I’m Back!

Alas, my January crunch overran most of February. For the last several months I’ve been working harder than probably at any time in my life since graduate school. (Too busy, actually … it’s taken a toll on my health, alas.)

Now, though, it’s finally over — which means I’m going back to being only ordinarily super-busy. (For starters, I’ve got two article deadlines next week, in addition to whatever screenings I attend and whatever I hope to write here at Decent Films and NCRegister.com.) But that’s okay! Ordinary super-busyness, I can handle.

What this means is that content will begin appearing more frequently here at Decent Films and NCRegister.com, starting tomorrow (Friday, 2/18). I’ll be writing for other venues too — stay tuned.

Also, if you’ve written to me in the past few months, I may have missed your email entirely. I apologize, and will try to catch up over the next month or so.

A number of readers have inquired about what I’ve been spending my time on lately.

Part of the answer can be found on my updated “About” page, which now notes that I have “contributed several entries to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, including ‘The Church and Film’ and a number of filmmaker biographies.”

The “Church and Film” entry is a few years old, but the others are new. I’ve been researching and writing about Cecil B. DeMille, Leo McCarey, François Truffaut and Franco Zeffirelli. This has been hard work but very rewarding. Besides the privilege of writing for the New Catholic Encyclopedia, I’ve learned a lot, and watched or rewatched a lot of great films. (Yes! I plan to write about some of them in the coming months!)

Beyond that, I’ve screened a couple of films, and attended a junket (my first in years) that I’ll be reporting on soon. And there’s another piece that I just finished this morning that I’ll announce in a bit.

Anyway, now that that’s done, I plan to start making up for lost time here at Decent Films. Maybe not quite as energetically as I’d like — in part because I also need to make up for lost time with my family, who’ve done without me more often than any of us would like, and partly also because I need some rest, frankly.

But I’m not taking time off. I will be back tomorrow. And for all who’ve asked, I will do my best to review The King’s Speech in time for the Oscars.

Thanks for your patience, and see you around.