I’m back! I’ve been meaning to get back to doing this little segment since the blogs came back on-line and discovering the comments on my last post as inspired me to get to work. So I’m putting hereditary spherocytosis aside for the moment and focusing on this. I’m sure I’ll be much better off…

I’m going to have to update my movie lists on this page. I started keeping track of them in a spreadsheet with the blogs went down and I’ve really come to enjoy managing them that way. I also converted myself to a 10/10 system rather than a 4 star system. It’s really rather arbitrary to assign a rating to any movie, but it does help me keep track of things and it’s a nice way to give someone else a general idea of what you thought of a film without having to write a paragraph for each one you see.

November was a fairly productive month considering how busy work has gotten.

’50s: 1

’60s: 2

’70s: 2

’00s: 2

My sole new release and theater viewing was Quantum of Solace. I liked it particularly well and have the feeling that its reputation will increase with time. The action is sloppy and it’s overall a backstep from its immediate predecessor, but otherwise it’s one of the best Bonds. This same month I sat down to finally watch Lazenby’s sole outing as 007, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s an often mentioned installment when talking about the best Bonds of all time, but it didn’t quite reach that standard for me. I enjoyed it and Lazenby did an admirable job with the role. After slamming through the fourth wall with the force of a Daniel Craig lunge in the opening minutes Lazenby settles nicely but never establishes a presence that rivals the greats. He is minor Bond, despite his efforts here. The film includes one of the best Bond girls of all time and the final scene is utterly heartbreaking. That’s what really lifts the film, because otherwise it’s a bit of a snooze. Despite the villain being Blofeld himself, things are rather dull when it’s just Bond pretending to be a heraldry professor the entire middle act. It’s a respectable entry, far greater than the majority of Bond films, but it falls beneath Craig’s pair and most of Connery’s.

Roman Holiday is absolutely delightful and the best I saw all month. I didn’t care for A History of Violence much at all, while I enjoyed my introduction to Woody Allen and Peter O’Toole.

New Viewings:
Roman Holiday
A History of Violence
All the President’s Men
Annie Hall
Lawrence of Arabia
Quantum of Solace
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Rewatches: Robocop 2, Die Hard

Pretty much the most awesome channel on television right?

I started paying attention to ‘Turner Classic Movies’ in August, before I wasn’t really sure I got it, and since then it has pretty much taken over my movie viewings. Netflix in particular has been disseminated. In just a few days over three months I’ve seen 17 movies off the channel. I’ve probably lost close to 10 others before I got to view them when my DVR was purged last month. And I’ve got about half a dozen saved right now just waiting to be looked at. In comparison, I’ve seen 5 movies from Netflix over the same time period and 2 in movie theaters.

Get Carter
A Dog’s Life
The Circus
The Kid
City Lights
Modern Times
12 Angry Men
In the Heat of the Night
Soylent Green
On the Waterfront
Rear Window
High Noon
Bonnie and Clyde
A Night at the Opera
The Body Snatcher
Roman Holiday
All the President’s Men

I’ve started work on my simple review of the year in film for 2007.  It will of course consist only of my own opinions, what I personally liked and disliked.  At centerstage will be my own Top Ten for the year, more of a ‘favorites’ list than a ‘best of’ list, although most of the time those two things become the same.  I’ll also include a few other short paragraphs on what I thought of the year.

Why so late?  I have to see the films first.  No doubt I will only have scratched the surface of the films released in 2007 when I put out this list (by which time I will have seen, I estimate, just over 25 films from the year), but after Feb. 1 I think I will have seen just enough to put out that preliminary, end of the year list.  Why after Feb. 1?  Supposedly that’s when THERE WILL BE BLOOD finally arrives in my area.  So expect this to arrive in the first half of February, we’ll see how gentle life is to me during those few weeks.

First of all, I’d like to thank amberlita for her gift of sig banners. As you can see below, I wasn’t having much success with them on my own. But when I logged into the Icine forums tonight I got a wonderful bounty of banners that I’ll be using for some time now. Thanks again Amby.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to come to my little blog and read my posts and take a look at my movie lists. I do this blog with the full knowledge that it is likely no one will ever read what I write, but it’s much more fun to write when someone is reading. And as you can see, I tend to write more when I know people might take a peek. So thanks to everyone that has stopped by to read my posts these last few months.

Finally, my thanks to everyone who has left me comments over the past couple of months. They have all been really great posts. Both insightful on the current topic, and encouraging for me, the blogger. In turn, I’d like to encourage you to keep commenting if you have something you’d like to share. I reply to everyone’s comments, and it is really no hard task at all, because the comments have been so good. They may have all been short discussions so far, but they’ve been fun anyway.

One last thing, I’ve never been able to decide on a particular format, color scheme, etc for the blog. If anyone has any tips or suggestions, feel free to sling them my way.

In case you ended up here by clicking on my shoddy signature banner on the Icine forums, I’d like to officially apologize for the crudity of the work. That’s a beginner paint product for sure. But hey, it’s my first foray into this field in quite some time. And with other banners popping up all over the place, I figured it was time I got with the program. Besides, I missed having Andy Bernard attached to each and every one of my posts…

I kicked off the year with my first film viewing of 2008, Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein.  And with this first viewing comes a brand new page for 2008.  You’ll be able to find all of my ratings, along with a list of every new film I see in 2008, on the RATE 2008 page.  Currently, I have it structured just as I did ’07.  Also, I’ll be updating the ’07 page as I see more and more releases from the year.  In fact, I hope to see a few 2007 films this month.  As always, I do my best to keep my ‘Rate’ pages as up to date as possible.  If you are ever curious as to what I’ve seen or what I thought about it, look no further.

As the new  year rolls in I’m instituting my annual blog updates, which includes altering the Rate 2007 page.  Currently, you’ll find a list of the ’07 releases I’ve caught, as well as a tracking summary for all films I saw in 2007.  Expect more updates, as I continue to see ’07 releases into January and beyond.  I’ll also have a Top Ten list coming soon, but I’ve got more films to see before I feel comfortable in doing one.  I remember earlier in the decade when I wouldn’t even see 5 new releases in a year, and a couple of years ago when filling out a top ten list was a challenge.  This year, I will have seen about 25 films when I put out my initial Top Ten.  Since 2007 turned out to be a strong year, I think I’m going to have a very respectable Top Ten this year.  Better than last year…I hope.

Also, Cornerstone Primo is proud to discover that there was at least one blog visitor in 2007.  Congratulations to that lucky reader!  Your reward?  Uh…

I’ve always kept up with my ratings and rankings on the Icine message boards in the past, but once the year is gone the list threads always disappear into the abyss. So I’ve decided to start keeping up with them here as well. I’ve added a page for 2007 as well as a page for 2006. Both are up date, including all of the films that I have seen from those years. On the ’06 page, I included my top ten for the year. On the ’07 page, I have included all ‘old’ releases that I saw during this year as well. Take a look if you happen to be interested.

I’m really not sure what to include here at Cornerstone Primo just yet. I’ll post my movie reviews here, but those are few and far between. I’d like to include comments on new episodes of television serieses that I watch. Right now though, I’m left with little to say with lots of space to say it. I’m still working on the look and layout, but I have fixed up my “About” page. Feel free to leave comments and opinions, I’d love to read them, even if they are just a quick hello. Welcome to my blog!

Does anyone have an opinion on the blog title? Good? Bad? Ugly?

I’m still working on something to say…something witty perhaps?