The Cinephiles: year one
1. What was your first column?
Coming off of my own blog, Four Inches of Dirty Water (A clumsy Robert Altman reference), which mostly consisted of pretty straightforward film reviews, I think I was still struggling a bit to find my voice. My first piece for The Idler — “It’s the unanswered questions that haunt us” — was a pretty sloppy mix of review and essay. It wasn’t until I began to focus more on The Idler‘s overall theme of more esoteric, nerdy enthusiasm that I found any sort of stride. That approach was best summed up by my co-editor: “We’re at our best when we’re weirdest.”
2. What was your favorite column that you didn’t write?
Since I already picked Gavin Craig’s “The horror before words” in the editors’ picks, I think I’ll go with fellow cinephile Adam Simmons’ “Panic in the 70s.” When it comes to 70s film knowledge, Adam simply cannot be topped. Plus, that cat’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of box office stats. Seriously, he just recently told me how much money Hoosiers (1986) made. . . off the top of his head!
3. What sort of things do you want to write about in the next year?
I’m hoping to get into a bit more local stuff, maybe hitting up some festivals to find those diamonds in the rough. Detroit has always struggled with the kind of self-congratulatory, clique-ish vibe that can often steal the attention away from real quality, interesting work. With the recent insurgence of artists into the area I look forward to seeing what this year brings us.
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Kevin Mattison is co-editor of The Idler, as well as being an occassional film review contributor for Real Detroit Weekly, a filmmaker and videographer. You can follow him on Twitter at @kmmattison.
