Possible Projects, Two Types
Rick Retro’s Realm, Behind the Scenes #11: Super Surveys vs. Outstanding Overviews.
I’m a bit of a completist. I don't like to leave anything out. If I watch the first movie in a series, I want to watch the whole series, even if it’s well known that the sequels are terrible. I also want to read the play the whole series was based on, watch the spin-off animated Saturday morning cartoons, and the Bollywood remake. And all in chronological order. You get the idea. I can’t always get my hands on everything (foreign remakes are especially difficult), but I will if I can.
For you, my readers, the upside of my obsession with totality is that it leads to the discovery of forgotten and underappreciated gems. And I’ll tell you about them! For me, the downside is that I sift through a lot of dirt to find the nuggets. But I enjoy the process, so the downside isn’t all that bad.
The first Rick Retro’s Realm project, my 2024 Christmas Tour started off with a nod to my completist leanings. I read and reviewed the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. and then followed with reviews of all the film adaptations of the novella from 1901 to 1938. We will call a project of this type a survey.
From there, the Christmas Tour switched and became a project we will call an overview. I identified a cross-section of Christmas movies widely considered as among the all-time best, reviewing them one after another. This goes against my nature! I reviewed National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation before reviewing the first two films of the Vacation series. Oh, the horror! See what sacrifices I make for my readers!
Seriously, I do think there’s a larger reading audience for my overview projects than for my survey projects. Going forward, I will typically have one project of each type underway. The overview projects will be featured in at least half of the morning posts, often more frequently. The survey projects will get an occasional morning slot, but more often show up in the afternoon, alternating with updates like this, and other sorts of posts.
I will be undertaking other types of projects, but this post is long enough for now, and describes the two types of projects I am about to begin. Expect those to be announced soon!
Thanks for your support.
Keep the comments coming!
Originally posted to text group 2025-01-04
Last updated 2025-02-03