Tuesday, May 1, 2007

So It Begins...

Welcome to the official blog for What I've Been Watching.

My name is Rian Miller. My first love is comic books, and by association, art. I am an alumnus of The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, NJ, and am currently a freelance artist/writer.

My second love is film. A lot of people find the viewing of movies to be a passive experience. I am not one of these people. I take cinema very seriously, and have dabbled in the medium myself from time to time (IntoDecember Films).

Most nights I sit at my art table and work until about 2 or 3 AM, at which point I clean up, grab a snack, and watch a movie. I've made it my goal to always have something to watch by a steady regiment of renting, borrowing, downloading, and purchasing new movies multiple times throughout the week. On the eve of the year 2007, with so many films at my disposal, I began reviewing them and posting these reviews in the blog on my MySpace page. After a while I decided that it was time to move these reviews to a more focused outlet, which over time has become this blog.

What I've Been Watching works in episodes. I post new episodes as often as possible, sometimes up to three or four times a week. Each episode contains (on average) between one and five film reviews. The episodes are numbered, but I will also keep an alphabetical list of the films I've reviewed, complete with direct links to them, on a page outside of the blog. I will provide a link to this list as soon as it's completed. EDIT - The Alphabetical Film Review Index can now be found by clicking HERE. A permanent link to the page is also located on the blog's sidebar directly under my profile along with a link to this post.

My reviews usually contain a brief plot synopsis followed by my thoughts on various aspects of the film. Some reviews are long, in-depth, and go off on related tangents while others are short and to the point. This all depends on my mood at the time of the writing and my enthusiasm about the films in question. You won't find any grading system here such as __ out of 5 stars or anything, but hopefully if you read through a review you will get a good feeling of whether you'd like to see that particular film or not.

As for the films I'll be reviewing, they will be many and varied. I will watch just about anything that is put in front of me. I keep an ever-growing list of movies that I am hunting down to watch, but sometimes none of them are available. In the case that there isn't anything that I particularly want to see at my disposal, I will always watch something that I'm not looking forward to viewing. I will not be reviewing strictly new films, but usually things that I have obtained on DVD. In the event that I see a film in the theater, I will do my best to review those right away.

Comments are enabled and welcome. If you found a particular review helpful, I'd certainly like to hear about it. If you completely disagree with a review, I invite anyone to voice their opinions in a civilized manner. If you have any questions about anything involving the films that I've reviewed, I'll be glad to reply to any inquiries left in the comments. I'm also open to any recommendations you may have for films that I should watch and review.

Finally, I try to keep an open mind when watching any film. I am often personally surprised by what I enjoy and what I don't. Regardless of my opinions on a film SPOILERS MAY OCCUR, BUT I'LL DO MY BEST TO AVOID DISCUSSING EVENTS WHICH COULD POTENTIALLY RUIN A MOVIE IF REVEALED. When posting reviews on MySpace, I began every episode with that line written in caps, bolded, and in a larger font than the reviews themselves. As this blog's sole purpose is to feature my reviews, I'll be taking for granted that you, the viewer, realize this going in.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow man, this blog came out of nowhere! very nice work on the layout and the logo--it's funny, for those who don't know those are his shoes and television. Also props on individually alphabetizing the movies you've reviewed, it's a way better format to check them out in. Very cool!!!

Rian said...

Thanks. My hope is that I get a little more readership here than I do on MySpace.