The Year in Film

It's been a relatively good year for the film industry. Whether you aspire to work in it like me, or you just enjoy going to the theater, overall it's been a pretty good year. There's been a good mix of something for everyone. And while the woes and pains of the distribution crisis are still being felt loud in clear in the indie film world, Hollywood, it seems, is beginning to make movies again.

My personal favorites this year, in no particular order:

1. The Hurt Locker

2. Up in the Air

3. Up

4. Star Trek

5. Watchmen

"Inglorious Bastards" and "Avatar" should probably also be on that list but I don't want to crowd the plate. "Watchmen" I think probably got the worst rap out of all of these but is on my personal favorites because it's still a great movie. It won't get any awards, but it at least raised some eye brows. Critics didn't like it and it disappointed a lot of the fans leading it to become this sort of ugly duckling of a movie. I'll admit that the giant blue penis did give me penis envy, but I'm not offended by it. For someone who is not really a fan boy or into the graphic novel scene, I thought it was an excellent story about the flaws in our "super hero worship" and it leaves me with a quote that echoes around in my head, "Who watches the watchmen?" Who indeed.

Everyone is saying that the reason this has been a better year for movies is because of the recession/depression we're all going through in the economy. I think there's a little more to it than that but it sounds good. I'm glad Hollywood is taking chances and created big escapist works of art again.

In the next year it will be interesting to see how Paramount uses it's "micro-budget" studio it just created that focuses on making movies for less than 100,000. I have a feeling that is going to be a red-headed step child for a while but I'm glad they're trying to make it work.

As for the year in television, I don't really know enough about to really say anything. I'm not a big TV guy even though most of the work I've had this year has been in TV. It's hard beast to be able to tackle. I enjoyed working on BBQ Pit Masters immensely but I'm not sure of what to make out of the ratings. Seems like television audiences are getting smaller and more niche. It's becoming harder to make that one show that everyone wants to tune into. That's about all I can say.

Hopefully this next year will bring more work and more experience. Of course, it would also be nice if production companies would get out of their "crisis" modes and start paying their employees what they are worth, as well as allowing for proper timing when it comes to prep and pre-production. At the end of the day though, it will just be nice to work. Eventually we'll make it through. At least lets all hope.