"Declaration of Principles"

The purpose of this blog is to share my movie reviews, thoughts about movies, and general cinematic ramblings. Besides posting my reviews of new films here, I will be posting a lot of reviews of older films. Primarily, these will be Siskel and Ebert used to call "Buried Treasures": films that the average person has probably not seen, but a worth a look.

They may not all be films I consider great, but they will all have something that makes them worth taking the time to view. Some may actually have been very popular at the time of their release, or even considered classics (films like  Sidney Lumet's"The Verdict", Norman Jewison's "A Soldier's Story" or Alfred Hitchcock's  "Foreign Correspondent" are examples of films I may cover which certainly cannot be called obscure), but they will be films that, in my subjective perception, the average person who stumbles across this blog is not especially likely to have seen.

I may also feature the occasional review of older films that I do not consider worth seeing, but I believe these will be less frequent. It certainly can be fun to sarcastically rip apart a film, and my experience writing reviews for the "Timewasters Guide" website was that people were generally more interested in reading these. But I'm more likely to devote my energy to films I consider to have value. I simply feel better pointing people toward something good than away from something bad.

This blog will differ from most of what is currently posted on the internet about films in a few important respects. namely, it will not be written in the style of a sex-crazed, anti-social 13 year old boy, as is currently popular on most movie news websites. Nor will any rumors, gossip, or speculation about who is going to appear the nest "Batman" movie appear.  Post modern horror/slasher films will likely never be discussed, because I simply I have no interest in that particular genre.

So, assuming anyone is actually reading this, I hope you enjoy. Also, in the interest of honesty, I will freely admit that I have taken the title of this blog from the defunct newsletter from the old Utah Film and Video Center. It's a good title, and, as far as I know, it's not being used. If I find out it is, the title will change.

Enjoy,
Paul Gibbs