Upcoming Changes For The “Thoughts From The Music(al) Man” Blog

I’m here to interrupt my regularly scheduled programming, due to some previously unforeseen circumstances. Most of my immediate friends and family know my current situation, and probably could have predicted this, but for the rest of the blogging world, real life has been intervening for the last month. For the entirety of my life, I’ve worked on my family’s dairy farm, and recently, health issues/injuries have plagued us enough that it’s been a lot harder for me to watch movies AND write my blog posts on them. Quite frankly, this is the first blog post that I’ve been able to finish in most of a month. The only reason that I have still had my regular Sunday posts is that I had most of my posts for January and February (and one or two for March) written and scheduled before the holidays and the recent pileup of trouble. It’s mainly been my Wednesday “What’s Old Is A New Release Again” series that has suffered, with one post (originally planned for January) still in progress, and a few others I had intended to do for February no longer being planned. As it currently stands, I *hope* to finish up a few more posts for February and March (in both my regular series), and then I will be “taking off” the month of April.

After that, I have no idea what the reality will be (since it depends on how well things clear up around here with everybody’s health). If I can indeed come back after April, it is my plan (currently) to really change up the way I do my “What’s Old Is A New Release Again” series. Outside of one movie I hope to start the new year’s worth of releases off with, I will likely stop doing full-fledged individual reviews, and do various roundups, with quick blurbs about the new releases (probably similar to how I’ve done my regular “Coming Up Shorts!” series), and overall comments on the group of titles. I will either be doing them when I have four unrelated releases to talk about (a post which will not be updated further), or when I have at least two films featuring my star/screen team/genre of the month (a post that might get further updated if more are released within the year). If I have one film featuring a Star/Screen Team Of The Month (with no further releases in sight), I *might* do a full review if I can find the time (otherwise, I’ll just lump it in with some other unrelated releases). This way, I save some films for possible future Star/Screen Team Of The Month series if I so choose. If any releases featuring the Stars come out long after the month I featured them in (like, for example, Jeanette MacDonald or Nelson Eddy), I may go back and do a post on those new releases, but only for the current year. For example, I might do something for Deanna Durbin in 2022, but, even though there are some new Gene Kelly (you know, my Star Of The Month for March 2021) releases coming, I will not be doing a post strictly on his films for 2022 (unless I decide to feature him again in 2022). Regardless of which type, though, these roundups will also include comments about new releases for films that I’ve previously reviewed on earlier formats (and the previous reviews will be updated as well).

As for my main Sunday features of “Thoughts From The Music(al) Man” and “Star/Screen Team/Genre Of The Month,” I’ve been thinking long and hard about it the past few weeks about what I want to do (if I can come back). My current plan is just to scale them back as well. For the Screen Team months (which mostly means those with five Sundays), I will be doing three films (one featuring the team together and one solo film each), and the months featuring one Star (four Sundays) will have only two posts. Realistically, this is probably a good thing, as what I have been doing for the entire run of my blog so far has felt like a bit much (and made it a lot harder to not only keep going with new posts, but also to go back and rewatch old favorites). And this way, I should have a little more time to work with for the months that I do have a few more posts I want to do. I admit, once I get past March (with Bing Crosby as my Star), I will probably not be doing most of my Star/Screen Team/Genre Of The Month features as blogathons (and therefore will not be announcing them ahead of time). That being said, I’m still open to anybody joining in if they are interested still, and my focus for one month on musicals will still be done as a blogathon.

That’s most of what I can think of that will be changing. I’ll admit, some of the extraneous posts that I’ve tried to do (like my series of “Original Vs. Remake” or “The Long And The Short Series Of It”) are unlikely to happen as much (especially for the Thin Man series, which is what I hope to finish the individual reviews with in my “What’s Old Is A New Release Again” series before switching to the group roundups). Now, I said that I will be taking the month of April off (from having new posts), but, depending on how things go, that may not be entirely accurate. I had started a post on a movie (intending it for Easter Sunday), and I hope I can finish it (as I’d rather not delete it after all the work I’ve done so far, or delay it an entire year). The only other posts that *might* show up that month would be if I can’t finish some of my reviews for the remaining Thin Man films (at least, the two released on Blu-ray in 2021). As for my series of “Coming Up Shorts!” (usually included as part of my reviews), I will continue to do them, including for the roundups (although just those from the various collections of shorts, the on-disc extras will still only be used for full reviews), with at least one per film included in the roundup (although when I write the full reviews for the movies, those comments will be removed from the roundup and added to the film review). That should be all I can think of as far as changes go, and I hope that these will help make life a little easier for me again (while still allowing me to keep doing this)!