Times, They Are A-Changing

As you may have noticed, there haven't been any new rants or reviews in about a month. The truth is I hit a creative wall, and it's been a long time coming. Writing movie reviews is something that I love doing almost as much as watching movies, which is the reason that this blog exists. However, it is also a time consuming process that is often unrewarding. When I spend anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours or more writing a blog, post it, and get no feedback of any kind, I don't feel horribly compelled to continue spending my time in this fashion. After all, why keep writing reviews if nobody's reading them? I already know how I feel about the films I watch, so the purpose of this blog is to inform other people of what my opinions are on the subject so that perhaps they can be introduced to a new cinematic experience or discover a new favorite actor or director. I can't blame people for not reading and/or responding to my posts, though, because that would be unfair and rather childish. Instead, I've been forced to rethink and alter my original plan of attack. What I've Been Watching isn't going anywhere, but there are going to be some changes.

First of all, I will be posting reviews less frequently. Until now I had been making an effort to review every single movie that I watch, which can sometimes number upwards of seven per week. As such, I was forcing myself to write reviews rather than to take my time and do the job right. I'm not apologizing for any reviews that I've written in the past as I stand behind everything I've posted here, but there's always room for improvement, right? From now on I will be writing reviews based on two things. I will continue to review films that I see in the theater so as to provide others interested in catching them before they've left the cinema with my opinions on them. Aside from that I will only be writing reviews for movies that strike me, upon watching them, as worthy of being reviewed. This will all depend on my personal feelings toward the movies in question and my mood at the time of watching/writing.

Second, I've changed my review format. In place of the ambiguous run-on blocks of text that riddled my previous posts, I will be separating each review into three sections: The Plot, The Review, and The Verdict. The Plot will contain shorter synopses than I usually write as some people have expressed a disinterest in reading a synopsis at all. The Review will contain the largest chunk of each post with my thoughts on any aspects of the films that I feel are worth noting. Finally, The Verdict will contain a short summary of my feelings on the movie being reviewed and will generally state whether or not I would recommend it to others.

Hopefully these changes will make the experience of both reading and writing What I've Been Watching more enjoyable for all parties involved. While I intend to focus on one review per post from now on, I will also continue to post multi-film theme reviews (such as several of the same genre or multiple titles by the same director) from time to time. Also, I will continue to write rants and lists as they come to me, though as always there is no set schedule for when these will appear.

As you peruse the blog, please feel free to leave comments with your opinions of my reviews and/or the films being reviewed, as well as recommendations for those which you'd like to see me address. If you prefer the new review method that I've adopted, please let me know that as well, as it will encourage me to keep up the standard of quality that I'm attempting to deliver.

Thanks for stopping by.

- Rian

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.