IanTheCool’s 300th Post Spectacular!!!

Hey hey everyone!  Well, I’ve reached a blogging milestone: post 300! Though to be honest, I only realized that because of that sidebar wordpress has been putting up after each new post now.  So I have decided to do some shameless self-promotion and reflect back on my blog thus far, and also see where it might be going in the future.

So how did it all start?  Well, it all started with a review of the movie Watchmen in this post back in October 2009:

Post #1: Watchmen

And so that’s how the blog started, with very small blurbs on the films of 2009.  After I caught up with all of the films, I began reviewing the 2008 movies I had seen (which were even shorter, less in-depth reviews).  But I eventually decided to stick to only doing reviews of the most recent films, which is what I’ve been doing apart from a couple special categories which I began to include.

And so my blogging began.  My blog extended into a series of Top Ten lists, board game reviews, and other small features. I didn’t even notice as Post 100 and 200 passed me by.  By the way, they were the following:

Post #100: Clash of the Titans

Post #200: My 2010-2011 Oscar Predictions: Part 4 – The Majors

And now to #300.

Most Popular Post

So after all this time, what is my most popular post?  Well, I’ll be honest, its not one which I expected to be.  Yet time and time again, it keeps popping up as the post with the most visits (and consequently, most comments) and it is my most read post by a massive margin, a full 50% more than its closest competitor.  So what is it?

The Ten Best Comic Strips!

I’m not really sure why, but it is insanely popular.  Thousands of people have tuned in to find Calvin and Hobbes at the top of the list.  I wonder how many of them agreed?

On that note, lets talk about…

The Top Tens

Far and away, my most popular category of posts are my top ten lists.  I started doing these on discussion board which I have been a long time member of and then transferred them here.  My purpose was to make theses lists as objective as I could, though I recognize I could never be completely objective.  And though many of these lists have a movie-based slant, I’ve also tried to make a diverse range of lists, from history, to board games, to beer.  I have made 36 of these lists in total.

Obviously, the Comic Strips lists is the most popular, but it all started with

The Ten Most Influential People of the 20th Century

However, I must profess that I am running out of ideas.  Therefore my Top Ten List production has been slowing down a lot.  If you have ideas of lists you’d like to see, please let me know in the comments.  If its something that also interests me, perhaps I will try it.

The Movie Reviews

I have written reviews of most of the movies I have seen from 2009 up until 2011.  They started off as small blurbs, but grew, though never to great lengths.  I’ve always believed in keeping film reviews rather short, only a few paragraphs.  One way I do this is by not rehashing the plot, which is something I’ve never understood.  I’ve always felt like a line or two is all you need to let the reader know what its about.  Though even the great Roger Ebert does long plot rehashes, so what do I know?

I’ve also gradually added little extras to my reviews.  In 2010, I began adding pictures to spice things up, and in 2011, I’ve been adding funny captions to these pictures, found when the cursor sits over the picture (although I’m not sure that anybody has even noticed this yet).  What should I add in 2012?

Most popular movie review: The Social Network

Most Neglected Movie Review: The Informant!

The Board Game Reviews

Movies are obviously a big hobby for me.  Yet the other hobby I’m passionate about are board games.  And so I eventually decided to start posting Board Game Reviews.  These I have gone into more depth with than my film reviews, mostly because they are usually games many people have not heard of, so more explanation is required.  And some of the more popular games like Monopoly, Chess or Clue I have tried to appraoch my reviews almost like an essay arguing some sort of thesis.

Most Popular Board Game Review:  Monopoly: Why So Popular?

Most Neglected Board Game Review: Memoir ’44: History in a Box

The Other Stuff

I have tried to do other small segments on my blog to spice things up.  These include:

– Oscar Predictions – For the last two years, I have posted by Oscar predictions after the nominees are announced.  This means that my third installment will be coming soon!  Each year I make my predictions in four posts, breaking up the categories.  The fifth posts is where I post the results and see how I did.  Year 1 I predicted 63% right, year 2 it was 67%.

– Film Club Reviews – This is the only segment where I do full reviews of less recent films.  On a movie forum board I am a part of, I am a semi-regular member of a film club, where we are partnered up and recommend movies for each other to watch, writing a review about them later.  This category is by far my least popular on this blog, but I would encourage people to read them as they are usually lesser-known films which may surprise you.  They encompass a wide range of newer and older films, foreign to documentary, sci-fi to comedy,all sorts.

– AFI Recap – I also did a recap of the AFI’s 100 greatest films list from 1998, as this has been a popularly referred to list.  I went through the list ten films at a time and made my comments on whether or not they should be there.  But since I’ve gone through the whole list, this segment has been retired.

– The Blu-ray Files – After finally getting into the world of HD movies, I decided to do a segment on the blu-rays I was buying.  I commented on three films a post, talking mostly about video and audio quality and the difference blu-ray makes in the viewing experience.  I made 15 posts covering 45 blu-ray movies.  But now I think I’ve run out of things to say as the “newness” of my blu-ray experience has started to worn off, so I’ve put this segment to rest also.

The Future

So what is next?  The Blu-ray Files and AFI Recap have been put to rest and my top tens are slowing down.  I have thought about a few different segments to spice things up.  One idea is to do a TV series segment where I do full analyses of my favourite shows.  I also have thought about doing something altogether different, like a travel segment where I write about all of the different place I have traveled to.  Or perhaps I could revisit my top ten lists and try to extend them past ten.  Or maybe I could do a movie review segment based around individual directors.

What do you think about these ideas?  What would you rather I try?

Supporters

There are some supporters I would like to send a shout out to.  These people have great blogs of their own which you should visit, and a healthy  community of comments have been exchanged betweeen their blogs and mine.  Its nice to know people are reading and its nice to have something to read.  These are only a few of the many great blogs I’ve come across.

The Best Picture Project                              PG Cooper’s Movie Reviews                                     Boards and Bees 

                                                                                                         

Focused Filmographer                                           Fog’s Movie Reviews                                 DanTheMan’sMovieReviews

                                                                                                              

Wow, that was self-indulgent.  But fun.  Hope you keep reading!!