Red Tie Revisited

There are a few things I would like to clarify for the sake of my faithful readers (there are a good five of you "faithful readers"). Consider this a one-year update on the management of the blog. Early on, my greatest difficulty was finding time to see a movie AND blog about it. Due to this, my work on reviews was few and far between, averaging one movie a month. That's very low considering movies come out every Friday and DVDs every Tuesday. The summer has reunited me with my old cinema, well-placed and well-priced, allowing me to see some movies twice. Yes, I neglected DVD reviews and focused on the summer flicks, but without a long drive, I returned to the good, the bad, and the cliche I so dearly love. The problem? When I do a review while another movie is coming out next week, that next week isn't likely to be spent editing and revising to keep this blog entertaining, detailed, and (more importantly) focused.

I am aware my reviews this summer are repetative and long-winded, as my problem tends to be overwriting, not writer's block (the fear 0f criticism towards the critic!). The purpose of this article is to present the new leaf I'm turning. A few things...

1.) I am on the staff of the local university newspaper for movie and DVD reviews, now providing me with the deadlines necessary to develope the practice and skill of timely reviews in limited space. The blog will still be kept, maintained as more than just a secondary posting of the newspaper's reviews. The paper's articles will be written for the college students, the deadline, and the editors' wishes. My blog is mine, without the space limitations and accessible to any movie I so desire. The blog is freedom, where I can go into greater detail, determine if the movie is for you or not, and give rantings and reflections which are not always appropriate for the printed press. My articles on defending Spider-man 3 and Pirates 3, the review of Joshua on limited release, and responses to other critics would probably not be able to make it to other sources.

2.) I will be keeping to the three factors formula and the approve/disapprove system. I have decided not take up a star-system or ranking system. I still find the three factors system as an effective way to describe movies and provide the information necessary to inform readers if a movie is necessarily for them without ruining it. The star-system is usually abused in other areas. IMDb.com's 10-star system usually results in people admiring cult favorites or being disgusted by a movie choosing an extreme to counter other people's opinions, giving 10 stars to weigh off a disapproving 4. Five stars seems too specific when the most widely heard critics use a thumbs up/thumbs down, and they use only one thumb each. I was tempted to use a 4-star system, only when reading Roger Ebert's columns over the past week, I noticed he recieves questions about rankings cross-genre. I don't want to argue or have readers wonder why Miami Vice and Underdog both have two stars. One's a realistic, high-stylized crime drama, the other is a child's comedy about a talking dog, and there's no way to compare the two. While I give star-ranking for my opinions posted on RottenTomatoes.com or IMDb.com for the sake of fitting their format, I do not see a use outside of their systems. I have debated developing a scale for the three factors, but for now my time is better spent revising and editing. In the mean time, if you insist of looking at a ranking system, RottenTomatoes' freshness scale is the most reliable, as it goes off of an approve/disapprove survey with quick, critic's one-liners for summary.

3.) I will still explain in my opinion (aka: humble ranting) about how I believe movies can be improved and, reasonably, what should be done in future movies. I will try to keep this limited, as there's a fine line between being a smart-aleck fanboy and a legitimate opinion about how a movie isn't as good as some people say. Expectations where too high for Spider-man 3, and Transformers' action wasn't THAT good. I believe this is an effect way for critic's to help convince some readers when he is in the unpopular stance. Remember: Siskel and Ebert were the leading critics, and they disagreed 30% of the time.

4.) No ranking lists will be posted on this site. I will still state "this is the best ____ movie since..." but I will not list the top 10 movies mustaches (ropeofsilicon.com) or deserted island movies, or anything else. I will only make such opinions of order in that, MY OPINION, or will quote another critic. A legitimate list that is informative and presents an actual ordering, where it can defend itself for each rank is very time-consuming and this time will be better spent revising and editing and ranting.

I look forward to writing this blog for another year.

Thanks,
--Jack