Lost in the Movies: March 2013

#WatchlistScreenCaps (80s short films edition), 3/26 - 3/28


Here are the last ten films I watched, with a screen-captured image and quick sentence on the subject. Follow this feature on Twitter here, read about the kickoff here, and view the previous #WatchlistScreenCaps roundup here.

As it happens, all ten films this time are shorts from the 1980s. If you click on each title, you can watch it online. Oh, and though the '82 and '83 polls have passed, if you like A Girl's Own Story, you can vote for it on Wonders in the Dark.

Lost in the Movies celebrates its 5th anniversary, starting now


Tonight I kick off a four-month celebration of a half-decade of blogging, by introducing my new banner and announcing a feature which will launch in a few minutes. The idea is that I'd like to share my back pages with new readers and random stumblers; since launching Lost in the Movies in the summer of 2008 (as The Dancing Image), I've been disappointed or frustrated how many good posts get lost in the shuffle. Although it has improved over time, the blogging format tends to highlight whatever is most recent at the expense of burying the backlog.

While I hope to be introducing new content as well, in the months leading up to July 16 (this site's birthday) I will be linking each day to an oldie-but-goodie from the Lost in the Movies archive. I will be tweeting the link and also putting up a temporary post with the intro from the given piece. First I'll do so chronologically with 50 random pieces from 2008 to today, and then I'll follow with the 62 posts I consider my strongest (see the "Top Posts" tab if you want to jump the gun). On the five-year anniversary, I'll post a retrospective look at where I've been as a blogger. Self-indulgent, perhaps, but hopefully fun as well.

The bigger ambition is that this encourages others to take similar actions, and me to explore their older posts too. While it's always a good idea to be moving forward, we also don't want to abandon the past. As much as possible, I'd like to promote the idea of the blogosphere as unbound by chronology, so that one can stumble upon pieces from whenever; down with disposability, up with legacy! Or something like that.

I hope you enjoy exploring these backroads over the next 112 days. It begins tonight with a train pulling into a station...


#WatchlistScreenCaps 3/5 - 3/21


Here are the last ten films I watched, with a screen-captured image and quick sentence on the subject. Follow this feature on Twitter here, read about the kickoff here, and view the previous #WatchlistScreenCaps roundup here.

Lost in the Movies status update, March 2013


My work on this blog is obviously affected by other circumstances, and unfortunately at the moment I have a lot of distractions and other priorities. I had promised regular appearances of the Favorites series every Wednesday, but instead they will have to appear sporadically, not on any regular schedule. Likewise with the occasional reviews, some of which I have begun and not completed.

At the present moment, which could mean a few weeks or months or a year or more, the blog will primarily serve as a viewing/reading/listening log. I am tweeting pictures of book covers, album covers, or screen-caps from DVDs/streaming videos I have completed. Whenever I reach ten titles in each category, I'll put up a post here (as I've been doing for the screen-caps). While I also want to occasionally write and create fresh content, with everything going on I won't be able to do much there. So then, simply keeping an attractive visual log of my film, book, and music explorations is probably the best I can do to maintain appearances and interest in this site for the time being.

That said, I do expect other entries from time to time. I started a review of Zero Dark Thirty and never finished it, but may finish it yet. Next up in the Favorites is All the President's Men, and the template and picture are set to go, I just need to write something. I have other ideas which, during quiet and/or inspired moments, I may explore.

Meanwhile, an older video piece, the work I consider my best from 650+ posts and five years of blogging, has been invited to appear on the website PressPlay, an invitation that will be accepted in the next few weeks, accompanied by an interview with me. I will certainly link up to that when it occurs.

Most importantly, if circumstances allow (and that depends how the next few weeks go, among other things) I would like to create more video essays. I have ideas, and hopefully will have means as well. This not only something I enjoy, it's good practice for filmmaking which has always been and remains my biggest goal, and the most difficult to attain.

(side note: Though I haven't linked to it in a while, in part because after devoting so much attention I got kind of sick of it, my short film is still there for you to watch: Class of 2002, a fictional photo-memoir which, warts and all, is the only thing I can point to with any pride since my move to California a year ago. That's something.)

Over the years, I've made announcements, gone back on some of them, fulfilled others, renounced all future announcements, and then announced new ones. I've ended the blog and returned, almost lost everything in a technical glitch, made major changes and branched out in new directions. I know enough at this point just to say that some things will change and others remain the same without prescriptions, prophecies, or pronouncements. As an extension of what I said before, this site is the only solid accomplishment I can claim from the past five years. Which may be embarrassing to admit but hell, who am I trying to impress right now...

I hope you continue to enjoy my work, as I have enjoyed creating it.

#WatchlistScreenCaps 2/26 - 3/4


Here are the last ten films I watched, with a screen-captured image and quick sentence on the subject. Follow this feature on Twitter here, read about the kickoff here, and view the previous #WatchlistScreenCaps roundup here.


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