Month: October 2005

I love movies and I love weblogs, so a site like this was definitely one I was looking forward to reviewing. The concept is simple – David Wester watches a movie every day from October 1st, 2005 through January 1st, 2006, then reviews the movie for the entire world – or at least this site’s visitors – to see.

In the days leading up until Day One of this project, David takes some time to tell us who he is, why he’s doing this, and even gives us a spin-off of Citizen Kane’s “Declaration of Principles” version of the rules to this project.

Starting with “A History of Violence” on October 1st, David does faithfully watch a movie a day and within 24 hours posts his review of the movie. Per his own rules, these movies cannot be ones he watches on a regular basis. The “bulk of the movies watched will be completely new to me or only vaguely remembered from the years past”.

As with most Blog*spot-hosted sites, this weblog uses a Blogger template. It’s the standard two-column layout. The reviews and other posts are listed in the main column, with the side column containing the archives, external links, and even the upcoming movies he’ll be reviewing. The monthly archives are also joined by the weekly archives that list each movie out on the day it was watched and reviewed. I found that to be an easy way to read each of the reviews.

The best part of David’s daily movies is the fact that they’re not your average movies. He doesn’t stick to one genre and he doesn’t stick to brand new movies. It’s almost as if he hits the video store, throws a dart, and grabs the first movie off the shelf. When you go from “Robocop 2” on one day to “Female Trouble” on the next, there’s definitely a review or two for anyone.

His reviews are good. He’s a film school graduate and an aspiring film director, so he certainly has the background to write these reviews. Using his review of Passion of the Christ as an example, David does a fine job of explaining his thoughts with comparisons to other movies or even by every day experiences. They’re very every day reviews – he doesn’t judge the acting or the musical editing. He reviews the movie – that’s it.

I like the idea of this site. I can certainly commend David for taking the time to not only watch a movie a day, but also find time to write about each of them. For readers hoping to catch a review about a movie, this is obviously a great choice for a site. What will happen when 2006 rolls around and David’s done with this project? I guess we’ll only find out by continuing to visit this site.
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I must admit that I was very excited when I saw Easier Said Than Done on the list of blogs to be reviewed. I’ve been reading this blog since I read its other review on here and I must disagree with the score it got.

This blog is by Nichole, a teenage girl with a pretty average life. She doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, and doesn’t cuss (at least not that I know from the blog). Her entries are all different and all very wonderful. She doesn’t update as often as some bloggers, which could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.

The layout is beautiful, but beware if you don’t like pink or green. I personally like these colors, and the layout is gorgeous! I just happen to know that it’s one of the things that didn’t win her any points on her last review.

There aren’t really any extras on this site except for her forum and her pages, but that isn’t so much an extra as just a fun place to talk to Nichole and some other friends. There are Google ads, which definitely aren’t winning her any points, but they’re hardly noticeable so they aren’t losing any either.

All in all, I love this blog and have for awhile now. I’m very happy that she resubmitted it, because I don’t think a 3 was such a great score for it. Taking into account the Google ads and the somewhat infrequent postings (along with the fact that not everyone likes pink), I think I’m going to have to give Easier Said Than Done a 4.5 out of 5. It’s definitely worth a read, and who knows? You may end up loving it as much as I do.NULL

The name of this blog brought to mind first off for me, animals on a drug trip. Yet opening up the blog itself wasn’t anything like that. A nice serene picture of water and mountains takes over the top of the blog, with a black background and blue writing. I found that after a bit of reading through the blog, my eyes are starting to ache and I’m seeing blue on a white page as I type this.

The blog itself is written by Julie a 28 year old dramaturg which is something that I’d never heard of before! It is very much a personal blog, with pictures, thoughts and more pictures throughout- there are entries referring to her cat, her friends, her knitting tribulations, New York, and of course some quiz type things… The blog is written well. The author writes about her day to day life.

The design of the site is quite nice to start off with, but after a while hurts the eyes. It looks like a blogger template. Lots of blue on black, the links seem to all work, as does the archives. There isn’t anything that jumps out to me about this blog. There isn’t really an “about me” page, just a list along the left sidebar of name, age, etc. There’s also the usual list of blogs and links on the left sidebar, so there isn’t much “clutter”.

All up, for a personal blog it’s pretty much what you’d expect. It doesn’t do much for me, but it might for you. The lifestyle and writing of the author might appeal or it might not.

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By sheer coincidence, the first post I saw was the one about meth addicts and how they look after a few months. It gave me the heebie jeebies…and piqued my interest, I’m guilty to say.

After a quick run-through, where I glanced and skimmed at random posts, I went to the “About Me” page. It was an interesting read and I was surprised at how candid Shade was about her alcoholism. By the end of the post, I was thinking to myself, “You go, Shade!” I liked how her honesty hooked me into the blog. Now, I was ready for a full, thorough read.

Shade’s blog, as you may have guessed, is a blog about Shade and her life. The layout is rather plain and the page is long. Luckily, I have a cable connection, but the amount of pictures and text on the page could cause slow loading for people with modems. I would have liked to see a Photo Album section where some of the pictures could have been put, a few of the posts seemed heavily laden with pictures that may have been better in a seperate page.

Otherwise, I found it an enjoyable read. Some people make weblogs about their life and then don’t want to write anything but vague references! Shade isn’t afraid to tell you about Alaska, about her family, and about her life.Shade’s Blog

This site took an extremely long time to load which turns me off quick. When it finally loaded I noticed a lot of problems with the site. I also noticed it had a lot more pictures than words. The site is also easy on the eyes.

The weblog contains a lot of awesome shots from around Alaska, but it also contains a lot of complaining by a blogger who is in a state of depression as she claims herself. There have not been many posts lately due to her reluctance to blog due to the depression. When she does blog it is about something that has happened to her.

The site has typical blogcity template. In the main part of the blog she has her comments then pictures followed by all the comments she has received on each story. Down the right hand side she has a lot of useful links, but it appears most of the pictures are missing. She has links for forums and friends as well as some other random items.

I found the links she provided to be more interesting than the site itself. I feel the site needs desperate attention. It needs a new design and the content needs cleaned up. I would suggest taking the photos off and place them in an online photo album. Place a link on the site to this album. This would not only make the site more like a blog, but it would also permit the site to load faster.

I am disappointed in the site. With the pictures and travel around Alaska this author does, there is high potential in the site.
Shade’s Blog