The Party's Over (###)


This is not a movie review, but I've entitled it "The Party's Over." 

"The Party's Over" is a song from a musical comedy I saw decades ago called "Bells Are Ringing," but I think it's appropriate for this missive. "The Party's Over" is my swan-song and farewell address because I'm no longer going to write movie reviews or even see movies. 

This is the result of my declining eyesight, which prevents me from typing the reviews in a satisfactory manner and from reading what I wrote. It's a ridiculous situation, but that's what I'm stuck with. And I will probably not be seeing movies any longer, because when I look at the huge screen I can't even differentiate between the actors and actresses. So much so that Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep both look alike (but, yes, I still dislike them both equally). Only one of them is wearing a dress--yet I'm not sure which one! Not funny, I know, but it effectively expresses my feelings. 

I've enjoyed writing these trivial reviews for years. Would you believe it all started on May 29, 2015 when I sent an email to my kids which read: “Saw San Andreas today. It wasn’t bad--lots of action. Glad I didn’t see it as a 3D version. I wouldn’t have been able to dodge all the buildings falling.” That was sent to my children on a whim, and the only one who kept them was my son Christopher. When I finally decided to make this a ongoing practice, he sent me copies of all the ones that I had written up until then. It was about a month later when I had added not only my children but my grandchildren to my email list. Since then, I've written almost 750 movie reviews.

Over the years, my email list grew, not by leaps and bounds, but gradually. Added were friends of my children or grandchildren, people that I knew casually, or friends and complete strangers who I'd offered this to. During this time, my son created a blog as a Christmas gift in December 2024, which is absolutely magnificent and a shared source of fun. 

And then the moment of truth came when I applied to the local Lancaster, PA newspaper offering my services as a movie reviewer. I got a call from an online reporter named Kevin Stairiker, who wanted to meet me. I asked Kevin, "Is this the offer of a job," and he replied, "We'll talk about it." It ended up instead as an interview and feature story on the front page of the local paper with a flop over to an inside page with two pictures of me. My son told me the number of blog viewers soared because this story not only appeared in print but online, and I subsequently got requests from a number of people to add them to my movie review email list. 

This was not the first article I was featured in. Prior to the blog, I was interviewed by a high school friend of my daughter's, Johnna Carter, who lives in New Hampshire and writes for the local paper there. Although I didn't ask, Jonna's piece in the New Hampshire paper offered readers to be on my mailing list, and I got at least six requests from that article. I'm grateful to both her and to Kevin for the publicity. 

Over the years I'm proud to say no one ever asked to be taken off the email list, which now numbers close to 100. I did get a couple of comments, but not a lot and never had a disgruntled subscriber (that I'm aware of). The Lancaster article did spike blog views from less than 500 total during it's first four months, to over 2,300 in just one week after it ran, and the views steadily increased, averaging almost 1,000 per month. To date, the blog has had almost 25,000 total views in just over two years since it was started. Over 300 of my reviews are now posted on the blog.

It's been a ball for me and I've loved every minute of it. It was all made possible by the Regal Unlimited card, which allowed me to pay a single monthly fee and watch as many movies as I wanted, as often as I wanted and as many times as I wanted. Which meant I was able to average from three to seven movies a week for all these years. I will miss doing it, but I have no choice. 

I wish you all well and thank you for being such loyal viewers of my work. At 96 2/3 years of age and more than a decade doing this, it's time I gave up the ghost. Au revoir mes amis. Thanks for sticking with me for all these years.


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