I've been gone a while, off evaluating what to do with my writing efforts in this particular regard, while my intent never was to abandon this blog. I’m so glad to be back in full force now!
One thing I somehow never seemed to manage to get posted here previously is how this blog originally came into being, and that is part of my recent hiatus also; getting a few facts together from old email records for you as well as doing some new research too.
See, I found I have a penchant for accurately rating, reviewing, summarizing, describing and critiquing movies quite accidentally. It all started with an e-mail distribution list to a select few friends and a hobby of going to the movies just about every Saturday of my recent adult life - for the past ten years at least. That should mean I have about 500 some documented movie reviews, wouldn’t it? Yes. So, my first recent decision was to lose the legacy stuff. You will only find reviews from the most recent month and today going forward here. My email records indicate I started writing and posting movie reviews via email when the oldest of my 2 boys was 8. I didn't do much else for fun back in those days and yes, of course they went occasionally too, content depending. I wasn’t dating in the beginning, just going largely alone. As my boys they grew up our Saturday movie escapades were becoming quite the family “thing”.
My thought process and methodologies began to change after I had accurately picked the Academy Awards Best Picture five years in a row; it would have been 6 in a row but I blew it on "Crash". I did not, still do not, like Crash. I have yet to know or meet someone who says: "Dude, let's watch Crash, it's awesome!" Been awhile but I picked Capote that year to win.
Eventually I would together a string of dates with the same woman and she said "Why aren't you blogging your reviews?" I said "Blog, what is "blog"? It was a little after that point my distribution list had enough people in it that told me they were swayed by my reviews and opinions as to which movie to see or to spend their money on that I started this site.
So back to the email thing and I got hammered immediately after confiding in several people that I wanted to write for a living and was I good enough to make money at it?
I listened to their feedback and my inner spirit both.
I was told I needed less a gimmick, but a format, something to make me stand out from other critics. The majority of my friends told me they didn't want to read a monolog with allusions to bits of obfuscated references and “out there” knowledge when reading a movie critique, just a quick short "should I see it or not?" and "Is it worth the coin to go or not"?
FYI Fandango Fan reviews follow a similar concept using only “Go” or “Don’t go” or something very similar.
What follows next will be a posting of the movie I saw today in a format I hope you find helpful for deciding where to spend your entertainment dollars.
