Take 2

Hello and welcome once again,

As with any new hobby, once you get started there is going to be a test and adjust phase as you figure out what you like and dislike about it; narrowing down to what best suits your individual desire to do said hobby. When I started the blog a whole two posts ago, I knew I wanted to continue writing and sharing my love for movies, even if it is just for my self-help journal. I knew that the new blog had to pay homage to something that had meaning to me and wanted to keep a part of it going for it to not be lost in passaging time, which is/was The Great Movie Ride, since my initial concept of this blog; I have taken many walks which is when I do my best thinking and what I accept is this is my blog and my great movie journey, why am I going to talk about every single movie I watch if I don’t feel strongly about it, there are a hundreds of blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels devoted to reviewing movies with most leaning to finding the negativity in each movie. As of writing this I currently have a collection of 1,562 DVDs & Blu-Rays that I keep track of using https://www.mymovies.dk which I highly recommend if you have a movie collection that you want to catalog. While I have this many movies it from years and years of collecting since DVD’s became a thing which my mother back then said would not last, as we bought my first DVD player a Toshiba from Service Merchandise, remember then, it came with Lost in Space, The Devil’s Advocate, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Lethal Weapon and then the first movie I remember buying on DVD is You’ve Got Mail. Now back then I was still living at home with my parents and movie night was a big deal for me in our house; we would rent a movie and many times buy a movie taking a chance on if it would be good if nothing else it was one more for the collection and of course I had to also own a copy of every movie I watched good or bad back then. Fast forward many years to the present day times have changed, I have changed and when you have a wife, son, mortgage and car payments money become a factor to where selective buying comes in also back then you had one or two movies hitting DVD a week now you have dozens coming out weekly. Most of the movies in my collection have come from my own selection, some got absorbed when I got married and my wife’s little collection merged in and a few I have gotten from people that just wanted to down size their collection. With money being a factor in the slowed growth of the collection another factor came in which is age, as I have gotten older my appreciation for the art of film making has changed, movies I used to find dull and boring are now some of my favorites. I have instead of trying to own a copy of everything I watch to only allowing those that mean something to me personally, a glimpse of nostalgia from my past or a title I saw at the right time when I was going through something or just purely guilty pleasure entertained me. The biggest question I ask myself now when I add a movie into the collection will I ever want to watch this again and that is where we are going with this blog, I am going to start at the beginning of the collection and rewatch my movies, if they are in my household its a for a reason, I’m going to rewatch them and see do they still belong in the collection, I do need to trim down the space it takes, while I will never get rid of a movie some storage solution may be required for some to slim down the display space required in our living room, as we age our life experiences impact how we view a movie does a movie I bought decades ago come across different now. There will be some automatic passes, as I am quite proud of my Disney, Animation and Musical collection sizes so while some may not be worthy individually anymore on a whole they play an important part. Also those that are part of a franchise the completionist in me won’t allow them to be separated. While I will try to go in order there will be times a sequel, prequel or reboot will be coming out that I want to revisit the original and I want to continue to grow my collection so I will bring in new releases at times. That is another thing I have become more selective in my going out to the movies as to going to what trailers or buzz sparks and interest, where it comes into play on our journey through the movies is if its worthy of pre-order into my collection for me. While this blog is very much about  me and my interest, there are those that like me maybe a child of the 80’s looking to relive certain memories or you find your watching habits similar to mine and if I can guide you into discovering new movies to experience or just entertained by my journey, your more than welcome to take a seat and enjoy this journey as I take you through some of my favorite movies of yesterday and today.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

Tonight we had family movie night and put our HBO Max subscription to use as our son wanted to see this, but not enough to go to the theater to see it, and even I know my limits. While the original the first Space Jam from 1996, I can appreciate how it's aged and its place in that time of movie history; it doesn't hold that big a place in my heart as some hold it, mainly since I am not a sports fan. This one feels that there were many forcing things into place just to get the sequel made, and then because of HBO Max shoehorn in as many character cameos they could get even if they come off as the Spirit Halloween store version of the costumes. Now that I spoiled that little bit for you, here's a little bit of what happens leading up to the big event. We get a little bit of young Lebron James at the beginning that doesn't add much of anything, then we catch up with Lebron and his fake family; I found this nagging at me that its about real-life person Lebron James in the modern day where he is in his career, but its a fictional family.  While Lebron James has been advancing his basketball career, Warner Bros has been trying to out-tech Apple and Google with the Warner 3000, a giant underground server network that has a self-aware algorithm running it and decides it has the greatest idea ever, putting Lebron into all the Warner Bros properties when this algorithm's plan is laughed at, the program decides to go full-on Tron and bring Lebron and his son into the server universe, and the only way out is for Lebron and his son to captain teams opposite of each other. Because like all sports movies with a parent and child, there is the divide where the kid wants to do one thing, and the parent wants the kid to follow in their footsteps and learn to let them go their own way. Lebron gets sent to the Tuneverse, where he finds Bugs Bunny, who convinces Lebron they need the Tune gang as the ultimate team; this leads to what I found most entertaining in the movie is these little like SNL sketches of Lebron and Looney Tune characters injected in cartoon and movie scenes. His son goes off to build a team of other basketball players that are monsterized into the Goon Squad. Then its time for the main event and Lebron to learn some lessons on individuality while the fate of thousands of digitally imported fans from around the world, don't ask, relies on him winning the game, or all the spectators will spend the rest of their lives in the server verse. This is a total throw-away movie; I do not see it having the lasting impact Space Jam has had in culture. It was enjoyable seeing Sonequa Martin-Green outside of the Star Trek universe, even though she is not given as much to do as she could have. If you are a Lebron James fan, this commercial will be for you. There are some entertaining Looney Tunes moments, but if that's what you want, just go watch the actual cartoons. I gave this 1.5 stars only because of those Looney Tune moments; otherwise, it would be a 1-star.

Hello and Welcome

At this time, I’d like to ask everybody to please remain seated throughout the post and keep your hands and arms within the chair at all times. My name is Alex, and I’ll be your guide during my magical journey through the movies.

Those lines have been altered from the original script for The Great Movie Ride, which was my favorite ride ever until the decision by some big wig came down to replace it at Disney’s Hollywood Studios with Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. I have always been a fan and admirer of movies, film, cinema, whatever you like to call it. Over the years, I have off and on tried to do a review website of what I watched and found I was just one of many doing the same thing and getting lost in all the noise from others. Then the other day, I felt nostalgic; remembering The Great Movie Ride and movies coming back, I wanted to set a challenge for myself to start catching up with the film; over the past year, I have fallen into a sort of depressional slump, can’t imagine why. I want to outdo the number of movies I watch in a given year and thought, what if I made a journal of my journey through watching the screens then the idea came to pay homage to something that I loved, which is where you find yourself now. Where the guide’s on the ride took you through the greatest movies of yesterday and today, as your guide, I will take you through what I watch and my commentary on those movies, hoping to guide readers when the question of what should I watch decision occurs when you can’t decide what to watch. Eventually, I want to do a weekly podcast recapping my thoughts on what I watched for the week; I am just in my headspace and self-confidence, not ready to go there quite yet. Let this post be the loading platform for this journey I am about to head out on, and on 12/31/2021, I will come back to unload and see how it went, then maybe go for another round.

I use a site called Letterboxd, a social media platform for film fans, and it is what I use to track my watching and statistics; if you would like to follow me there, here is a link https://boxd.it/288mT. The year I had watched the most movies was in 2016 when I started keeping records; I watched 290 films that year, this year I am trying for 300; we are just about halfway through the year, and I have already watched 162 this year, which sets the goal as obtainable if I apply focus and determination. I will try to post after each movie, sometimes though working retail is my main job while having a family life, weeks can get pretty filled up, and I may have to do a weekly post on occasion. The posts will not be typical movie reviews; as I mentioned before, those are a dime a dozen on the internet, these will be of my thoughts and feelings towards a particular title; there may be occasional spoilers that happen when we talk about movies. I’m not out seeing how many readers I can get or how much ad revenue I can produce; this is just me and my thoughts if I help you decide to see a movie or not or discover some weird title you would never have heard about, but enjoyed then my work here is complete.

Enough introductions. It’s showtime. Ready when you are C.B.