The Switch is coming...

I've been thinking that I need a shakeup of some kind here at WSW. You may know this, but if you don't, this blog was always more about keeping me writing (and drawing, occasionally) than about any kind of deep study of films. As much as I enjoy them, they've always been the means to an end. Plus, I really feel like I need a break from following and writing about current movies. I've been doing it for what feels like so long that I think it might benefit me if I gained a little perspective and stepped back from them for a little while.

So with that in mind, this is what I have planned for next year...

For 2015 and 2015 only, Wide Screen World will change to an all-classic film format.

That's right, it's...

If you've followed WSW long enough, you've noticed that I've favored the company of classic film bloggers more now than when I started out. I link to their blogs, I participate in their blogathons, I even put them in my short stories every now and then... It's not that I dislike contemporary film bloggers; it's just that I've grown more comfortable around the classic film ones (and you all know who you are). That's not why I'm switching, though. Like I said, I need a break from the modern movies and I think (hope) the writing challenges in restricting myself this way will produce different material than when I'm balancing the old and new stuff.

So what can you expect? Well, it won't be all classics, exactly. Here's what will stay the same:

• New movies will be restricted to a monthly roundup post at the end of each month, with one exception (which will get its own post). I'll write small reviews, one or two paragraphs worth, and they'll read more like normal reviews.
• My annual Top 10 list will go up in late January/early February as usual.
• My Oscar predictions and Oscar recap will remain.
• My coverage of the Queens World Film Festival will go on as planned, in early March.

And that's it. As you can see, most of this stuff will encompass the first quarter of 2015.

What'll change? Obviously, I'm gonna write more posts about old movies, but I also wanna write about specific actors and directors from the past that I admire, or at least, find interesting enough to write about, and what they mean to me. I'm pondering other approaches that'll serve as regular or semi-regular features throughout the year. You'll find out what they are in time. And I'll still have the monthly link roundups and posts for classic film blogathons. I've already committed to the upcoming Miriam Hopkins Blogathon, for example.

How will I define "classic film"? Up to this point, I'd kinda sorta considered the mid-60s as the tentative cut-off point - the end of the old studio system and the rise of the "New Hollywood" with films like Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. I'm tempted to extend that arbitrary dividing line all the way through the 80s (if you consider 1989's sex, lies and videotape the unofficial start of the modern era), but I think I'm gonna stick with my original definition and take any 70s and 80s films on a case-by-case basis.

I hope you'll stick with me on this. I don't think it's that drastic a change; after all, I'll still be writing about movies, in the same personal style I've been writing about them from day one.

The Switch begins January 5.

#TheOneYearSwitch