Thanks for the responses, everyone. I'm going to respond specifically to verbALs because he asked questions, but I appreciate all of your input.
To ask, what I am aware is, probably, a stupid question, but what is the primary aim of the reviews you write? By this I mean, what do you aim to get out of writing?
I don't know anymore. That's a sobering thought. Maybe I can flesh it out a bit...
You mentioned that you thought the reviews were useful to nobody. What use are they to you?
1) With the volume of films that you have seen, is the primary value in cataloguing your library of films; using your rankings to order them?
I suppose it is largely a way of tracking what I watch, keeping tabs on my likes and dislikes. But at some point I must have thought I had something valuable to say or else I wouldn't have put them on the internet. What's really depressing is when I started my reviews were even more shallow (and often ill-informed) than they are now.
2) Do your reviews help to crystallise your thoughts on a movie? Writing thoughts down and following a train of thought to a (hopefully) coherent conclusion, that makes you understand a film, more fully.
Yes, but sometimes I find myself saying "X is a good thing" when I could just as easily say "X is a bad thing" (or vice versa) and then I don't feel like I've come to any coherent conclusions at all. Maybe it's time to stop thinking in terms of good/bad... that's a feeling that comes to me a lot but I don't know how to get past it. I don't think I've developed the critical skillset to write about much beyond what I liked and what I didn't like.
3) Do you enjoy writing and, using film reviewing as a way to practice the skill of writing, do you expect your writing to improve; simply by repitition?
I enjoy it occasionally, when I feel I've written something clever. Or when I've tried to promote a film I really loved (though I don't know how successful I am). I think my writing has improved, but ever so slightly. I'm wondering if I've plateau'ed. Without devoting a lot more time to it than I care to, I don't see it getting better.
It is inevitable that sometimes what you write won't get a response, and expecting responses seems, to me anyway, hubristic. At those times, if you don't get a response, you may end up asking yourself what was the point. If you aren't writing primarily to serve a personal purpose, then that's a difficult question to answer.
You're right, it is hubristic. It's my nature to crave validation for my efforts, no matter how minimal those efforts may be. It's a characteristic I don't like about myself, and I don't like when I see it in others.
I think part of the reason I keep writing is just habit, some weird sense of obligation that I have to keep doing this. That's not good. Then again, being a quitter isn't good either. This has been a pattern with me throughout my life... I want to be great at stuff without having to work hard at it. When it doesn't pan out, I get discouraged. Childish.