This site won’t officially go live until tomorrow morning, when I will begin posting articles and Oscar predictions, but I wanted something to get it rolling, and to start one of the weekly series I plan on doing.
I mentioned in my first post that Sacred Wall was inspired by the former Rope of Silicon website, and one of its highlights was a weekly feature called “What I Watched, What You Watched.” The purpose was for the site’s founder to inspire conversation amongst the community by listing the films and television he had watched that week, and giving the community a chance to chime in with their own viewings/reviews. I thought this was a great way to encourage a strong standard for the site’s followers-a group I still communicate with to this day, even without the site to unite us-and I wanted to continue it here. Now, I know that for the first few months I’m going to have few, if any, followers, so essentially I’m going to be bragging into the void about how many movies I watch a week. However, I hope that one day, if/when this site becomes successful, I can motivate a group of my own to engage each other and discuss the movies they liked and hated. And then when I move on from this site, some broken-hearted college grad will start his own website despite his lack of any coding skills whatsoever, and the cycle will continue. It’s the Circle of Life (Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba).
So without further ado, here’s the inaugural What I Watched, What You Watched. This week, I watched 5 ½ films. When I say half a film, I mean that I watched a spliced-together work print. And not just any work print. The work print. That’s right, I watched the 30 minute patchwork release of The Day The Clown Cried. The Mecca of Bad Movies. Jerry Lewis’ Holocaust comedy that is so bad, he refuses to release it in its entirety. And how was this nightmare? Ehhhh, not as bad as he thinks, but very much not good. As for actually released films, I started the week with Sisters. It was fine, because Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are goddesses, but honestly I didn’t find anything to write home about. Although I was surprised and impressed by the number of Broadway alums made appearances in it. After that I watched The Conjuring for the first time since its release, and honestly I think that film still holds up. It’s a bit corny, sure, but the thrills are real, the jump scares are earned, and the really stupid stuff serves as homage to the 70s. I suffered a dry spell until Friday, when I watched one of my all-time favorite comedies, Waiting for Guffman. Good God is that film funny. Christopher Guest’s Mockumentary Trilogy-Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind-is really a testament, and I’m looking forward to Mascots on Netflix. Saturday, I showed my family one of the best films of the year in Hail, Caesar!, which I quickly realized was too insider baseball for the general public, even if that’s what made me love it. Still, it’s the second-best film of the year right now, which you can read more about on Wednesday and Thursday. Finally, I watched The Big Wedding, because apparently I hate myself. This movie is as funny as an abortion, and I quickly realized the phrase “the film opens with Robert De Niro performing sex acts on Susan Sarandon from the POV of Sarandon’s privates” is a) graphically accurate; and b) not a good enough reason to see a movie. I do not recommend this. Not one bit.
As for television, I’m pretty lax when it comes to summer viewing-a rerun of Modern Family or How I Met Your Mother here or there, Jeopardy in the evening, etc. Honestly, there are only two shows I follow, neither of which I take seriously: The Bachelorette, which I use to get drunk and watch Chad, and Girl Meets World, which I get way too into considering it’s a Disney Channel show, but ya know what? I once knew a highly talented critic who spent his free time watching Dog With a Blog, so I say taste is subjective, and words hurt, buddy.
That’s it for this week. Here’s hoping this inspires a community down the road; I’m excited to see how it grows. Other than that, I’ll see you all tomorrow as the news starts to roll in and the Oscars predictions begin to go up.
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