I'm now a member of LAMB, the Large Association of Movie Blogs, but there was a peculiar reaction a few months ago when I tried to join the CMBA -- the Classic Movie Blog Association. This is run by a woman I never heard of, one Marsha Collock -- apparently she contributed an article to a 99 cent kindle book related to the CMBA -- who told me that the other members would be voting on my suitability, and my inclusion would depend upon their votes. Now exactly when did this vote take place? Get this --
over 4th of July weekend! Yeah, instead of having barbecues or going to the beach, all of the CMBA members stayed at their computers to take a look at my blog. According to this gal, I didn't make the cut, the opinion being that I didn't cover enough old movies! [Generally out of seven movies per week, I run one review of a new or more recent (less than 25-years-old) picture.] Has anybody ever heard of, like,
archives? But who could expect the members of the group to bother going through the archives on a holiday weekend (do people go through archives anyway, when instant immediacy seems to be the order of the day on the Internet?) Collock says that no one is ever blackballed, but it sure as hell seems that way to me! It is also true that this was just after I'd posted reviews of several LGBT movies for Gay Pride week ... Are Collock and her colleagues arch-conservatives? Who knows?
I looked over some of the other blogs in the CMBA and I seem to be one of the very few actual professional authors in the bunch. Let me make it clear that there are some beautifully written movie blogs out there that may not be the work of professional writers, but this still seems odd to me. Because I write about movies professionally does this make me
less of a classic movie enthusiast?
There doesn't seem to be that much value to joining this group in any case.
