Everything Or Nothing

I watch a lot of stuff for this website. Movies and shows are on a constant churn in my house, and that's not even going into the games and books I have going on as well. Media is always consumed as if I am Pac-Man, always gobbling pellets in my Asteroid G maze, devouring whole worlds on an endless loop (with, presumably, no kill-screen). And, honestly, I like it this way as I like to keep busy, a laptop open so I can work on website stuff while I watch all kinds of media to fill my day.

Occasionally, though, I do hit a point where there is something I'd like to watch but it doesn't really apply to this site. Can I watch it? Do I have the time? Is there such a thing as "watching for fun" when everything I do ends up on this site (or one of the related sites, such as Castlevania: The Inverted Dungeon)? What even is watching for fun at this point when my hobby is running a site about the things I watch?

In fairness, most of the stuff I watch I do actually enjoy. Occasionally there are slogs, such as trying to burn through the early seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, just do I can finish up coverage of that entire franchise. If a topic is viable for the site I do feel like it has to be covered and not everything in a franchise may necessarily be good. The site doesn't care, though. "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome? FEED ME!"

There is, of course, the idea of watching bad movies for fun, and I have done that before. Plenty of the slasher films I've covered on the site have been so bad that they transcended back into "good" in their own weird way. trash ca, in fact, be fun in small doses. That said, there can come a point where I've consumed too much trash and have to stop altogether because it's all just tiring. That's what happened with Mystery Science Theater 3000; even going at a weekly pace I just hit a wall where I couldn't watch any more truly terrible films. I'd had enough.

I think that's where the idea of "watching for fun" comes in: when something becomes too much I simply turn away and go watch something else. My movie collection is huge (not to boast) and it does afford me the ability to say, "hey, you know what, there's this flick I haven't seen in a while. Let's review it for the site." There is a lot of overlap there, of course; I don't normally watch something if I won't also review it for the site as I prefer to get double impact (or Double Team) out of everything I consume.

There are some films I've watched that I haven't bothered to review. I just watched Chaos, a 2005 flick with Ryan Phillipe and Jason Statham. I didn't bother reviewing that one because it was so objectively mediocre that it defied all descriptions, good or bad. How many times can you call a movie "competent". it's like a thing, grey haze crawled over my brain to the point where I know I watched the film, can even comment on details of it, but none of it evoked any actual reaction of any form. It's the filmic equivalent of "neutral beige".

Other things I've watched have been so bad that I've wanted to quit watching them. My review of the third season of Titans was absolutely scathing because that season was an unbelievable clusterfuck. It was perhaps one of the worst seasons of television I've seen in a long time, a mind-boggling boondoggle of bad writing, bad acting, and bad concepts that managed to feel like it all dragged by so slowly. I'm on the fence about whether I even want to bother with the fourth season... but it is superhero content and I feel like I'm all-in at this point on all things superhero for the site.

Some shows do get ditched. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina was so bad that I had to stop watching it after it's second season. Thankfully Queen B stepped up to review it for the third season, but even she couldn't manage to get through the fourth (and final) season to review it. Honestly, is it any wonder Netflix canceled the show?

But to get around to the big point, I honestly don't know if I truly watch anything just "for fun" at this point. A lot of the stuff I watch are movies and shows I was going to watch regardless but, because of this site, I know I'm going into everything with an eye to how I will review it. I get to enjoy the Hawkeye show, sure, but after so many years of doing this site, I can't just turn off my critical eye anymore. Watching for fun still implies also watching for this site; the two are inextricably linked now.

Whether or not that's a problem really depends on your perspective, I guess. I know my wife would love it if I just took time for myself and wasn't always working on my sites. Maybe I will after I post my review of the next Matrix film... although probably not.