Every new year brings with it new seasons of change. Sometimes they mean working out more and practicing healthier eating habits. Sometimes they mean saving money and becoming more financially responsible. And sometimes, they could be just trying to be a better person. For me, 2025 is bringing many changes with it, including this website. Starting today, I will no longer be publishing movie reviews on DavidDunnReviews.com. Or at least, not in their traditional format.
You see, when I first launched this website in 2013, I did so with the express intent of pursuing my passion, which was the movies. I have always been passionate about the movies. Ever since I was a child, I was always mesmerized by the sights and sounds of the moving picture and how its magic transported us to new worlds, time periods, and characters to fall in love with. I always knew I wanted to be involved with film in some way, shape, or form. And while many doors were closed to me in terms of filming, writing, acting, or directing my own movies, the possibility of covering them always excited me. I will always appreciate my many years of covering the entertainment industry because it taught me much more than just being a better writer: it taught me how to be a better person, which is sadly a rare takeaway in today’s hectic, crazy, busy-bee world.
I always imagined that the movies would forever be a part of my life, no matter where it might take me. So why am I no longer committed to covering them full-time on my website? Well for one thing, my postings have become wildly infrequent. The last movie I officially reviewed on this website was Deadpool & Wolverine last July, and as fun and irreverent as that movie was, it’s a far cry from the best movie of the year. In my Top 10 for 2024, I placed nine movies above Deadpool & Wolverine. The only other one I reviewed on my list was Dune: Part Two. To cover an entire year of movies only to have properly reviewed just two of them is a grave injustice to me. It makes me feel like I failed as a movie critic — potentially even as a movie lover.
The explanation for my infrequent postings most likely revolves around my second reason: I’m tired. I’m exhausted beyond words. I’ve never stated this plainly outright before, but I think any casual viewer can see that I don’t get paid to run this website. Instead, I cover the movies whenever and wherever I can, juggling everything between my professional career, my married life, my social life, and my hobbies. That’s a lot to manage for a 30-something-year-old man, and with juggling all of my responsibilities, my passions inevitably fell to the wayside. Perhaps that’s the trajectory of all dreamers as they grow from childhood into adulthood.
Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, 2024 was the year that completely and utterly broke me: personally, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Without getting into specifics, 2024 was the year where basically every catastrophe that could have possibly happened was hurled into my lap like a time bomb, and I had to hurry up and disarm it before the next one blew up in my face. I make no exaggeration when I say that last year was most definitely the hardest year I’ve had yet in my young life, and I already know for a fact that harder years lie ahead: that’s the worst part of surviving this hellish marathon.
With all of that under consideration, where does that leave this website? Well despite everything else being up in the air, I don’t think I can entirely shut everything down cold turkey. After all, I am still a writer, and I have to have an outlet somewhere that isn’t Twitter or Reddit.
That being said, I believe my first order of business is recentering myself and giving myself a much-needed and deserved break. After my hiatus is over, I think it’s time for creative reset: a chance to hit the “redo” button and start all over again. I don’t think I need to start from scratch, BUT I do believe this is a time to reevaluate what I’ve been writing about, what topics or conversations intrigue me, and what I might offer to my readers beyond the generic blog posts every once in a while. No matter how you slice it, I am not the same person I was when I first started this website 12 years ago. My writing should reflect who I am today, not who I wanted to be when I first entered the world of entertainment journalism.
So as I’m navigating this new chapter of my life and what it might mean for me and this website going forward, please bear with me as I figure out this new direction. You have all stuck with me through so much, and I could not be more grateful and appreciative for all of your support. I just hope you’ll remain patient with me a little longer as I figure out where I want to take this website in 2025 and beyond.
Thank you as always for taking the time to read my work. Regardless of wherever this website goes next, I’ll see you all at the same place as I always have — the movies.
Take care,
David
DAVID DUNN 