Ten Years of the Many Rantings of John

The Many Rantings of John started when I was in college.  Blogs were very en vogue at the time, and many of the people I knew were writing them.  I had gotten into writing about film both through my college major (one of my majors was Film History), and through being the film critic for my school paper for three years (which I loved, and still have some of my old issues).  But I gave it up pretty quickly after college, and it didn't become what it is today until several years later.

In 2012, I was at a bit of a crossroads in my life.  I had taken the first real risk of my career (and of my adult life), and it had not paid off.  It had been, by pretty much every definition, an abject failure & I was embarrassed.  I had moved back to my home state of Minnesota after a much-ballyhooed goodbye, and had lost touch with most of my friends from college in the process.  I had taken a demotion at work after an unsuccessful promotion, and thanks to those moves in rapid succession, I was swimming in the "bad" kind of debt.  I was single, severely overweight, and didn't really have a recipe to solve either of those things.  I also was looking at a bucket list that I didn't think would ever happen.  Honestly, I had kind of given up on myself.  And so, I decided to take a personal risk, reinvigorating my blog (telling only my brother at the time that I was doing it).  I would write about a long-scale project I had always wanted to try but needed to have some sort of structure around that I would call the Oscar Viewing Project.  I kept the initial name of the blog (something I still waffle back-and-forth if it was a good decision), and would write about the Oscars, the films I saw, and if I felt like it, anything else that came to mind.

I made that decision ten years ago this month, and so I have had TMROJ as a part of my daily life for a decade.  To say it was the right decision is an understatement.  This blog honestly, truly, changed my life ten years ago.  It always feels weird when you grapple with mental illness (specifically, depression) talking about the highs-and-lows of your life because there are dips-and-valleys on that journey (for most there isn't a true "this was the worst" section of their illness-life, it turns out, is not a movie), but I do think this blog made me feel whole again in a way I couldn't have fathomed at the time.  I suddenly had a place to talk about the things I loved, even when I didn't have people in real life who could relate.  I decided years ago that it was too stressful to focus on readership numbers (I was blessed enough to not be in a financial situation where this blog was my main source of income), but along the way I found fans, and even friends.  I've met people I consider to be actual friends solely because of this blog (and the social media it made me get into), and I think the lonely guy who did this simply to see if he could would be very proud of having 3500 articles on this blog (because not only are we celebrating 10 years, but I managed to time it so this is my 3500th article on this blog!!!).

It also made me better-versed in the movies, Oscars, and politics.  These were all hobbies when I started this, but talking about film in this way, where you had to actually have a perspective, changed the way I talk about the cinema.  I suddenly was framing films in history, in the context of the studios & actors that made them...I was focusing on series like "Saturdays with the Stars" and "October Monster Movies" and gaining a clarity on what it took to make these movies.  For politics, I began to gain a perspective on our electoral system that I wouldn't have otherwise (and how much small things can make a big difference...and why you should always vote).  I love writing this blog, and even when it's a gigantic time commitment (or it feels like I'm writing for no one but me, even when I know I'm not), it always feels worthy of my time.

So to celebrate, because we're going to celebrate, I have a few things we're going to be doing this June.  While we'll have our regular series (we'll finish up the 2020 Oscar Viewing Project, and we'll have our regular Star of the Month), I have four special features happening this month.  First, we'll be taking a three-part series into the midterms, doing a trio of "State Of" races, including our first real deep dive into both parties' chances at the Governors & House races.  Second, we'll be doing a month-long tribute to Terrence Malick, one of my favorite directors, as we watch the final four movies I haven't seen from his filmography for a miniseries called "Terry Tuesdays."  Third, we can't have a celebration on the blog without at least something Lost-related, and so we will be sharing my full rankings of every episode of Lost (from first to worst) for the first time on the blog.

And finally, we will be bringing back a sequel to one of our most-popular film marathons, Film Noir Month.  I will be watching 15 film noir classics (remembered AND forgotten) that I've never seen before, which will be kicking off tomorrow.  So make sure to click that favorite button, and be visiting every day as we'll be having a blast honoring ten years of The Many Rantings of John!