Bravely Starting a New Blog

I've been keeping track of the books I read for a few years now, and more recently have been posting reviews of them to Goodreads and, where appropriate, the DorothyL mystery list. I've been wishing for a way to do the same with movies. The vast majority of films I see come from Netflix, which does keep a list of the items rented; there's also a review feature but it's only available to other customers. I looked into Flixster, but I don't care for its interface and general Facebookishness. So I decided the only way was to have a blog solely for my film reviews, and if no one else reads it that's fine too. I will link the films to IMDb, but to keep things simple, I won't link actors or directors unless I decide to discuss them in a general way, since IMDb has its own excellent linking system.

Right now my Netflix queue is at something like 497 (did you know there's a limit of 500?). We are on the 4-at-a-time plan, but Onkel Hankie Pants is allowed his own queue. (He gets one to my three, partly because he's often out at night to play rehearsals.)  Sometimes I watch his films, sometimes not, and vice versa.  I was amazed to read a few months ago in the New York Times Magazine that Netflix has actually offered a large prize to programmers who can help them get people to make their queues longer!  I have no trouble finding things I want to see. Although some are old television episodes I missed, the backlist of films I haven't seen is huge, for various reasons.  I also look at the New Releases section every so often to see what I can find.  I recently started working on reading the Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read, and the article noted those books which had been filmed. Since I generally prefer seeing the film before I read the book (otherwise I tend to be disappointed in the film), this helped me add a large number of films to my queue. And since my daughter Sisterfilms is a film student, she often recommends classic films for me to see.  I usually don't watch movies during the daytime at home, since I need time for reading, walking the dog, doing laundry, cooking etc. And I only watch television for special events like elections, the Olympics, state funerals, and such.

Anyway, I'll try to post each time I see a film or even old television episode. If anyone's reading, feel free to comment and/or recommend a film for me.