A Video review for my first new film of 2025.
One of Them Days (2025)
Tag Archives: KAMAD
End of the Year Wrap Up
It’s that time, when we look back at the last year and consider our accomplishments and our failures. Everyone has high and low points that make up their lives, and some of us feel the necessity of sharing that information with others. This blog is focused on movies, so you won’t read about car troubles, health issues, tax problems or insurance frustrations. There are other venues for that. Here, we talk about movies and the experiences in our lives that surround our movie going. As a blogger/podcaster , it is easy for me to inventory some of these things that I do each year, because there is a record of them.
So, here we go.
Top Ten Films of the year. Look for the video for this at the end of this post.
10. Godzilla Minus One
I would never have thought I’d have a Godzilla movie on a “Best Of” List, but here it is. It narrowly beat out “Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse”, and it may have done so because of recency bias. This was a great Kaiju film that shows all those “Transformer/Pacific Rim/Monarch based Godzilla” films, how this should be done. Give us characters we care about before you start killing them of making them just plot devices for the destruction of the big monster. This is a film from Japan, with all Japanese actors and I had to read subtitles, but it was still more engaging to me than “Godzilla vs. Kong”.
The special effects seem to combine the traditional man in a suit wit some CGI to make Godzilla come to life. There are a couple of scenes of mass destruction, which mix the actors with the CGI work pretty effectively. There is a nice sense of Japanese redemption after the war, and there is no real finger-pointing about the atomic weapons, making this a non-political but still philosophical story.
9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
There seems to be a lull in the love of comic book movies. The DCEU has never taken off the way it might be expected to, but even the vaunted MCU has petered out. “Ant-Man and the WASP :Quantumania” fell flat, and “The Marvels” was a huge financial flop, and did not do much better critically. Fortunately we got this final entry in the Guardians franchise, wrapping up loose story lines, but more importantly exploring the origins of our favorite misanthropic marsupial.
Although the soundtrack selections are not as familiar as the other entries, there are still several awesome needle drops. The set pieces in the movie are inventive, but the passageway battle leading to the conclusion is the best. “No Sleep til Brooklyn” was a great choice and I am not a Beastie Boys fan.
The film also contains the most emotionally wrenching scene in all of the MCU. Make sure you have Kleenex handy.
8. SISU
.jpg)
This is a second non-English language film on my list. It is a simple story of retribution and revenge against Nazis, so there is no equivocation about who the bad guys are. This film contains some of the most over the top violence on screen this year, which is precisely why it ended up on my list. It is always satisfying to see the injustices of the evil, being corrected in the most direct way possible.
Our hero is hardly heroic, he has no dialogue until the very final moment of the movie. Still, he made us laugh a few times at his determination and brutality. If all of Finland had been like him, the Nazis might have decided to skip the rest of the war and go home and hide.
The score for the film is almost as brutal and is a nice counterpunch to the laughs that some of the violence provokes. I may not be a good person, I loved this too much.
7. Sound of Freedom
The brutality of “SISU” is imaginary, the story in this film is equally brutal, but it hits home in a completely different way, one that will not make you laugh, and certainly not comfortable. This movie sat on a shelf for three years because the studio was timid. The producers bought back the rights, released it in an innovative way, and hit paydirt financially but also artistically.
Let me warn you, the opening scenes of the movie will make you sick, especially if you are a parent. Nightmares begin this way and the truly terrible truth is that these stories are real. Jim Caviezel looked so different to me, that I did not realize he was the star until halfway through the film. That may also be a function of the suspense that this movie manages to build as well. The final segment may have been invented for the movie, but it plays very realistically and will tighten your sphincter.
6. Maestro
Netflix does not always make it’s films available to theaters. One of the reasons that the AMC Best Picture Showcase has vanished is that the theater chain won’t play a film that was not offered to it for screening. This year, Netflix did make the film available to exhibitors, for one week.
That is a ridiculous window for fans who want to see a movie, and I was fortunate that I had a local theater that made the effort to get the movie, otherwise it would not have been included on my list. Bradley Cooper, co-wrote, directed and stars in this unusual biopic about a towering cultural figure of the 20th Century.
This is not a greatest hits, by the numbers story. I focuses more on the relationship of Leonard Bernstein to his wife than on his compositions and conducting. Carey Mulligan is fantastic as Felicia Montealegre, the actress married to bi-sexual Bernstein.
5. Wonka
I did not have high hopes for this film. I did not think that we needed another version of Roald Dahl’s famous chocolate maker. I was wrong. This was exactly what we needed at this holiday season. A well made, beautiful story that families can enjoy together.
Add on top of everything else, it is a musical, and the songs are great. There is not a show stopper that you will be whistling on your way out of the theater, but the songs are tuneful, utilitarian for the story, and you can actually understand the amusing lyrics.
The other thing that is great about the movie is that it respects the 1971 Gene Wilder film, while still being it’s own movie. There are subtle nods to the production design of that fifty year old movie and to the performance of it’s star.
Oh yeah, we also get the cranky Hugh Grant as a cranky Oompa Loompa.
4. Air
This is a movie about a shoe.
Okay, it’s really a movie about how the Nike Company became the biggest firm in shoe business, by nabbing Michael Jordan at the start of his career. It’s about how the shoe came about, how it was marketed and how consumer demands are both met and created by clever people in the industries that they work in.
Matt Damon, Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck portray the key men behind the scenes at the biggest marketing coup since Evian filled a plastic bottle with water. Viola Davis shows up as the iron-willed mother of the future superstar, and we can see where he gets his determination from
3. The Holdovers
The grown ups are still here, and they are still making quality films that are not aimed at teen aged boys. Alexander Payne bounces back from the underwhelming “Downsizing” to score with another entry into the private schools boarding genre. Dead Poets Society”, The Emperor’s Club” and “”Scent of a Woman” have a companion, and it features the formidable Paul Giamatti.
Mr. Hunham is not warm and fuzzy like Robin William’s Mr. Keating. He is prickly, demanding and he smells bad. Da’vine Joy Randolph provides a little warmth, and she is likely to win the supporting actress Academy Award, but in the end, the movie reflects the times, sometimes bitter and cynical.
This will be a Christmas movie to add to your annual viewing pleasure, and it will add pleasure to your annual holiday viewing.
2. Oppenheimer
The good half of last summers Barbenheimer phenomenon. This is another biopic, but it is not just about Robert Oppenheimer, but also about his progeny, the atomic age. It is a WWII movie without combat, a spy film without spies, and a heroic scientist who ends up being treated like anything but a hero.
Christopher Nolan should be polishing up his speaking skills, he will be giving a multitude of acceptance speeches this winter as he collects award for writing, producing and directing this film.
Cillian Murphy is hypnotic as the title character and will give Bradley Cooper and Paul Giamatti all they can handle in competition for acting honors.
This is a film that justifies the existence of the more high end theaters out there, with IMAX/XD/70MM. The sound design on it’s own might be enough to justify seeing the movie
1. Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant
Originally called “The Interpreter”, the film’s title was changed to “The Covenant”, and then because there is a 2006 film with that title, the director’s name was added to the title. Regardless, it is certainly a change of pace from the kinds of films Ritchie is known for. He had another film out in March, and both of them were largely ignored. The fate of “Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre” was deserved, but the neglect of this film is unfathomable.
This is a gritty war film, set in Afghanistan, and reflects the shameful way we treated many of our allies in that conflict. This is based on a real story, one that is harrowing for both of the individuals at it’s center. It is also a great piece of suspenseful film making, that kept my body tense for two hours.
The performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim will go unrecognized by Awards groups but they will be remembered by you.
Film Breakdown
I saw 120 films in theaters this year, what is truly amazing to me is how they divided up.
I was perfectly divided between new films and those that were revisits. As a fairly recent transplant to the Austin Area, I needed to find a supplier of classic films, living in Southern California made finding screenings easy. Fortunately, I found a dealer for my addiction pretty quickly. In addition to the Fathom Events at the chain theaters, Alamo Drafthouse provided some excellent opportunities to see older films on the big screen. All of that however was dwarfed by my new favorite place, The Paramount Theater in downtown Austin.
In fact, we were at the Paramount so often, that Erin, from their outreach program, reached out to us to interview and included us in the latest fundraising e-mail update.
I can hardly wait for the 50th Summer Season at the Paramount this coming Summer.
Throwback Thursday Project
My plan had been to post weekly on this project, but I was at so many movies during the week, I fell behind by October. The 1975 project will continue for the next few months, bit here is a piece of data for the films I did cover.
There were six 1975 films that I had not seen before, including an obscure Robert Shaw film that I had to buy on VHS thru ebay to be able to own it. Also, the same year he won the Academy Award for Cuckoo’s Nest, Jack Nicolson appeared in the hard to locate “The Passenger”.
The Lambcast Podcast
I’m the host of the LAMBcast, the official podcast of the Large Association of Movie Blogs (The LAMB). Each week we have guests on the show who talk about movie related subjects. Of the fifty shows we did this year, I hosted forty six, and guest hosts covered the rest. The shows broke down like this:
Obviously we had twelve Movies of the Month, but we also averaged one new movie each month. There are several theme shows that included doing lists like :Off the Beaten Path, Roll Your Own Top 5, and Blindspot Alley. We had two draft shows, including a very fun 1980s Fantasy Film Draft. If you have not listened, you can find the shows on most of the services, i-tunes, Spotify etc. The easiest is Podamatic.
YouTube Channel
Starting last April, I also began posting the Lambcast on YouTube. Instead of five talking heads, each show features images from the movies we are talking about and some connective illustrations as well.
It is a time consuming process, but I am picking up some tech skills as I try to make the content as interesting as I can.
Top Ten Favorite Films 2023 The Video
KAMAD Throwback Thursdays 1975 “Shampoo”
Throwback Thursday #TBT
Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don’t see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.
Shampoo
This is a social satire from 1975, set on Election night 1968. In spite of the references to the events in the news, there is really no political content here. The satire is about social mores and behaviors, not about public policy and politicians. It starts out as a comedy, but the closer it gets to the end, it turns into a cautionary tragedy.
Warren Beatty plays a self absorbed hairdresser, probably modeled after real life celebrity hairdressers like Jay Sebring and Jon Peters. George seems to have chosen the profession because it gives him access to beautiful women while at the same time deflecting the attention of their husbands because after all, hairdressers are all gay right, so what’s to worry about.The comedic component comes in the form of all the love triangles that George ends up in. He has a girlfriend, who sort of dates a producer who might cast her in his latest movie. George is having an affair with the wife of a well known businessman, who is himself having an affair with Georges ex-girlfriend, who George still wants to be with. It never quite turns into a farce, but all of the figures do cross paths at some point and George can hardly catch his breath to keep up with his own libido.
Ther cast of this movie is stock full of well known players. In addition to Beatty, there is Lee Grant, Jack Warden, Goldie Hawn, and Julie Christie. The characters all fit some pretty easy stereotypes and the casting gives us a shorthand in their emotions. Hawn is a neurotic innocent, Grant is a clingy harpy and Christie is a conflicted ice queen. Jack Warden was nominated for supporting actor playing a businessman who is thoughtless of his family and mistress. You would almost assume that George is going to be some kind of hero. In the end, George is the one who after hurting everyone else, discovers that he is growing up a little late in life.
Beatty plays George as a sexual Peter Pan, excited by all the women he meets, at least for a moment. He claims to care for Jill, his girlfriend, but he can’t be bothered to listen to her when she is trying to ask him about a career choice that could alter both their lives. Lee Grant’s Felicia is someone he can use and then dash off to meet another woman. Jill, the woman played by Christie, is someone George thinks he needs, but it is only coincidence that brings them back together. He nearly breaks up an opportunity for her to find the security she has always looked for, and his emotional manipulation leaves him and her devested in the end. The script, which Beatty co-wrote with screenwriting legend Robert Towne, has George constantly speaking in some scenes, but never paying attention to the people he is speaking to or even himself. George seems to have an attention deficit and his conversation skills and the speed with which he blazes past everyone else (except Warden’s Lester), might make you uncomfortable to watch.
Carrie Fisher famously made her film debut in this movie as Lester and Felicia’s daughter, another woman that George does not have the sense to stay away from. It seems pretty obvious that he has enjoyed the libertine lifestyle for a number of years, as he has a loyal cotrie of admiring women pursuing his profession service as a stylist as well as his side work as lover. He feigns respect for Jill and he convinces himself that he really does love Jill, but those emotions just don’t ring true in the end.
There is an odd moment toward the climax off the story, when things start to fall apart for George and he goes to work to reassert some control in his life. He learns that the son of the shop owner has been killed. It is not clear if this is a moment that forces him to confront reality in his life or if it is another opportunity to deceive himself into seeing his place in the world as being special. The film seems to end abruptly, and we don’t get the coda scrawl that is so typical of movies in the last twenty years.
I sa this film at the Garfield Theater on the corner of Garfield and Valley Blvd. My friend Art and I walked down from my house to the movie, after I had a blow-up with my little brother and a temper tantrum that probably scared my Mom. There was a lot of tension in our house and I can’t quite remember which side of a family tragedy this happened on. I just know I was embarrassed to lose it infront of my Mom and friend, and as usual, a movie was an escape for me from the realities of my own life.
80s Nostalgia Central
If you were not aware, I am in essence, continuing the original project that launched this blog, with another project focused on the Summer Movies of the 1980s. We are only a few days in so it would be easy to catch up. Those of you who have followed or subscribed to this Web Site are encouraged to do the same on this new project. The Kirkham A Movie A Day blog page will continue, this is just something extra for the Summer Season. Come on over and have some fun.
KAMAD Video History
Although this is a standard blog, focusing on written material, I have tried to include Video Podcast/Vlogs from the earliest time of the blog. Here is a lookback at the history of Video Posts. You can monitor the weight gain and hair color/loss along the way.
This page has two brief videos about this projects first round of Jaws material.
A couple of weeks later I did a short discussion on the process I used in finding movies for the Summer Project. Very informal but the Summer attire is typical of my wardrobe in the summer.
It would be a couple of years before the next VLOG link on the KAMAD Blog page. there are multiple posts on the link but the video here was lengthy and really fun. If you are also a Jaws fan, 43 minutes isn’t too much time do you think?
Amanda and I also did a double VLOG on two classics we saw on the same day, Lawrence of Arabia and Vertigo.
A long day at the movies capped off by two video posts. That was a full movie experience.
We were a little carried away that month, so we tried another video just a couple of weeks later on Swashbuckling films.
For Father’s day that year, I got a double dose of Sean Connery and thought a brief Vlog would cover it.
It took another year before there was another video for the blog. This was an Unboxing Video that featured a Lootcrate Special “Aliens” package.
I mentioned “The Title Pending Movie Podcast” on my previous look back post concerning podcast history. They had a Summer Movie Draft each year and it was a lot of fun to listen to the wrap up when the winner was revealed. However, in their last year they stopped doing the podcast before they did the Summer Draft Wrap Up. I took it on myself to remedy that and I posted a smart ass hi-jack of their show.
Fogs and crew actually responded by putting together one final podcast and they took my comments with the humor it was all intended for in the first place. Unfortunately the podcast is no longer available for me to post a link to.
Amanda and I started to do a series of Vlogs on “The Essentials”, films designated by TCM as important to movie history. We only did three or four before we got side tracked but here is a pretty good example of what it entailed.
I’d like to come back to this project when I can.
My most recent Vlog Post was an extended defense and re-evaluation of “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood”
If you are interested, there are a number of film reviews you can find at the KAMAD Vlog. Also if you dig around the First week of January for the last five years, there is a video to accompany my Ten Favorite film list for each of those years.
I know most of you will probably not go deep on these look back post, but when Covid 19 has you locked in your house for extended periods, I enjoyed doing this, I hope you will enjoy some of it as well.
10 Year Anniversary Data Dive
If you are a data junkie, this post is for you. My admittedly small reader base has gone up and down and up again over the years. Sometimes it is clear why, a good movie year will drive readers to your site. Sometimes it is a mystery, large numbers show up and you wonder if Russian Bots have taken over. For this review I have simply used the data that Google has given me for my blogger site. I have not attempted to include the data from the second site on WordPress, even though there are more subscribers there. Blogger is where I started so I feel I should stick to that for a lookback on this Anniversary.
The first set of numbers for you was the easiest to obtain. This comes straight from the analytics of the KAMAD Site.
All Time Numbers
I see inconsistent numbers between the summary that Blogger provides and the individual numbers on the separate posts. Rather than argue about it, I will simply show you the numbers as I found them. I can say that the Post Most Visited on my site is consistent between the above total and the individual post total. You might wonder why “The Deep” is the most popular post in the ten years I’ve been working on this blog. My guess is that it is because of one of the pictures included in the post. Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-Shirt probably comes up in an image search and perverts everywhere can’t resist. Click on the link provided and check for yourself.
The Original Project
I started this blog with a project, writing about the films I saw as a youth in the 1970s, in particular, Summer releases. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, about 95 films were included in that project. The numbers for that series of posts looks like this:
I have already explained why I think “The Deep” did so well. “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” is a perennial favorite with film fans so I’m not too surprised it drew a crowd. It is also a very personal reflection so I’m happy it made the list. The other three films are oddities that most people won’t remember, and this may be one of the few sites that bothers with them.
2011 The Launch of the Blog in It’s Current Form
When the new year came around, I switched the format of the blog to a review site, with the intention of posting a review of every movie I see in a theater. I don’t always post on second or third or more viewings of contemporary films, but I do often have a fresh post on classics, regardless of the number of times I have seen them [JAWS and Lawrence of Arabia come to mind].
I’m proud to say that “Jaws” makes it’s second appearance on the blog with the most popular post from 2011. This was part of a Robert Shaw Film Festival Event I ran on the site. “Rubber” was a film I saw on the USC Campus. I was generous in my initial response by not hating it, but by the end of the year, I had put it in it’s proper place. The Robert Shaw Film Festival scored another spot on the most popular posts on the site with a James Bond Film, “From Russia With Love“. “The Captains” is actually a VOD film that I went ahead and posted on because of the subject. We also went to three separate screenings of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, a Fathom Event that was an advertisement for the Blu-Ray release. “The Two Towers” got the most attention from my audience.
2012 Hitting My Stride
Once I got rolling, the blog became a ritual. I posted immediately after the film screening. I hated not having the review up as soon as possible. 2012 has the second largest number of entries of any year that I have done the site. It also contains one of my favorite film experiences of the whole decade, the lead up to “Skyfall“.
Although there are several 007 posts this year, it was my controversial review of “Cabin in the Woods” that got the most eyeballs. I was disappointed and everyone else was enthused. So maybe it is the counter direction that made it the post to see this year. I’m not sure why the Gothic horror film starring Daniel Radcliffe was number two, but it does feature scary little girls. Two of the thirteen James Bond posts that I did in relation to “Skyfall” made this top five list. “Countdown to Skyfall Part Five” featured the Roger Moore era of James Bond films. “Countdown to Skyfall Part Four” featured the 007 outings of Pierce Brosnan. “The Archlight Poster Wall” was a visual essay of envy.
2013 We Start Getting Serious
This was the year that I saw my first big jump in numbers and I think it had to do with the films rather than any internet trend or technology glitch. There is one film on the list that surprised me by it’s inclusion, but it does contain a reference to a major female star and near nudity, so that is probably the explanation.
One of the things that happens when you go on line is that you meet people. I started reading another blog and as I posted on his site, we started to become friendly. He told me of his childhood Thanksgivings being centered around “King Kong” on a New York TV Channels. That Inspired a Triple Feature on the Three major “King Kong Films“. Eric Friedman, you are responsible for my number one post this year. Simon Pegg’s starring role in Edgar Wright’s “The World’s End” made my end of the year list, so that combined with it’s cult status probably explains these numbers. “We’re the Millers” is the odd film out here. As I explained above, Jennifer Aniston has to be the reason. When I was a kid I followed baseball, but that was a long time ago. The Story of Jackie Robinson however is timeless ans it was also on my end of the year list so that is why “42” scored so many runs on this site. The timeless question we all ask each other, “What’s your favorite movie?” was answered by me this year. I had dozens of students ask the question so I created a post for them to find out. My love letter to “The Adventures of Robin Hood” makes the top five for entries of this year.
2014 The Blog Flatlines
For a three year stretch, the blog visits remained fairly static. It may be that people moved to Podcasts and I was not doing one at the time. Maybe the films were not as great, I don’t see many memorable blockbusters. I covered some offbeat films, and I did a year long project on another site, so maybe I was over extended. Here are the numbers that show what I mean.
“Annabelle” is the only one of my video posts to make the top five list in any year. However, I always enjoy watching myself so maybe others did as well. “GumbyFest” was a special event that took place here in my current Hometown. It may have drawn non-film buffs to the post because of the location and subject. “Once Upon A Time in the West” is maybe my favorite Western, so It makes me happy that it is here, the screening was a classic revival at the Egyptian Theater. “When the Game Stands Tall” is an odd film to make the top spots, but it was close to being a faith based football movie so maybe I should not be blindsided here (LOL). Finally, the “Lawrence-a-palooza” post is a hub for several posts on one of my favorite films, so go look.
2015 Normalcy Returns
The numbers here make a little more sense. They are consistent throughout the whole year, and the highest numbers are associated with the two most frequent topics I cover on the blog. I suppose you always want the biggest audience you can get, I just hope that the folks who find their way to the site get something they can appreciate, learn from, or laugh at.
This year featured the last James Bond film to be released [“No Time To Die” I’m waiting for you]. In the run up to that film, I did another series of 007 posts. The leading post this year was a top 007 things I love about “From Russia with Love“. 2015 marked the 40th anniversary of the greatest Adventure film of the century. We love this movie and we went a little overboard this summer. We had four screenings of “Jaws” in theaters, in the same week. There were also a lot of posts on the subject. I put together a list of quotes, focusing on the less celebrated lines, from a terrific script that still gets quoted regularly. It was popular enough to be the second most visited post on my blog this year. Another marathon at the Egyptian Theater brought fans of Marty McFly to the site in swarms. Another post on the fish story, featuring a visit to a Westside Movie Palace was number Four on my list for the year. Rounding out the top five was the 007 Countdown for Roger Moore’s best outing as Bond.
2016 Another Dip
The visits remained relatively stable but lower for all of the top slots this year. I have no explanation as to why things went this way, but I do appreciate that three of the top five spots went to retrospective film experiences rather than a new blockbuster. I really need to do some more film festival style posts for the next ten years.
My favorite Charles Bronson film took the top spot among my 2016 posts. If you like a 70s slow burn, watch this movie. I cannot explain the appeal of readers for “Allied“, it was a kind of bomb and very old fashioned. I sort of liked it but not passionately. The reason for the high numbers for the Vitaphone Shorts post is simple. Ron Hutchinson, the late curator of the Vitaphone Project, shared my post with his followers. It was a kind gesture and I hope it continues to bring fans to this classic film format. Strother Martin cracks the top five for the year with his role in the second Charles Bronson film on this list. “Hard Times” is a great 70s film that was the debut of director Walter Hill. The last of the top five for this year was a post that included three movies that we saw in one day so I put all of the reviews in a single post. “Everybody Wants Some”, “Sing Street” and “Elvis and Nixon” are the featured films.
2017 Big Bounce
Russian Bots or good films? It is hard to figure which resulted in a tripling of the numbers for the top five posts in this year. I did see steady growth in the numbers through the year and the high points all hit when it was awards season, so maybe I should stop being overly suspicious and just accept that it was a good year for the blog.
The top post this year was on a film that was my least favorite of the Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture that season. “Call Me By Your Name” was the most boring film I saw since “The Tree of Life”. I am delighted on the other hand that the second most viewed post this year was my commentary on “Darkest Hour“, the well crafted and spectacularly acted film on Winston Churchill. I cannot explain why “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” is on this list. The post was brief and there was not a lot to say about the movie. Maybe the hashtags brought people to my site. I had to change my Top Ten list for the year when I saw “I, Tonya” at a late night screening on December 31. “White Christmas” is not my favorite Holiday film, but this year it was my favorite Holiday experience and the audience for this blog appears to have felt the same way.
2018 Suspicion
All of the top five for this year were in the first quarter. There was a drop off in numbers after March, so maybe European Crackdowns on internet sites had some impact on the numbers to my site. I do get traffic from around the world so policies in the EU might very well impact me. I can’t get data for the Worldwide audience for 2018 but this week’s audience for my site looks like this:
I wish I had kept track of the data for prior years but the Alltime numbers on the right list a suspicious category “Unknown Region” . This worries me a little.
Here are the top five posts by views from 2018:
The top post is a freeform article I did on Physical Media. Inspired by a Twitter Post, I shared my views on collecting physical media with several illustrations. I do think that pictures often bring eyeballs to the sight through Google images. “Den of Thieves” was a testosterone driven piece of January Action, not sure why it would be near the top. On the other hand, “The Florida Project” was a well respected indie film that I saw at an Egyptian Screening wit star Willem DaFoe. The next post is another unique one so I am not that surprised by it being here. It is an Unboxing Video for a James Bond Lootcrate style box. One of the dogs makes a guest appearance and that probably helps. I have a continuing series on the blog for “Movies I Want Everyone to See” [MIWETS], this is a carry-over from the series I did in 2013 for “Fogs Movie Reviews”, a defunct site that I wrote article for over a five month period. The numbers for the “Ishtar MIWETS” likely reflect that it was a Movie of the Month on the Lambcast, and I hosted and promoted that show with this post. I’ve included one other post on this list because I know why it was widely viewed. “The Assassin’s Code” was a film starring a podcaster/radio host that I follow, and I left links to my post on those social media sites.
2019 Back Where We Belong
The numbers settle down and are consistent throughout the year. It is possible that since I became co-host of the Lambcast, more people visit my site because I can promote new work each week on a media platform for movie fans. Every week all the guests get an opportunity to talk about what they are working on, and since I am on 90% of the shows these days, I get plenty of facetime. I recognize that all views do not equal a red of the material, but it is the one measure I have and it makes me happy to think there are a few hundred people listening while I go off on a rant or rave.
In similar fashion to the previously mentioned “Call Me By Your Name”, the most popular post from this year was maybe my least favorite film of the year. Having bitched about it frequently on the podcast, “The Lighthouse” drew a lot of spectators, just as a traffic accident does. For a completely opposite reaction, I can proudly point to the post on a special screening of my wife’s favorite movie, “The Right Stuff” . The writer/director Phillip Kaufman spoke at this event. The political Documentary “No Safe Spaces” shows up on the list I’m sure because the groups who share it’s perspective certainty shared the post when they found it. I think some people want to live vicariously through the site, I mean I get to do some cool things because of where I live. The American Cinematique at the Egyptian Theater hosted a marathon of the three “Lord of the Rings” films in their extended editions. What self respecting geek would want to miss out on 14 hours of Hobbits, elves and Wizards? Finally, there was a lot of looking at a retrospective screening of “Meet Me in St. Louis”, another Fathom event that went over with my audience.
2020 Who Knows?
We were barely two months in, when the roof caved in on the theater business and everything else that was normal. It will be hard to assess this year when the time comes. There have only been 18 posts, and most of those are not on new films. For the record the top 2020 posts at the moment are
1. My Top ten List of Last Years Films
2. “Bad Boys for Life”
3. “Underwater”
4. “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in his own Words”
The number one post is three times as visited as the others and they are all grouped together.
So that closes this navel gazing post. I have a few more 10 Year Anniversary posts that will be going up. Hope everybody will come back for the next ten years.
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood: Videoblog Update
As promised, a few more words after a second helping of Tarantino.
Lambcast Movie of the Month: Ishtar
https://podomatic.com/embed/html5/episode/8674518?autoplay=falseKAMAD hosts the MOTM on the Lambcast. The show features a looonnng trivia game of my creation but the length has more to do with how much fun everyone is having than any complexity to the game.
Unboxing Video of 007 Box
I suppose it seems a little odd to give yourself a gift at Christmas. In truth, I’d ordered it as soon as I saw it and it just happened to arrive before the holiday. I waited until after the new year to really open it and examine the contents. 007 fans will enjoy, everyone else I hope you will tolerate.
Lambcast Acting School 101: Faye Dunaway
KAMAD Rejoins the Lambcast for Acting School 101 with Movie Rob and Faye Dunaway.
Kirkham A Movie A Day 