too. It's the new kind and realisitcally optimistic Aaron, I suppose.)
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