I’m trying something new this year. No more goals. I just want to let the winds of chance take me where they will. In other words, I’ll watch what I want, when I want.

ARIK DEVENS


2018

For the last several years, I’ve posted one last special recap as my final post before New Years. The entries have been full of statistics about the previous year of movie watching. How many I watched, how much I wrote, how often, on what days, and so on. Even though I set things up at the beginning of this year to make generating those stats easier than ever, I come to the end of this year with no desire to write that particular post.

This site is for me. I don’t write this for money, I don’t write it for attention, I don’t even have any way to know how many of you are reading this. I write it for myself, to remember what I think about these films, and to improve my skills as a writer and a critical thinker. In those terms it’s a huge success, but that means I’m going to continue to do whatever makes sense for me, as it makes sense to me. Right now, statistics seem boring, so I’m not going to do them.

Instead I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the last year of my journey here. I ended up writing 50+ posts again, but this was the hardest year by far to find the time. I started a new job in March, and in addition to wanting to do my best at it, the commute is excessively long. That means I haven’t had anywhere near as much time to spend with my loved ones, which secondarily means I haven’t had anywhere as much time to spend watching these films.

This is the longest I’ve ever committed to a creative project. 2019 will be year six for me, which is insane to even contemplate. I’ve never had a job that long. What keeps me going are the incredible experiences I have of watching these phenomenal films, and then the joy I get out of capturing my thoughts here. That’s going to continue, I haven’t for a moment thought of giving it up. For one thing, I’m only about 30% through the films I already own. I’ll continue to find the time, and write as much as I can, and that’s going to be how it is.

As I said at the top, I don’t have any specific goals for 2019, at least not yet. I have vague ideas of things I might want to change, but no overall plans to watch specific directors, or films from a specific country or language. I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing, which is to experience as much of the history of world cinema as I can find the time to enjoy. Thanks to everyone who reads these. Even though I write primarily for me, we’re still on this journey together in some sense.