Being an amateur reviewer is fun, but sometimes exhausting. Because I have a regular full-time job, a family, and sometimes I pretend I have a social life finding the time to sit down and watch something and then review it can be complicated.
Ok, let’s be real here. Obviously, I have the time. I watch a lot of movies. I talk about them here so I can’t pretend that I don’t have the time. Let me start over. Being an amateur reviewer is fun, but sometimes I want to watch whatever I want to watch and not have to write about them afterward.
That’s better.
Being an amateur reviewer does take a lot of time. When I write an official review I try to do a good job. I spend quite a bit of time in research mode. I’ll read about the making of the film. I’ll read new reviews and reviews that were written at the time the film came out. I like to dig into the history of genres and filmmakers. Etc. That stuff doesn’t always come into the actual review, but I like to do my research.
But reviews also have a deadline. PR people want you to have the reviews up the week the film comes out (or in my case when the Blu-ray is released). When things go well that is no problem. But sometimes they don’t actually give me a copy of the film until after it has come out. Sometimes I’ll request quite a few things and then find myself having to watch and review half a dozen films within a few days.
Or sometimes, as is the case with this series, I’ll get a multi-season collection and have to get my review out quickly. Binge-watching a series is one thing. Bing-watching multiple seasons in a few days and managing to write something coherent is something else. With stuff like this, I tend to watch a couple of episodes then skip a few and work my way through the entire thing like that. There just isn’t enough time to watch every single episode.
So, Borgen is a Danish series that is often likened to The West Wing. I remember watching it, and liking it, but the whole thing is a blur. I know I skipped around quite a lot with it and now I really want to sit down with it, taking my time to enjoy it.
You can read my review here.
themidnightcafe.org 