Why?
I talked about this on my podcast last week -- I just think it's run its course.
I've been doing it for about 25 years (which is staggering to me). At first it was something fun I distributed to my email contact list. Movies were more mainstream. I was making observations for the first time. Sam Rubin on KTLA was saying idiotic things on the red carpet show that only needed my transcribing his actual words.
I always wrote my reviews immediately after the broadcast and posted it the second I was finished so that if a similar joke appeared elsewhere you knew I didn't steal it.
Eventually, the reviews took on a life of their own. A very popular San Francisco radio talk show host started stealing the material and claiming credit for it and quickly was removed from my list. Newspapers in London and Toronto reprinted my reviews (with my permission and for a stipend), and the day after the Oscarcast I was asked to guest on a number of talk shows.
As time went on I began to feel a sameness. Some of my jokes were just becoming variations of other similar jokes from past years. There was little shock value in the dumb things Sam Rubin said because he said dumb things every year.
My main motivation at that point was that it increased traffic to the blog. The last few years I unveiled it first on my podcast, again, as a way to increase listenership. And I have to say it worked. I would get a spike for my Oscar reviews.
But those made for really long nights because after writing the review I then had to record it and put together the finished podcast episode. It meant an all-nighter. And that would have been fine -- if I were still in college. Or even working on a show. But writers get paid for staying very late at night. Podcasters and bloggers don't.
And finally, the key reason: It wasn't so much that they were harder to do (which they were)'; it's that I just didn't feel they were that good -- certainly not as good as they had been in their glory years. And if I can't make every project as good as I can possibly can I don't feel it's worth it. So better to stop than churn out less than my best.
For fans of my Oscar reviews, thank you and my apologies for disappointing you this year.
At one time I was reviewing the Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, Grammys, and every week on AMERICAN IDOL. It's time for the "play off" music.
from By Ken Levine
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