The past seven days

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Why I haven't been blogging as much

If you're a regular reader of this blog you might have noticed that I haven't been posting as much news recently. I have been aware of it, obviously, and I figured I would tell you guys why that is.

The basic explanation is I don't have as much time. I have a job and I went back to school for the semester earlier in August. My days consist of waking up at 6am, going to school, coming home around for like an hour or so, and then turning around and going to work. By the time I get home I am just beat and when I do go online and read news stories and movie sites, I just don't feel like spending the extra time to write something up to share. I have been keeping up and I read my sites just about every day like I always did, but posting on here has been difficult. A good 13-14 hours of my day is eaten up away from my computer so it just is what it is.
In addition to this subject is I don't have the time to go see as many movies anymore. As it currently stands I have only seen 11 movies in theaters this year. By this time last year I had seen 20+ and the year before I was practically at the movie theater every weekend to see something. I had a lot more time and more to talk about and review. At this point a majority of news stories I could keep talking about I don't want to keep focusing on and that leads into this next reason.

I have hopped on board with a group of moviegoers who are sick and tired of spoilers. I watch the YouTube show, Pretty Much It, and they were the first ones I noticed that really started practicing this and I have seen how it changed their views on film. It seems that the studios are fine with releasing 3-5 trailers for each movie along with set photos, promo spots, and viral campaigns to get people excited. However, all it does is ruin the allure of the movie. I used to be one of those people to read and watch just about everything about an upcoming release that I was excited about, but when I saw the movie I would either be disappointed that all the good stuff was something I already saw in the trailers or that the good stuff I saw in the trailers wasn't even in the movie.

Recent examples of things I have limited myself on or stayed away from:

  1. Guardians of the Galaxy: I absolutely loved this movie, but I don't think I would have loved it as much if I would have read and/or watched as much as I did on previous Marvel releases. I watched the first two trailers and then decided to stop. I didn't watch interviews, I didn't look at promo photos past the first set that was released, etc.. I went in pretty fresh and I wound up enjoying that movie probably more than any previous Marvel release.
  2. Jurassic World: I was cool seeing the posters and the JW cars at SDCC and all that, but when I saw that people were leaking the Jurassic World maps and stuff like that I decided to step away. I'll watch a trailer but after that I'm done until the movie is released.
  3. Star Wars - Episode VII: I am curious about this new Star Wars film, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to spoil it for myself. I looked at the first set of photos that were leaked by TMZ but I am not going to look at any more until we get any official stuff. I will watch the trailer when it comes out and I will look at a set of promo photos but I'm stopping after that.
  4. Gone Girl: The trailer looked great so I am stopping before I have the entire movie ruined for me by promotions and viral marketing. 
  5. Interstellar: Again, the trailers look great and I don't think Christopher Nolan will disappoint with this one. Why keep watching for stuff that will ruin the movie?
  6. Mockingjay - Part 1: I am excited as all hell but after fully immersing myself in the marketing for Catching Fire, I want to leave myself some surprises for Mockingjay

When it comes time for trailers and promos to come for other 2015 releases such as The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Tomorrowland, Insidious: Chapter 3, and Ant-Man I will be very limited. My first real test with this whole way of viewing movies was Guardians of the Galaxy and I had such a good time that I'm irritated with myself about how I was watching movies before. Movies are supposed to be fun. They aren't supposed to be nitpicked and spoiled before you even walk into the theater. I don't think I even need to go into what happened with The Amazing Spider-Man 2
The same applies for television shows at this point. I haven't watched or looked at anything for the fifth season of The Walking Dead other than the initial trailer shown at SDCC. I watched everything leading up to season four and I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. I've been scrolling right past TWD posts on websites and on Facebook because I don't want the spoilers. I'm limiting myself on American Horror Story promos, too. I am watching the teasers but I don't think I'm going to watch the first full trailer or look at any other promotional stuff.


Now what does this mean for this blog? Well, there obviously won't be as many posts. I apologize for that if you're a regular reader and I appreciate you taking the time to read, but it's just gotten ridiculous lately. I will still post on here but I am being even more selective with what I post.

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