What this is all about

Here’s what I’m doing here, in creating these memoranda re: my viewing history.  First off I’m preserving my own memories and reactions against the erosions of time and age, but moreover I’m convinced that it’s a service I am able to provide that is worth something in an age of proliferating media:  a string through the labyrinth, to help you find and enjoy treasures buried under the avalanche of streaming availability.
 
I do not profess to write criticism, or even reviews in the usual sense, but aim to offer consumer guidance and covert autobiography, in a telegraphic style.  Not much more than giving a thumb up or down, I do try to offer a recognizable thumbnail sketch of each film or show, with my own fingerprint upon it.  After nearly sixty years of assiduous cinema engagement, I have fair confidence that my seal of approval signifies.  Not everyone will agree, to be sure, but if your reading on the barometer of taste ranges between “high-middlebrow” and “low-highbrow,” then I am likely to be a reliable guide.
 
In that same range falls my fellow Williams alum John Sayles, for whom I have just posted a career summary.   As time goes by, I expect to be adding more career summaries to the column on the right (as viewed on a computer), to express my enthusiasms more fully and to provide a different sort of guide from the mere notice of recent releases.
 
Having committed to keeping Cinema Salon going, I’d like to develop more readership (for utterly noncommercial reasons), so if what you find here amuses or edifies, then please forward link to any friends who might find it entertaining or useful.