2007 was a momentous year at the website, for good and bad. On the naughty side of the ledger, my six month sabbatical begun in 2006 deep into the new year. The idea was that a break would reenergize me. Sadly, the opposite occurred. I never really got back up to speed. My first review for 2007 was Under the Cherry Moon, but offerings have been fairly sparse since then. Meanwhile, the last several months saw me dithering whilst I avoiding confronting the Pip Vandergeld-requested Zabriskie Point.
Although new full reviews have been entirely too few, I do think they’ve been of a decent quality. Under the Cherry Moon, Rocky IV (with a fairly in-depth rundown of the first three films), Beach Girls and the Monster, the oft-requested Hawk the Slayer, Astro-Zombies and, finally, Zabriskie Point—posted the last day of the year, so that I wouldn’t carry that monkey on my back into 2008—represent at least, I think, some good material. Meanwhile, contributor Pip wallowed through much more dire much with Glitter and, especially, Dirty Love. (That’s right, Pip provided one review for every three I did. Yeesh.)
It was pretty much the same boat for Nuggets. Few, but hopefully entertaining. Titles included Future-Kill, Crossroads, The Yesterday Machine, Destination: Inner Space, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, and Gorilla at Large. One sign of how lame I was this year was that I did only a single The Hitchhiker and Challenge of the Superfriends review. This year I intend to get back to the monthly, alternate posting of those.
Blogging became a part of the Jabootu thing, although I must work on keeping that up while still writing reviews and such. I’d like to do at least a few daily posts, at least on the weekdays. I’ve included short DVD reviews, the occasional book review, general thoughts on the entertainment industry as they struck me, details of the week’s new DVDs, notices of what seemed especially good sales on interesting DVDs and other materials, etc. Any feedback as to what you guys would like to see more or less of, let me know. I will note that I’ve generally posted lightly on political stuff, and that’s intentional. There are plenty of superior political blogs out there without me throwing my redundant cap into the ring.
Amazing, it wasn’t until a reader mentioned that we had hit our 10th anniversary, marking the activation of the site’s first iteration Ken’s World of Awful Movies, that I realized we had just passed such an amazing date. I cravenly abused the occasion by whining for money, and you guys opened your wallets with embarrassing generosity, kicking in over $500. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to do that again, at least not until we hit our 20th anniversary.
I will ask Chris to install a tip jar on the new site while he’s in for B-Fest, and obviously appreciate anyone who feels like dropping in a five spot on occasion. I also truly appreciate the good folks who are hitting even a random Amazon link here before shopping at that store. That’s as far as it will go, though.
I will say that it’s cool to see that someone has bought something on my recommendation—the Arrested Development set, Latitude Zero, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special—even if I don’t specifically know who that person is. And again, thanks especially for the folks who just went through us before buying non-related items like cameras (that netted me $11, ching ching) and saucepans. I won’t beg for people to do this, but if you’re shopping there anyway, and it isn’t a hassle….
We’re not talking huge amounts of money here, of course. However, it all helps as I’m on a pretty severe personal economy drive this year. I wracked up about $50 in commission this last month. While I don’t expect to duplicate the Christmas shopping season very often, even a few bucks a month helps. These donations will allow me to buy the occasional movie I really want, like The Naked Prey, without busting my restricted budget this year. So, sincerely, thank you.
To anyone understandably annoyed at the Amazon product links that could be said to clutter up the site, I do apologize. I’ll try not to get out of hand for them, and not turn the blog solely into a shilling mechanism. I will say that I would not recommend something if I couldn’t actually, well, recommend it, and would never ask anyone to buy anything at Amazon is they could get it cheaper elsewhere. That said, Amazon is a pretty good operation (that free shipping over $25 is killer), and so I’m not straining my conscience by affiliating with them.
Last word on the financial front, I’ve also more or less decided to drop sponsoring, since I’m really bad at fulfilling my obligations as to requested articles. Katherine, I *will* get your review(s) up soon, though, I promise. You are a dynamite and patient lady.
I’m also not accepting applications for new contributors at this time. I tend to get these in spurts, and during the last quarter of the year had at least half a dozen people offering to write for the site. The easiest thing to do was just to say no to everyone. Believe me, it’s not that I think it likely the applicant isn’t “good enough.” Given the amazing quality of our contributors over the years, I’d say one could make a fair case that I’ve been our worst writer.
However, I kind of like having the site back to myself, with the occasional piece from, say, Pip or Chris whenever they get the urge. On the other hand, let me encourage anyone who wants to get into the reviewing game to just go ahead and do so. Blogging set-ups have made setting up a site the work of a couple of minutes, and it’s so simple even I have done it in the past. Let your freak flags fly, my brothers and sisters.
Thanks, again, to Chris and Pip and Paul, which a special Laurel and Hardy Handshake to our stalwart and much abused proofreaders Carl Fink and Bill Leary. You helped make 2007 a pretty good year despite my lack of participation; hopefully I’ll help you guys make 2008 our best year ever.
