Curtain Call for '07?

Wow. December. Where did the year go? And not only are we fast approaching the holidays, but you know things are gearing up when you start to see "Best Of" lists pop up, such as here and here.

So what does all this mean? Not much in the real world, but I love lists as much as the next guy and I thoroughly enjoy creating them each year. Typically, December is my catch-up month. By my notations, I've already seen 114 theatrical releases this year (either in the theater or on DVD) and it's been 2 films a day for the past week or so. I'm catching up with '07 releases such as Jafar Panahi's "Offside", Johnny To's "Exiled" (which I'm super psyched about, being the To devotee I am), Charles Burnett's re-release of "Killer of Sheep", Gregory Wilson's "The Girl Next Door", Tsai Ming-Ling's "I Don't Want To Sleep Alone", Rolf de Heers' "Ten Canoes" and whatever other new releases pop up on the home video radar soon. This'll go on until the first or second week in January as I gorge myself on all possible '07 releases, which makes me feel somewhat comfortable that I've seen a fair retrospective of this year's notable features. I don't know why I do it... it's an obsession and it makes me feel better, ok. You guys in the film blog world understand my pain.

Add to that, we still have some pretty incredible films on the horizon in theaters. This week Dallas gets "Juno", "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", "Margot At the Wedding" and "Atonement". Upcoming is "There Will Be Blood", "Sweeney Todd" and a few others I'm sure I'm forgetting. In my opinion, '07 has been a pretty rich year for filmmaking and I hope it continues.

I can also add that I feel particularly enthused about my movie-watching this year. Not only did I meet or exceed alot of my pre-ordained goals, but my posting on this particular blog increased dramatically as well as my contributions to Talking Moviezzz. And I owe so much of that to you, my blog community friends. The idea of posting about a certain idea or film spurred my writing interests and gave me something to accomplish. For example, all the talk about "No Country For Old Men" that kicked up (and is still kicking heavily) got me to the theater probably a week or so earlier than I usually might have. The idea of writing about a film and seeing it whirlwind around the net with intelligent discussions is a pretty liberating feeling. There was something like this on old movie boards, but not with the zest, visual flare and authenticity that exists on blogs today. I just count myself as a lucky person who heard a friend talking about "blogs" back in '04 and finally hurled myself into gear in late '05. I've enjoyed every bit of this experience and look forward to next year.

So, enough treacle and with that I'm off to watch "Exiled". Thanks everyone.