My semi-trusty Amstrad, circa 1988.
Scanners is only a little over a year old. If I recall correctly, it began on RogerEbert.com shortly before the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival in the fall, then shifted over to the new Sun-Times/Moveable Type publishing platform a few months later in spring, at the beginning of the 2006 Overlooked Film Festival -- 254 Moveable Type entries ago. It's been almost exactly four months since I persuaded the Sun-Times that I really wanted to have Comments enabled, and they became available here for the first time in June. Last week, without my even noticing it, we passed 1,000 comments (almost 1,100 as of today) -- and for that, I am extremely grateful to you!
Since June, I've instigated the Opening Shots Project -- with many contributions from readers (and many still to be published, and many frame-grabs to be grabbed -- I haven't forgotten, I'm just overwhelmed) -- and we've had some exceptionally terrific and rewarding discussions about "The Descent," "The Departed," all kinds of approaches to film criticism, and more other subjects than I can think of right now. Scanners is rapidly evolving into the very thing I hoped it would become, a place where people can have impassioned, intelligent, provocative (and funny) discussions about critical thinking in all its guises -- beginning with "moving images" (film and video and TV) and extending in all directions into even the touchiest related (but unavoidable) subjects of sex, business, politics, race, religion, philosophy, mythology and art. How much fun is that?!?!
A flashback: In 1988, I bought my very first DOS-based 8086 home computer, an Amstrad (big name in Europe at the time) with a color monitor (16 or 64 colors, I can't remember). I'd worked on various other machines with green or amber monochrome displays -- and even used the original no-hard-drive Mac and the then-ubiquitous (for journalists) "portable" Tandy 1000 (with a small liquid-crystal display and a modem you could hook up by placing suction cups over a phone receiver) -- but this was my gateway to the new world. Windows hadn't caught on (3.1 wouldn't take off until after 1992), but I could run GEM Desktop (a GUI built on DOS) -- and I could hook up a 1200 bps Hayes-compatible modem without an acoustic coupler!
That was when I got on Prodigy, one of the early online networks (then only available in a few cities, including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, as I recall). The next summer, when Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" came out, rumors and paranoia and arguments ran hot and heavy. I had known Spike slightly through mutual friends since I'd tried to book "She's Gotta Have It" at the Market Theater in Seattle, and was able to post quotes from my own past and current interviews with him (as well as my detailed readings of the movie) to contribute the online "message boards." I was working for the Orange County Register in Los Angeles at the time, and my stuff was syndicated over Knight-Ridder, but at that time you couldn't read newspaper movie reviews outside of a paper's local circulation area unless you could get a copy at the newsstand.
Anyway, these heated discussions about "Do the Right Thing" made me realize this was a medium -- and a form of writing -- that I loved even more than newspaper journalism and criticism. I'd always loved the immediacy of newspapers -- the sense of writing as a spontaneous performance (despite all the training and research that went into it) -- but this was such a rush! It taught me (and I'm still learning) about how to be more specific in my writing, to really hone in on what I wanted to say -- and, in ensuing exchanges, to correct myself when I was wrong, clarify when I hadn't said precisely what I meant to say, and pinpoint exactly what I did say whenever someone misrepresented it. Best of all, I had some fascinating exchanges of ideas with people I'd never even met. I'd already written for newspapers for some years, and received letters and phone calls from readers, but never the kind of really engaging, complex interactions that the online world provided.
And now, here we are, 17 years later, and I still dig writing on the web more than any other form I've ever tried -- and I can't think of many that I haven't (except opera!). Radio is fantastic, because you get to use your voice; film and theater and television are amazing because you get to hear other people give life to your characters, words and ideas. But I can't think of any other medium in which you can initiate a discussion -- or let a thread or a tangent take you off in a direction you hadn't foreseen -- and collaborate with so many other people in where and how the conversation flows. Even better, the conversation takes on a life of its own and people "discuss amongst themselves." (Thanks, Linda Richman.)
So, while I'm procrastinating on three reviews and a big list of Scanners posts I want to get to (including lord knows how many Opening Shots), I just wanted to take this moment to say thanks. In another four months (O, how Internet time flies!) I wonder what other unanticipated territories we will have explored together...
Happy Birthday, Scanners!
Jim, I can't believe how much you've accomplished in the course of the last year! Congratulations, and best wishes for a rockin' (or should say, from one jazzer to another, swingin') year 2!
Re: How much fun is that?!?!
I can only think of one word: scrumtrilescent. :D
Just noticed that the computer screen is from Monkey Island II, which has one of the best video game endings of all time, no matter what some may tell you.
Oh, and congratulations on a great blog too.
I've really enjoyed the last year or so, and even more the last four months with comments. In a short period of time, you moved up quickly to join Andrew Sullivan as one of my two favorite sites. Keep up the good work. And thanks to Roger Ebert for hiring you for his website because I might not have ever found you otherwise.
In a year, Scanners has gone from "interesting errata on Ebert's website" to "essential daily reading."
Thanks for blowing me wide open with film on Cinemania '96, and thanks for keeping it going here, 10 years later.
Congratulations Jim...
...I'm happy to have contributed a small part (maybe 8 out of the 1100 comments) to this fantastic website, which is a great forum for the critical discussion of films (which, inevitably, leads to a discussion of life itself).
I also wanted to echo what the above have said, I've really enjoyed the discussion here, and what you've posted. Not only is the discussion intelligent, and respectful (even the Pearle comments are comparatively respectful), but the blog has made me want to write more, and for that alone, it's invaluable. What I thought was once a supplement to Roger's great criticism, has become it's own entity, and a great one at that. Congratulations, and thanks.
A year. Wow. And how many conclusions have we come to? Differing opinions remain. That's what's so wonderful about something like this. To be able to soak in all of the sides without having someone scream in your face or manipulate you through a camera. Though, I'd really like to see the posts that don't make it through. You'll have to start a collection and publish them.
I've also loved the little tid-bits I wouldn't have discovered if I hadn't seen it here, like the Singin' In the Rain car commercial! Splendid.
I'll stick around a bit longer.
Keep up the good work! It's nice to have a place to comment on serious ideas and debates away from the IMDb forum trolls.
Yes: happy birthday, Scanners! All this talk of "back then" reminds me: I found a Cinemania CD-ROM at my library last week and checked it out. I can't wait to see what cinephiles did for fun during the Dark Ages...
Jim, it's hard for me to believe that this site is only a year old. I feel like it's such a important part of my everyday travels that it is hard to remember what logging on to a computer was like before Scanners. Congratulations!
And many thanks for the ongoing fruition of what has come to be such a vital and energizing place on the Internet. Of course, I also want to thank you for all the support and encouragement and interaction you've offered me during my own growth in the blogosphere. My journey would be far less meaningful and productive without it.
I hope the years to come continue to expand the boundaries of what film criticism can mean and how it can connect to our lives and experience with this great art form. It seems to me that you and Scanners have been instrumental in encouraging the kinds of discussion and interaction that are making this hope a reality.
Congrats, Jim! I love what you do with Scanners and the way you're doing it. Never stop, OK? You have what I value most in a film critic: a keen eye and an open mind. And ever since I noticed that link to 24LiesASecond in your sidebar, I know you have fine taste, as well!
Another milestone to celebrate, Jim! I'll never forget when I got my tiny little Macintosh SE20 (with a whopping 20 megabyte hard drive!!), also in 1988, and that was three years after I first met you and reviewed Verhoeven's "The Fourth Man" for my major-daily debut in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I was introduced to Windows 3.1 at Microsoft when I began work on Cinemania in '92, and not long after that you came aboard as our intrepid and highly qualified editor. Our constant companion as devoted cineastes has been the astonishing leaps of technology that continue to open new avenues of expression, and "Scanners" is a vibrant continuation of an honorable tradition. What's next, I wonder...direct thought transference through avatars on the net? Hey, stranger things have happened, right? Keep up the good work...it's been a privilege to witness this revolution of critical inquiry.
Jim,
Let me echo everyone else's congrats and salutes on reaching one year in the blogosphere. I'm a relative latecomer to Scanners, but it's fast become one of my regular stops on the thoroughfare. Long may it wave.
Keep 'em flying!
Yes, happy birthday, Scanners.
Reading your blog, Jim, along with Andy Horbal's "No More Marriages," has inspired me to start a blog of my own: Windmills of My Mind (I've only written one entry so far, but I only just got started, so give me a break). Thank you for that too. :)
I want to say what a pleasure it is to post on a blog where the moderator checks in at least once a day. With other moderated blogs I frequent, the host sometimes disappears for weeks at a time -- meaning my comments don't appear for weeks. Very frustrating.
Thanks, Jim.