October 29th, 2009
300
Well, I finally finished my 300th review for, appropriately enough, Akira Kurosawa’s Sanjuro.I know it’s not the best-written review I’ve ever put out, but I did the best I could. I’ve always found that it’s much harder to review movies that you really love than it is to critique films that you really hate. In fact, I had to write my review of the 2007 remake, Tsubaki Sanjuro, first (to be published later) to really get a handle on what I wanted to say about the original.
Anyway, the review has been a long time coming. Originally, I was hoping to get it done before my 30th birthday (Sanjuro means “thirty years old”), but grad school got in the way, so the review is almost a full year late. In fact, when I first started writing for LoveHKFilm.com I was churning out reviews at such a prodigious rate, I thought I’d actually be close to a 1,000 reviews by now. Oh, how life gets in the way of silly ambitions.
Anyway, as Kozo says on the main page, I’m dropping the “Sanjuro” moniker in favor of my real name, Calvin McMillin. When I joined the site, internet handles were all the rage (for example, there were movie reviewers like Moriarty at AICN and Smilin’ Jack Ruby at CHUD.COM) but nowadays, the need/desire for that kind of anonymity no longer seems necessary — at least for me, anyway. And besides, Rotten Tomatoes already lists us by our real names.
Well, it’s been a lot of fun writing these 300 reviews; here’s hoping I do at least 300 more!
October 29th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Congratulations! Now I am off to read the review.
I saw Yojimbo and Sanjuro at a double feature at the old Biograph theater in Washington, D.C. in 1982 when I was 15.
And when I rewatched both films in 2004 or so, I preferred Sanjuro to Yojimbo for some reason, though Yojimbo is the one that gets attention and remakes.
October 29th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Congrats on the big 3-0-0! That’s darn impressive what with you juggling grad school and the big “L” (as in “Life”). Looking forward to the next 300 and beyond!
Re: online pseudonyms, I got sick of mine a long, long time ago. But I’m going in the opposite direction; rather than going back to plain ‘ol Yin, I’m debating dropping everything and just keeping the “Y”. Kinda like Mister “X” on Twitch.com. Virtually unGoogleable.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Congratulations! I too am looking forward to the next 300 and more reviews!
October 30th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Congrats, and good work! I wonder how long it’ll take me to get to 300. At my rate, maybe another 5 years.
October 31st, 2009 at 5:07 am
Congratulations! I was glad that this post was not actually about the movie 300 =)
November 5th, 2009 at 2:36 am
Thanks everyone!
November 6th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Just wanted to give a shout out to your 300 reviews. I have been reading it for the last 5 years and they are a great complement to Kozo review.
Keep it going, buddy.