In the oncoming glare of 2017’s swift approach, it is hard to believe that this blog is still going. It’s not updated as frequently as it used to be, but it is here, alive and well.

In part, the lack of posts are due to the fact that when Tim and I set up Protozoic, it was meant to be a clearing house for post-Chook projects. As the years passed, the smorgasbord video heyday became harder to do because the gang got dispersed all over the U.S. Additionally, my avocation of filmmaking slowly became my vocation. The things I’m involved in now seem to drag on for years – scripts, films, ideas, etc. This summer I am planning on shooting a short film with some colleagues here, and one day – who knows – there might even be an H.P. Thomcraft III, a Delmarva Dawn. After all, the Russians had a compound on the Eastern Shore. Times sure are weird.

Until those limbo projects materialize, I thought I’d set myself another goal of seeing 12 films in the cinema this coming year and then post about them here. Admittedly, that is not the most lofty and soaring of goals, but I don’t get to the theatre that much; I never have. Most of my watching has always been confined to home-viewership.

We have two very good theaters here in Olympia, WA. The first is the Capitol Theater, run by the Olympia Film Society, which shows international and independent films, movie retrospectives and rereleases, and hosts an assortment of other events. Over this past holiday I caught Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984), arguably the best Christmas movie ever committed to celluloid. In January they are screening Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm (1979) in 4K, which will be incredible, and could prove to be the best thing J.J. Abrams has touched in recent memory. The other theater is the Century Olympia run by Cinemark, which would otherwise be an unassuming multiplex in a mall if for the fact it didn’t have electric reclining seats.

See you in the new year.