Blog Archives

Cleaning House!

5/19/2015

Now that I'm focusing my efforts back on the website, I'm going to be doing a little bit of clean-up around here. I just wanted to warn you guys ahead of time, since certain things are going to be disappearing permanently. Most significantly, that includes movie trailers. I had debated doing it long ago, but now it's finally happening. The trailer page is just unnecessary busy work and website clutter. I imagine you guys just look up movie trailers you want to see on youtube anyway. That's what I always do.

Of course, removing a feature on the website is never quite as simple as just clicking "Delete" but I will be immediately cutting off user access to it and will gradually eliminate it (that way I won't end up with a whole bunch of dead website links). Fortunately, I will still be sharing movie trailers on my Facebook and Twitter pages for movies I'm personally interested in. So if you're not already following me on social media, then I suppose now is as good of a time as any for you to start. You can follow me on Facebook by clicking here, and on Twitter by clicking here.

I'm also going to be completely eliminating the movie hub pages on the site, which will drastically reduce the number of overall pages. Again, it's too much unnecessary work. I'm just one guy, so I'm not trying to compete with IMDB (it's actually one of my favorite sites, so check it out, movie lovers!) I like things to be neat, organized, and concise, so it's time to tidy up my website once and for all. Thanks for your patience and understanding! Also, if you should happen to run into any broken links in the meantime, please do me a favor and let me know!

Yours truly,
5 Minute Movie Guy

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My Love for the Wasteland

5/15/2015

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This week will see the release of Mad Max: Fury Road, one of my top 5 most anticipated movies of the year (find out how high it ranks here), and needless to say, I'm totally pumped for it. It looks insane in the best possible way. Visually and artistically, I think Fury Road may end up being the most breathtaking movie of the year. Call me crazy if you will, but for me, this movie looks like a dream come true. It's as if my greatest desert apocalypse movie fantasy has come to fruition, and yet it looks better than I could have ever possibly imagined. You see, this may sound strange to you, but I have developed something of an obsession with the wasteland. I don't know what it is about it exactly, but something about the desert apocalypse is just entirely fascinating to me. In all honesty, something about it just feels like home.

Maybe it's because I was raised by a family of dirt bike riders. Growing up, the Mojave Desert was our typical weekend getaway. Family and friends would load up their trucks and trailers to meet out in the desert and ride together. Sometimes that involved camping overnight and gathering around a raging campfire where we stayed up late sharing stories and roasting marshmallows. We would sleep in tents under the brilliantly lit stars, only to awake the next morning to do it all over again. It was a crazy, and thrilling experience filled with lots of fun and lasting memories. It was undoubtedly an integral part of my childhood.

My father was the ringleader of it all. He still is. He's been riding dirt bikes for over forty years. He's in his sixties and still revving the throttle every weekend. Age has shown no signs of slowing him down. He even still actively recruits new friends to join him on his riding adventures, since most people can't keep up with his level of dedication and endurance. Dirt bike riding is truly his greatest passion. He raised both of my older brothers into incredible riders, and taught and supported countless others. Even my sister was riding a dirt bike for years. We all grew up surrounded by this cool and captivating world of adrenaline and excitement. Yet despite all of that, I personally never really got into it. I only gave dirt bike riding a haphazard attempt before calling it quits.

Maybe I was too young. Maybe too easily discouraged or frightened. I just don't think I was ready, and as I got older, my interest in it waned. I always figured I'd give it another shot as I reached adulthood, but I never did. Instead I developed something of an adverse attitude towards it all, at least in terms of doing it myself. You see, dirt bike riding has something of an infectious quality to it. Once people start doing it, they just can't get enough of it. It becomes like an addiction. More than the fear of broken bones, it's this obsession that I think really deterred me from it as an adult. I never wanted to be caught under that spell.

Perhaps one day I'll hop back on the saddle and try again. It's not entirely out of the question. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'm sure my dad won't hold his breath for it, but I know he'd be the first one to show me the ropes if ever I decide to join him. While we might never share a passion for dirt bike riding, at the very least we still do share a passion for the movies, and that's pretty cool. We're both more than eager to see Mad Max: Fury Road tomorrow when it hits theaters.

Well this blog ended up taking quite a detour. I had intended to talk about my obsession with the wasteland in the Fallout video game series, my self-perceived sanctity of the Mad Max trilogy, and the parallels between the two. Instead I think I'll save all of that for a Part 2. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to properly acquaint myself with the original Mad Max movie.

Just got this Collector's Edition of Mad Max in the mail this week! What a lovely day to watch it!

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The 2014 5MMG Awards!

5/8/2015

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After spending months working on my 2014 5MMG Awards, I feel kind of obligated to write a little something about it. This is that little obligatory something. If you haven't yet seen them, now is as good a time as any to check them out. By now, I imagine most of you have actually seen a good portion of the nominated movies and will have your own opinions on them. With that said, I'd love to hear about your own favorites of the year and see how much they either match up with or differ from my own.

As you read in my last post, The Return of the Movie Guy, a cat attack and a subsequent lack of motivation delayed the awards for a time, and as a result, they weren't finished until long after The Oscars. However, I just want to make it clear that The Oscars' results had no bearing on my choices. I had chosen my winners long before the show, and for the most part, I don't think my nominees often even matched up with the Academy's choices anyway. The only things we really agreed on were Birdman being our favorite movie of the year, and Big Hero 6 being the best animated film. Ironically, I expected Boyhood to win the Oscar for Best Picture and How to Train Your Dragon 2 to win Best Animated Film. Go figure.

So in the end, I came up with 25 award categories in all, with 5 nominees a piece. In retrospect, that part alone was a massively ambitious endeavor. Plus, of course, I wanted to talk briefly about each of the nominees to explain why they were selected. So I wrote a paragraph about each of the 125 nominees, and then longer paragraphs about the 25 winners. I'm not going to waste time trying to break that down any further, but good God, what was I thinking? Hahaha. I jumped right in completely over my head. Factor in all the time that went into formatting the awards, as well as choosing and cropping all the pictures, and well, I probably spent a lot of time looking something like this:

Still, at the end of the day, I'm really proud of the end result here. It was worth all of the struggle, the head banging, and the lack of sleep. If I end up doing movie awards again next year, don't expect them to be nearly this in depth. By then, I'd really like to switch it all to video format. I imagine that would be an easier way to both create and share my content with you guys, especially since I know some people hate reading (obviously not you guys, though, if you're still reading this. You guys are awesome!)

There were a lot of other award categories I came up with but didn't use because A.) I couldn't find 5 suitable nominees for the award, or B.) they weren't that interesting, or C.) 25 awards is already too many. Just for giggles, I'm gonna share a few of those unused award ideas along with which films would have won:

Cutest Movie of the Year - Big Hero 6
Creepiest Movie of the Year - A Walk Among the Tombstones
Weirdest Movie of the Year - Inherent Vice
Most Unintentionally Funny Movie - Exodus: Gods and Kings
Most Surprisingly Disappointing Movie - The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Movie I Most Regret Not Seeing - The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby
Most Anticipated Movie of 2015 - Click here to find out!

Well there you have it, folks. Those are the 2015 5MMG Awards, and that's all I have to say about that. Please check them out, please vote and comment, and please share your favorites as well. Thanks for reading! I can't wait to read your thoughts!

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The Return of the Movie Guy!

5/7/2015

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Greetings, my friends! I am alive and well, although I've been noticeably absent from my site for the last couple months. I guess I needed a break. During this time, I've mainly been focusing my efforts on social media (mainly Twitter) which is truthfully far more manageable than an entire website. I've nearly even quadrupled my number of Twitter followers in that short time! (Although as my dad would probably joke, "What do you have now? 3?" Yeah, yeah, ha-ha, very funny.)

Still, while increasing my social media followers is cool and all, it's no excuse for neglecting my own website. You guys should be my primary focus, so I need to get hard at work with getting things back on track here. I'm going to start by giving you all one of my regular status update blog posts. You know, where I talk about what I've been up to, what I'd like to do for the future of the site and all that good stuff. We've got a lot of catching up to do, but I'll try to make it brief.

It all began with a cat attack. My own cat, actually. She got her tail caught in the space between the door hinge. I tried to help her and she latched onto my hand, which was then clawed and bit and mauled. This all unfortunately happened right in the middle of my 5MMG Awards (and just days before this year's Academy Awards ceremony). While I thought I was fine, my hand swelled up and reddened significantly, indicating an infection. (I'll spare you the pictures.) Anyway, I had a brief, albeit absurdly expensive visit to the hospital, and decided not to do any extensive typing for the following couple days. This of course meant the 5MMG Awards would not be completed before The Oscars, as had been intended.

What was certainly not intended, however, was for me to take another 2 months to finally go back and finish the awards. I have two explanations for this. 1.) My hand injury gave me a much needed break that I enjoyed a little too much. 2.) I kind of fell in love with Twitter and opted to use that instead. All reasoning aside, I'm really proud of my awards, so if you haven't done so, I hope you'll take a look. I put a tremendous amount of work into the 25 award categories I created, and literally spent months slaving away over it. It was no doubt overly ambitious, but I think it all turned out really well. Here's a link in case you missed them!

A lot has happened in the movie world in the meantime, and if you've been following me on Facebook or Twitter, then you're probably still up to date. For those of you that aren't followers of social media, I'll try to spread some of that love back to the site for your viewing pleasure and convenience. I did just add a Twitter feed to the site's home page so you can scroll through my most recent tweets even if you don't use Twitter. I post some great stuff, so I promise it's worth at least a look. As for the rest of the home page, I acknowledge that it needs some work. I got a few ideas to promote some more content on the page, but I am planning to stick with a more minimalist approach since it's easier to upkeep.

Rather than ramble on right here about everything you may have missed, I'm going to break it down over a few upcoming blog posts. I know it's late, but I'm gonna buckle down and give you my take on this year's Oscars anyway. I'm also going to briefly discuss the 5MMG Awards, as well as my experience with watching the entire Fast and Furious series leading up to the release of Furious 7. I also have my review for Avengers: Age of Ultron in the works, so stay tuned, and please pardon my 4-month hiatus!

(P.S. My cat is totally fine and was giving me kisses shortly after the attack. I was just the unfortunate victim of a freak accident.)

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Cleaning House!

My Love for the Wasteland

The 2014 5MMG Awards!

The Return of the Movie Guy!

5 Minute Movie Guy

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