A Note from JB24

Well, I suppose this is it.  My Daily Movie Quest has come to an end.  After 409 days and 500 movies, I've decided to call it quits.  There are a great number of reasons why I had to stop.  Mainly, I just reached the point where I was feeling overwhelmed.  It all came to a head.  Y'see, last night (February 16th), I came back from a birthday party at about 1am, having not yet watched a movie.  Laying in bed with the TV on, I debated to myself whether I should pop in a movie.  After a while, I realized that I really didn't want to watch one.  Besides the fact that it would have meant staying up until 3 or 3:30 with a movie, I simply did not feel like watching a movie.  That's the first time it's happened to me since I started all of this.  I'm burned out.

When I started this journey in January 07, I did it because I loved movies and I really wanted to watch all the movies that I have missed over the past 22 years.  There's so many great movies out there that I had not seen; I wanted to see them all.  At the time, it was very no-pressure.  No big deal if I missed a day; I'm just shooting for 365 by the end of '07.  Then, I decided to start writing reviews of all these movies.  Suddenly, I had the unexpected pressure that I had an audience reading my reviews and looking for each day's review (I know, I know, that was all in my head).  Still, it was okay.  Not too bad.  Then I started sending out reviews to friends and family via e-mail.  Now I've got even more pressure.  I've got people who I actually see in daily life who could start asking me about the movies.  I knew I had to keep going.  Now the pressure was really on.  And yet I kept adding to that pressure.  I started a blog where I could post my reviews in a set format and work on it all the time.  Yeah, brilliant idea, jagoff.  I ended up with an insane amount of pressure.  "I've GOT to watch a movie today!" "Oh, I've GOT to write my reviews" "Oh, I've got to post my reviews" and it built and built and built.  And that still wasn't enough for me.  I started this wiki, so that I could really have a major database of the movies I'd seen and the actors and directors who made them.  But then there's the pressure of writing new reviews, posting new reviews, transferring old reviews to the wiki, cross-referencing every link, making sure the site is filled with proper spelling, panicking about watching a movie, cramming a movie in even though I didn't want to, watching a fillermoviebecauseIdidn'twanttowatchanewonebutIhadtowatchamoviebecauseifIdidn'twatchamoviethenI'dbebreakingmystreakandIcouldn'tsaythatI'dwatchedamovieeverydayforthepastyearandthenI'dhavetowriteareviewandpostittothewikiandknowing thatI'mgonnatrytochangemylifebutImightnothavetimetodothatifIwannawatchamovieeverydayand...

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somewhere along the line, I forgot that I was doing all this because I love movies.  Well now I'm burned out on movies because I dropped so much insane pressure on me.   I realized that I need to stop.  It has to end.  And really, it was a hell of a ride.  I don't think that many people can say they've watched 500 movies in just over a year and a month.  It's an accomplishment I am damned proud of.   I just need to stop.  I want to be able to go back to watching movies without having to force myself to.  I want to be able to watch a movie without wondering how I can word a review of it.  I want to live my life without worrying about writing reviews and posting them and keeping up with everything.  I've got enough going on.

So I want to thank everyone for sticking with me over these past months.  I hope you enjoyed my reviews and I hope that they led you to watching some movies you might not have ever watched on your own.  If I did that much, then it was all worth it.  Maybe some day down the line, I'll return to this (or maybe not...), but for now I'm done.  I'll always watch movies and enjoy them and I hope you will too. 

If there's one thing I've learned during my time here (besides the whole don't-take-on-more-than-you-can-handle stuff), it's that you really need to give certain movies a chance.  You never know what you'll end up liking.  So go out there.  Watch movies you never before had an interest in.  Give them a chance.   Hell, if I can sit through Christmas With the Kranks, then I think you guys can sit through just about anything. 

For now, I'll see you at the movies!

JackBauer24

P.S. I apologize for the atrocious grammar in this note.  I'd go back and fix it, but I've got movies to watch.  Or not watch.  Whichever was the message you took away from this letter.