I have watched movies since I was a little boy in the 60's. Now this adds up to an incredible number of hours. It seems natural to want to get something back from all this effort. Creating yet another movie web page seems a bit like throwing good effort after bad, but that pretty much describes my life and therefore seems entirely appropriate.
One thing that will be immediately obvious is my disdain for mainstream movies. Too often these are created by committees with an eye on conformity and profitability. These items are easily accomplished in a movie like "The Incredibles" because by definition it is a family movie. This frees the director from having to be too concerned about what he can and cannot do. No nudity or profanity, no blood, danger can be there but no one should get hurt. Working with this type of formula allows the writer and director to concentrate on the big things (like the story) and tweak the little things that define the characters. But suppose the director and writer want to create a more mature movie. They find themselves negotiating with dozens of people and groups who have their own agenda that has nothing to do with the vision of the director. Nudity, profanity, even language are subjected to all kinds of vague limitations. Failure to please all these people can result in an NC-17 rating which means no advertising.
This is where B movies come in. With no intention of ever being shown on the big screen, a lot of these movies are much closer to what the director and writer intended. Any failure to reach that goal is not the result of an outside agency but a failure on the part of the film team. Finding a good movie in this group means sifting through a lot of chaff to find a few gems, but I believe I did mention that I spend a lot of time watching movies. The two things that are key to making a good movie with a limited budget are time and talent. If the filmmaker takes the time to really tweak the script so that they start with a well-written script that does not exceed the movie's budget or the actor's skills, they are way ahead of the game. Time also plays a factor after the filming is done. Editing is incredibly important. There's an old story about someone asking an artist how he sculpts a horse. The artist replies "you get a big stone and chip away the bits that don't look like a horse". This same non-answer applies to editing a movie; you just cut out the bits that shouldn't be there. Talent comes into play here as well. I have seen dozens of movies by hard working but not very talented people. When reviewing these movies, I try not to slam novice filmmakers. Even if the films are really bad, I appreciate the fact that they actually got a film made. By the same token, when a professional filmmaker creates a pile of crap, I won't be particularly polite in the review.
I have been reading reviews by other B movie aficionados for years. I originally started doing mini reviews at NetFlix because sometimes I would see that I had rented a movie and could remember nothing about it. So, I would write a review that was basically a reminder for me about what the movie was about. As I did more and more of these, I went from spending two minutes writing things like "good movie, lots of naked girls" to spending an hour or more on a review only to find that it had too many characters. So then I would spend another half hour trying to cut it down. Eventually I just started this site as a vanity project. I have no intention of selling advertising or even trying that hard to build an audience. Really, this is not about you, it is about me.
Just in case you need it, I am including a list of definitions. Some of these definitions apply to all movies while others are particular to B movies.
