RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #20

I hate it when people give a zillion excuses for not posting on their sites. "Oh, I should be on here more, but --" or "Yes, yes, I know, I post little enough as it is, but--", etc., etc., etc. I mean this in the nicest possible way (which doesn't happen often, so cherish it), why not just keep your personal junk to yourself and just forge on when you feel that the time is right to do so? Everybody has things in their lives that sometimes interfere with the constant maintaining of a simple blogsite, and understandably, one must place priorities. Relationships, family, and friends should actually come first in these matters. A good party should always outweigh one's need to bash the keyboard all alone into the night (and by this, I mean "typing", you pervs).

Well, that's fine if you have only undertaken a blog as a hobby, or as a sporadic dispersal unit of pictures of your brat or for posting family news. The only rule that I set up for myself with my pair of Cinema 4 blogs was to use them as tools to keep me writing constantly. The only force that keeps me posting on them is my own, and while I try to keep them as fresh as possible, one can only do so much in a day, or a week, or a month. Things come up, schedules shift, and people sometimes drop into your life that cause you to switch priorities around a tad. Plus, I have two of these damn things to maintain, also a rule that I have imposed upon myself, and my Cinema 4: Cel Bloc has had a new post up for every single day this year. So, even if I skip a bit on this site, I have still used the animation site as my main instrument for journalistic calisthenics.

But, I actually do have an excuse for not being on here for the last couple of weeks, after I had gone to such great lengths to ratchet up my posting for the last couple of months. I did my ankle in. Not in any exciting but annoyingly X-TREME way; no, I just stepped off a sidewalk outside of our complex on the way to getting the mail, and I turned my ankle over. And, because I am a dope where doctors are concerned, I decided to treat the injury on my own. The problem is that while at first it seemed like it would just take a little time to get better, as any decent twisted ankle should, it turns out I have probably done far more damage to my foot than I first suspected. Two weeks on, while the bruising that had surfaced immediately on both sides of the ankle and leg and even on my middle toes has finally vanished fully, my ankle still swells up after I have been out and about on it for awhile, and much of the left side of the ankle, from the lower shin down to the toes, is very sensitive to the touch. The other problem, for those that know me, is that I naturally walk faster than the Bush Regime can trash the Constitution (I know, seemingly an impossible feat!), and so by being unwilling to slow my pace down, I may not be allowing the injury time to rest and heal properly. 'Cause I'm a dope.

As a result, I have only been able to sit at my desk for short periods of time before I need to put the leg up and make some small attempt to reverse the damage. Thus, a concentration on posting on the Cel Bloc has led this site to remain unchanged for the last two weeks (just shy of a couple days, and besides, the post on the 25th of June was a cheat of a post -- merely a list of postings on the other site. It doesn't count as a real post). Also, I ended up at the showing of Superman Returns feeling a good deal more mortal than I would have previously, my leg propped up the stadium seating bar for the entire film (not necessarily all that comfortable, but a good deal better than puffing up more resting on the floor). You'd also think that spending a lot of time on the couch with one's leg elevated would grant one more time to watch a load of films. I spun through a few, but the truth of the matter is that I have been unable to really get comfortable enough to really concentrate on anything more substantial than the Food Network (at least for the first week), and as it started to get a bit better, I felt the drive to catch up on things like housework and laundry and, of course, working on the other blog.

I did take the opportunity, though the term "put myself through sheer torture" is more like it, and watch the ex-Sci-Fi Channel's attempt at a "Pirates" tie-in, Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove, which is basically The Fog if John Carpenter had seen fit to use Michael Myers as the pirate captain. And not the more subtle Michael of the first film, but rather, the later body-cleaving, Jason-like, tool-improviser of the middle films in the Halloween series. I will give the film credit though for having its teenagers, unlike the Kevin Williamson-scripted Scream youth who talk like their egghead creator rather than the real thing, speak like most teenagers speak: dully and blandly. If you think watching the lame attempts at dialogue in the first ten minutes of the picture is hard, try doing it for the entire two hours of commercial-laden blood-spurtiness. And what is wrong with America where we can get endless shots of evisceration and limbs flying and head chopping, but if a hot chick shows her tits, Sci-Fi has to fuzz out the image. They show her torso being cleaved down the middle from behind -- no problem with the censors there, apparently - but actually portray some of the world's natural beauty and splendor? (Which I can only assume - she may have had work done on the puppies, but since it was all fuzzed out, I couldn't proceed with a proper examination.)

It's the sort of thing that makes you want to poke your eyes out instead of just breaking an ankle. Then I'd have a truly decent excuse for not watching movies. Or posting.

The List:
Superman Returns (2006) - 7; Shattered Glass (2003, IFC) - 6; Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove (2005, Sci-Fi) - 2; I Love You Again (1940, TCM); The Day Mars Invaded the Earth (1963, FMC), Cars (2006) - 6.