Happy New Year!!
I hope you all had a great time last night ringing in the new year, and that you had a wonderful holiday season too! I personally really love the holidays and Christmas time is my favorite of the year. I've been awfully busy the last few weeks interning part-time as one of Santa's helpers, but now I'm back and ready to get the ball rolling towards bigger and better things!
2015 is now officially underway and we have some huge blockbuster films to look forward to over the next 365 days of the year. We also have a jam-packed January to kick things off as we head into awards season in the quest for that coveted Academy Award! In light of the New Year, I'd like to take a moment to look back and reflect on the year and give you all some insight into what it's been like running my very first website here at 5 Minute Movie Guy.
Before I get into that, I'd like to announce that I'm going to be holding a 2014 Awards ceremony of my own. I'm excited about it and hope you will be too! Rather than telling you what I think are the best movies and performances of 2014, I'm going to focus instead on my own personal favorites and least favorites. I've decided that I'm going to save my "best of the year" selections for when I do my Oscar predictions in a few months from now. Why? Well, just because you can respect and appreciate a film, it doesn't necessarily mean you like it. Plus doing it this way also gives me the opportunity to make my own silly categories, so I intend to have plenty of fun with that. Anyway, let's get started by breaking down the first half-year of 5minutemovieguy.com with some statistics:
All in all, it's been a long and arduous year. Starting my own website turned out to be a far more ambitious and rigorous project than I had ever anticipated. Still, I'm happy with what I've accomplished, and I'm grateful for any help I received along the way. To be perfectly honest, however, I feel as though I'm at a crossroads here with this website. I'm not really sure how much longer I'm going to continue to do this. While I've enjoyed having this website, it may very likely end up getting put on the backburner while I pursue my dream career. The immense time investment required to run this website without a staff makes it illogical to attempt to juggle both. I had thought that perhaps this site could potentially end up turning into a career of sorts, but after sixth months of hard work, I'm not seeing any indication of that happening. Still, no matter what happens, I'm not just going to pull the plug on the site, as I still have lots to share with you and I love having it as a platform to write about my passion.
While it's evident that I'm feeling burnt out at the moment, there has been a lot of fun and satisfaction in creating something of my own and watching it grow. For me, there's a tremendous thrill in creating something from an idea. I love losing myself in that conceptual stage and seeing my ideas realized and transformed. I vividly remember the day I opened my website, when I was finally able to show my creation to the world. I had been preparing for that day for weeks, and although I didn't have too much to show for it that day, it was the start of something fresh and exciting. The feedback was outstanding and it felt so immensely rewarding. This little website grew from being just a blog page and a couple reviews into having news, galleries, polls, trailers, interactive features, and more. It's been a fun ride even if I ended up getting myself in way over my head. I'd like to clarify that I'm not finished and I'm not calling it quits. I'm just interested in exploring some new avenues, here and elsewhere. I want to thank you all for the support you've given me. I greatly appreciate your feedback and interaction, and most of all, your time. It means a whole lot to me that you guys spend your time taking a look at my site and reading what I have to say (no matter how ridiculous some of it is). That's truly invaluable to me, and I sincerely thank you for that.
So what lies on the horizon for 5 Minute Movie Guy? There's still something really big and crazy and stupid I'd like to tackle this year. Another idea of mine that I've kept mostly under wraps, and I'd really love the chance to make that dream come true. While that idea is currently on hold, I'm certainly not giving up on it. I'd really like to also get a youtube channel up and running for the site this year. It'll allow me to combine my passion of filming with my passion of talking about movies. Plus I think it would just make things easier for me, and simultaneously would allow me to improve my social skills as well as my comfort level in front of the camera. I'm personally really pumped for the Oscars this year, and I think you should be too. Despite what box office sales may suggest, it has been a fantastic year for movies. I think this year, it really will be a pleasure just to be nominated, given how strong the competition is. The Academy Awards are my favorite event of the year and for the first time ever, I'm going to have seen all of the Best Picture nominees before the big show. It'll be even cooler to watch after having actually seen so many of the films and performances that are going to be nominated. In the meantime, my year-end awards are on the horizon and they are in progress! Stay tuned! Nominees and winners are coming soon to a 5MMG blog near you!
2015 is now officially underway and we have some huge blockbuster films to look forward to over the next 365 days of the year. We also have a jam-packed January to kick things off as we head into awards season in the quest for that coveted Academy Award! In light of the New Year, I'd like to take a moment to look back and reflect on the year and give you all some insight into what it's been like running my very first website here at 5 Minute Movie Guy.
Before I get into that, I'd like to announce that I'm going to be holding a 2014 Awards ceremony of my own. I'm excited about it and hope you will be too! Rather than telling you what I think are the best movies and performances of 2014, I'm going to focus instead on my own personal favorites and least favorites. I've decided that I'm going to save my "best of the year" selections for when I do my Oscar predictions in a few months from now. Why? Well, just because you can respect and appreciate a film, it doesn't necessarily mean you like it. Plus doing it this way also gives me the opportunity to make my own silly categories, so I intend to have plenty of fun with that. Anyway, let's get started by breaking down the first half-year of 5minutemovieguy.com with some statistics:
- 5minutemovieguy.com launched on May 15th, 2014.
- From launch date until the end of the year, I saw a total of 50 films in theaters. (Prior to starting the website, I would typically only see 2-3 films a year in theaters).
- That means that over a period of 7 and a half months, I saw an average of 6.66 movies a month in theaters (Man, I am so heavy metal! Oh yeah!)
- Yet I've only reviewed a total of 10 films. (About that... you see, uhh... well...)
- My average review score was 3.3 stars.
- Total movie pages on 5 Minute Movie Guy: 88
- Of those 50 films I watched, 6 of them were seen in IMAX (Edge of Tomorrow, Forrest Gump, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Interstellar, Transformers: Age of Extinction).
- 4 of those films were seen in IMAX 3D (Edge of Tomorrow, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, Transformers: Age of Extinction).
- Of the 50 films, there were 12 sequels, 2 reboots, and 2 re-releases.
- Movies I walked out of: 1 (It was for personal reasons and was nothing against the film, so it will not be named.)
- Movies I wanted to walk out of: 6 (Blended, Godzilla, If I Stay, Lucy, The Purge: Anarchy, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For)
- My highest number of page views in a single day was 962.
- My highest number of unique website visitors in a day was 640.
- Total number of movie pages on 5 Minute Movie Guy: 88
- Total number of movie theaters visited this year: 4
- I still don't have Netflix. Nor Amazon Prime. Nor Hulu or any other rental service.
All in all, it's been a long and arduous year. Starting my own website turned out to be a far more ambitious and rigorous project than I had ever anticipated. Still, I'm happy with what I've accomplished, and I'm grateful for any help I received along the way. To be perfectly honest, however, I feel as though I'm at a crossroads here with this website. I'm not really sure how much longer I'm going to continue to do this. While I've enjoyed having this website, it may very likely end up getting put on the backburner while I pursue my dream career. The immense time investment required to run this website without a staff makes it illogical to attempt to juggle both. I had thought that perhaps this site could potentially end up turning into a career of sorts, but after sixth months of hard work, I'm not seeing any indication of that happening. Still, no matter what happens, I'm not just going to pull the plug on the site, as I still have lots to share with you and I love having it as a platform to write about my passion.
While it's evident that I'm feeling burnt out at the moment, there has been a lot of fun and satisfaction in creating something of my own and watching it grow. For me, there's a tremendous thrill in creating something from an idea. I love losing myself in that conceptual stage and seeing my ideas realized and transformed. I vividly remember the day I opened my website, when I was finally able to show my creation to the world. I had been preparing for that day for weeks, and although I didn't have too much to show for it that day, it was the start of something fresh and exciting. The feedback was outstanding and it felt so immensely rewarding. This little website grew from being just a blog page and a couple reviews into having news, galleries, polls, trailers, interactive features, and more. It's been a fun ride even if I ended up getting myself in way over my head. I'd like to clarify that I'm not finished and I'm not calling it quits. I'm just interested in exploring some new avenues, here and elsewhere. I want to thank you all for the support you've given me. I greatly appreciate your feedback and interaction, and most of all, your time. It means a whole lot to me that you guys spend your time taking a look at my site and reading what I have to say (no matter how ridiculous some of it is). That's truly invaluable to me, and I sincerely thank you for that.
So what lies on the horizon for 5 Minute Movie Guy? There's still something really big and crazy and stupid I'd like to tackle this year. Another idea of mine that I've kept mostly under wraps, and I'd really love the chance to make that dream come true. While that idea is currently on hold, I'm certainly not giving up on it. I'd really like to also get a youtube channel up and running for the site this year. It'll allow me to combine my passion of filming with my passion of talking about movies. Plus I think it would just make things easier for me, and simultaneously would allow me to improve my social skills as well as my comfort level in front of the camera. I'm personally really pumped for the Oscars this year, and I think you should be too. Despite what box office sales may suggest, it has been a fantastic year for movies. I think this year, it really will be a pleasure just to be nominated, given how strong the competition is. The Academy Awards are my favorite event of the year and for the first time ever, I'm going to have seen all of the Best Picture nominees before the big show. It'll be even cooler to watch after having actually seen so many of the films and performances that are going to be nominated. In the meantime, my year-end awards are on the horizon and they are in progress! Stay tuned! Nominees and winners are coming soon to a 5MMG blog near you!
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