Welcome!

Welcome to my BLOG.  It won’t be pretty, it probably won’t be coherent, but I’ll be damned if you don’t get anything out of it.

What I’m attempting here is to provide the every-person with a platform upon which to begin their jump into the world of film-as-art, rather than film-as-not-art, if you know what I mean.  I won’t succumb to the follies of pretension, because I can’t tell you She’s Just Not That Into Me isn’t art; I’m neither qualified nor willing to make that judgment.  To me, all film is art to an extent, there are just some things I’d rather not watch.

You have to remember though, here at the outset of this adventure, that film is a business just like any other business.  It began with a marketable product and will inevitably end with a marketable product (or unmarketable I think, if it’s ending).  This dictates pretty much everything you see, whether it is “independent” or not.  Somebody somewhere had to decide that whoa, this is a good idea or that whoa, this could be our “big break”.  Unfortunately more often the latter than the former.

But!  Don’t despair just yet, because there are people out there who manage to subvert (and even manipulate) this capitalist path, and those films/people are who I wish to dedicate these page to.  I won’t constrain my efforts to purely current cinema, so forgive me if I tread in places that seem unfamiliar to you, but trust me, I’m coming from the same place.  I will do my best to provide a context that will guide a discussion of these films and filmmakers, as per the title, film.culture.etc.

The etc. part is where I’ll let personal opinion interfere, even though I suppose you could make the case that this entire blog is a personal opinion.  But more importantly, the etc. is my excuse for going off-topic and venturing to places outside the world of traditional film.  Things I find that intrigue me, or that I hope might intrigue you, I’ll post.  If I’ve stretched the limits, curb my enthusiasm and I’ll steer us back on course.  We’ll smooth out the bumps together.

To end this  introduction, I’ll leave you with a recommendation; something new that will hopefully entertain as much as intrigue.  I went to high school with one of the main characters and both the director and cinematographer graduated from NC School of the Arts (and have gone on to become great commercial successes too; see if you can find their most recent collaboration).  This, their debut feature, was shot in NC. 

The film this week: George Washington.  

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262432/

Peace.