I'm not going to review Finding Nemo

I've been setting down all kinds of rules for my movie conduct in the first quarter of 2014, about how many movies I can watch per week (two, while I get some other life priorities into shape) and how many of those movies I'll be reviewing, in order to continue practicing my dormant craft (all of them).

Well, I want to make a little adjustment to that.

I've decided not to review any movies I rewatch.

Why does this announcement require its own separate post? It doesn't. Deal with it.

The reason I'm not reviewing movies I've rewatched is because I've decided it seems silly. The essential impetus behind writing a review is having just soaked something in for the first time, and having a fresh set of thoughts on the subject. You write the review -- assuming you aren't being compelled to for something like a job, that is -- because you are inspired to put pen to paper (fingers to keyboard) about something you've just seen, either good or bad.

Reviewing something where your take is over a decade old, and you've seen it five or six times, well ... it just feels perfunctory. So I'm not going to do it. 

I faced this scenario for the first time today when I sat down to watch Finding Nemo with my son. This would be my third time watching it all the way through. We own the DVD, so I've seen other smaller chunks of it, but I wanted to watch it from start to finish so it "counted" as my official third viewing.

After I finished and sat down to write the review, I thought, "Why am I doing this?"

Sure, I could write plenty of probably eloquent words glorifying this wonderful film ... but does the world really need another take on Finding Nemo? Does it need my take?

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but I've decided it's enough for me to review things I'm seeing for the first time. Sure, one of those could be a movie that has also been reviewed to death, something prominent that I'm just now catching up with. But at least it will be new to me.

If you want a more extreme example, let's take Star Wars. I don't own Star Wars and I doubt it's available for free streaming anywhere, so the chances of me watching it soon are not very good. But let's say I did sit down tomorrow to watch Star Wars. Am I really going to review Star Wars on my blog?

Eh, I think not.

The goal was to get me writing as many reviews as possible, to keep my tools sharp even if I should suddenly go on a binge of watching old favorites. But that's never been me as a viewer. I can't survive on old things for very long. I crave the new.

My first movie of next week will, no doubt, be just that.

While we're on the topic of Finding Nemo, I just happened to discover that its sequel, Finding Dory, is not coming out until 2016. For some reason I thought it was this summer.

So what is coming out this year from Pixar?

Nothing. There is no 2014 Pixar release. It's the first time since 2005, when there was a two-year gap between The Incredibles (2004) and Cars (2006).

And I thought 2013 had been a bad year for animation ...