September 20, 2010
by Peter Eramo Jr.
So here it is! Magic Lantern Film’s first real milestone — my 100th post on this website!!! I thought I would take a moment and reflect on my mighty blog and share some thoughts with you. First, as you know, I have always had a tremendous love for film. Ever since I was little, I have had an immense passion for theatre and motion pictures. But that isn’t what compelled me to start this website. I never even really gave the idea much thought, if any at all. Last year, I was inspired by a friend of mine who posted his “Top 10 Horror Films of the Decade” on his personal movie blog. He had posted it on Facebook and I gave it a read. I never looked at a film blog before this. I thought, “That’s pretty cool. I would love to start my own, especially as I tend to have rather loud opinions of my own on anything movie-related.” So I asked some questions, created a WordPress account, and wrote my very first post on December 26, 2009 — The 10 Best Films of the Decade (2000-2009).
I didn’t write another post until February, exactly two months later. I had no followers, of course (with the exception of a couple of close friends and family members). I didn’t realize at the time that it was something I wanted to keep up on a semi-regular basis. For this second post, I wrote about my personal thoughts on the nominations for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. It wasn’t until April 2010 that I really began to immerse myself into this blog. I started learning a bit more about WordPress and graphics and such; I began to write movie reviews and add other features to the site (movie polls, and the weekly “Gimme 5” feature that was given to me by Raul Duke). I saw that a few of the other sites had Podcasts, so I thought to do something a bit different. I started my own Video Web Rants to try to do the same thing, but on a more personal level (I need to get back to doing that more often and I certainly will, especially as the Oscar race begins to heat up). I started finding other film blogs and reading their opinions. I had no idea that there were so many movie bloggers out there! An entire sub-culture of people who have the same passion for movies as I do — and we communicate regularly on each other’s sites. All of these terrific movie blogs with voices of their own — all intelligent, creative, distinct, and pretty damn good writers. It has been my pleasure to get to know all of these movie lovers a bit via cyberspace. I won’t name them all, but my BlogRoll lists a good number of these excellent film blogs and the knowledgeable people behind them.
The blog takes up a good deal of my time and very often I get frustrated, wondering why I am even doing this. I don’t get paid (yet). The audience is a bit limited. I could be doing any number of other things. But then I get a few comments on a particular post, or people chime in on a weekly “Gimme 5” and it all seems worth it. I love going to the movies…I love writing about movies; I enjoy creating these Top 10 Lists, despite how much time it takes to research and write it all out.
It is also amazing to see just how many visitors the Magic Lantern Film Blog gets. Since March 2010, the number of visits to the site has grown exponentially each and every month — and it has continued to grow. That is very encouraging to me and puts a smile on my face when I see the statistics. I hope that trend continues. I also hope to keep adding to the site, bit by bit. A few goals I have for the near future are (1) to hire someone (much more knowledgeable than me) to create a new layout to the site and make it look much more appealing (2) to be linked to sites such as Amazon, Netflix and such where readers can make purchases (3) to produce the video web rants on a regular basis with much higher quality (4) connect to even more film bloggers and their sites, and (5) to continue the trend of having more and more people find the blog and to find it interesting enough to keep coming back to it.
So that is it! 100 posts. Sounded like a round enough number to resemble some sort of minor accomplishment. I hope to get through the next 100 in much quicker fashion. Thank you to everyone who has visited the site and many, many thanks to those who have bookmarked it and continue to read on a regular basis. As always, I would love to hear from you — your own thoughts and opinions on writing a blog, or any honest thoughts you have about this one in particular. I am always looking for constructive criticism to help make this site even better. Any questions you have, I’ll take those too.
Thanks again!!!
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What do they say? Never do a movie with a child or an animal? I suppose this old adage stems from the fear of being upstaged by an adorable little girl in pigtails or a cute, furry creature. But there have been some wonderful movies centering on animals – and those films where an animal just has a few scenes, but steals the show! For decades we have had scores of unforgettable animals (Toto, Bambi, Spielberg’s Great White); many woven into the fabric of cinema history. To celebrate Halloween, I was going to do a “scary movie” Top 5, but I used that one up when the “Gimme 5” feature just started – so I chose this instead. I want all you movie/animal lovers out there to try this one - if you don’t, I’m calling PETA.
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