The Idea
My goal for this project was to review six different genres of film and write blog posts about my thoughts as well as the approval rating of other people in hopes of exposing myself and others to films that are possibly unknown to us. I watched one movie a week from a different genre, horror, children’s, romance, drama, foreign, and western. And each of those movies was from a different decade starting in the 1960s and ending with one from the 2010s. I had some trouble coming up with this idea because I suck at project ideas, however I’m glad I did this because my first idea was a health and fitness thing where I would log all the food I ate and my physical activity. I know that I wouldn’t have been successful with it because the idea of going to the gym hasn’t even crossed my mind. Most people like movies. It’s an easy conversation topic and when I meet new people it’s my go to topic because of that.
The Medium
I chose to do a blog because a wiki is more suited for an ongoing ever changing project. So if I were to document how I made a movie I would have chosen to do a wiki but since I was just writing about movies the blog seemed to make the most sense. I was aiming for a style of writing that sounded like I was actually talking to you, giving you my opinion as I would actually give it. I also chose to use my blog because I’m not too confident with formatting in a wiki. My WordPress blog was ideal because it was already there. The title no longer fits with the project but I didn’t know what I was going to be doing and I am still trying to figure out life.
The Blog
I posted three times a week with a brief history of the genre (in the case of the foreign film I substituted with a History of Trolls in Norwegian Culture), my thoughts on the movie, and then what others thought, including actual critics and random people who wanted to share their opinions. Posting in this order for the most part seemed to make the most sense to me. Tempt you with the genre, give my review (so you are getting the info from a person that you know is real), and the giving professional and other opinions to hopefully get you interested enough to watch the movie. It’s not the prettiest or easiest blog to use but I think it works.
What Happened
I’m not sure how many people are actually reading it but I was looking at the stats for the blog and apparently someone from Norway looked at it. That’s pretty cool in my opinion but all the other views were from the US. I think the low views are because I don’t use tags and there is not really a reason for people outside of my class to view it. I did some searches for other film blogs and found this one. It’s a nice looking blog with the author being a freelance writer and copywriter. She adds in photos of the movies that she reviews. I found this one as well. This is a professional looking website with advertisements and changing headlines with pictures on the home page. The navigation is a bit difficult because there isn’t a master list of the things that got reviewed (But there isn’t one on mine so I can’t really comment.). I think the most difficult part of this project was actually compiling the reviews. I found Roger Ebert and I used his reviews regularly, but for my review I struggled to find the right words to express how I felt about the film. If I like something I like it and justifying my opinions is a struggle because I’m not good at picking stuff apart.
Changes That I Would Make
Time management was and always has been my biggest struggle in my academic career. I have ADD so if I get hyper-focused on something that isn’t what I need, I struggle to pull away from it. I ended up setting reminders in my phone to actually watch the movie after the first week. To be more fair I should have chosen movies that I hadn’t seen before but if I don’t like a movie I will stop it. So to be sure that I would actually be willing to watch the whole thing and be able to write about it I chose movies that I had already seen for the most part. The only new one was Nevada Smith and I hadn’t actually seen all of Twilight because it was so boring to me when it first came out. However it had been a while since I watched Fight Club, Carrie, Trollhunter, and Labyrinth so I had forgotten about certain elements in those. I would also hopefully figure out how to add the genres to the side bar of the page so the genres would be right there for easy access. Having someone else watch the movies with me and then both of us give reviews would be an interesting thing to try. If I had a larger amount of people reading my blog I might watch what they suggested and give my review on what they suggest (but that requires an audience). I’m not exactly sure how I would get more readers but I suspect that if I started posting everyday it would increase. Unfortunately I don’t have enough time for that.
In the End
I tried to expand from my usual genres of what I call bro movies (Think Seth Rogan and James Franco type stuff like The Interview (2014) or Animal House (1978).), romantic comedies, and movies for kids. I occasionally watch westerns but they require the right mood and the patience to sit for more than two hours (which I struggle with, but some pink candy floss might help that), foreign films are very hit or miss (in my opinion), horror movies are mostly too scary for me, romance is usually just boring because nothing happens, and action movies also require a certain mood. My favorite movie out of the ones that I watched would probably be Labyrinth (1986). I like the aesthetic of it and the songs are pretty catchy. From a more technical standpoint I was most impressed with Nevada Smith (1966) because of the filming locations, music, and the fact that is such an old movie. They had some pretty snazzy tricks in it. I think that I achieved what I set out to. I watched movies and got multiple viewpoints on them. I enjoyed this project and it seemed to go better than I was actually expecting it to. I’m not planning on continuing with movie reviews on such a regular basis but there might be the occasional one and some other random posts.
To My Readers
Thanks for sticking with me throughout this adventure. Hopefully you enjoyed reading my reviews and if they inspired you to watch some of the movies so you could get your own opinion that’s even better.
Let's Map This Out 