In the beginning man created the stories and the images. And the pictures were without movement, and colorless; and stillness was on the face of the images. And actors moved upon the stage breathing life into the stories. And people said, this is pretty cool we should find someway to capture these images and play them back. And then Muybridge figured out how to take a bunch of consecutive pictures of horses, the Lumiere brothers recorded a train and scared some French people, and some other stuff happened. I don’t remember the exact progression because professor Barron is INCREDIBLY boring, but moral of the story is in no time Charlie Chaplin was swinging his cane around and Buster Keaton was busy not reacting to things.
And then there were critics. And the critics saw film, that it was good and they made a firmament in the movies and divided the films that were below the standards of the firmament and those that were above the standards of the firmament. And the critics called the firmament The Academy Awards. And the critics had these things called credentials, which they got by studying the humanities, demonstrating their skills of comprehension, critical thinking, and rudimentary analysis. And the people trusted the critics, as these people didn’t have enough dimes to see just any movie they so desired.
And then there was TV. And the people no longer needed the dimes or the critics, because they could watch whatever the hell they wanted for one fixed rate. But the critics continued to think critically and to analyze and to publish their opinions for the people. But the people had begun to form their own opinions and at times found that they were quite different from that of the critics. And the people lost faith in the critics and watched “Home Improvement” anyway. And the critics wept. But the critics took solace in knowing that they were learned and were still alone in their ability to publish and disseminate their opinions.
And then there was blog, and the people soon found that there were many websites that discussed the movies and televisions. And there were unnecessarily detailed episodes recaps, and long winded critiques, and arbitrary lists of ‘best’ moments in cinema and television. And the people learned that they too could discuss the movies and televisions on a global scale by clicking the great ‘comment’ button. And soon the people grew restless with the character restrictions in the ‘comment’ section, and they realized that they too could blog even if they lacked the grammars. And as the people blogged with a lack of attention to spelling and commas they saw their opinions, that they were good. And if anyone mention to the people their lack of credentials or their incomplete knowledge of the history of the films and televisions the people would say ‘This is America! I have the right to my opinion!’ And this was somehow an acceptable answer. And the people young and old, learned and unlearned, angry and sarcastic took to the internets and spoke of the films and televisions with great importance and certainty. For they had the blogs.
And now so do I. So suck it, commas! You’ll just have to brace yourself for the wild unmanageable torrent of my quasi-informed opinions, temporary whims, and massive hyperbole. You see I plan on doing an incredibly amount of catching up on films and TV and know that I will feel compelled to talk about them. As a lifelong lover of media and the holder of a degree in the films and televisions, I do think I have some claim to pontificate and ramble on about such things but even if I didn’t I probably would anyway. I can’t promise this blog will be perfect but I can promise it will be my own. My take on (mostly) TV and film for anyone who dare read it, and as far as I’m concerned its a damn good take on them that with any luck is humorous, insightful, and entertaining.
