Writing movie reviews can be a great hobby. With enough work, it can even become a great profession. However, writing a movie review can be harder than you might think. Fortunately, there are a number of steps one can take to make high-quality, interesting movie reviews that people will enjoy reading and be interested in reading more of your work. In this article, I will discuss some basic parts of a movie review that will make them both informative and interesting.

The first thing to realize is that no one really cares about your opinion. Nobody really wants to hear about what you like or dislike. After all, they like and dislike things, too. Whatever you do, talk about the qualities of the movie, not about your own sentiments. Movie reviews, after all, are not polls.

On to the techniques…

Talk About the Direction: Talk about the direction of a particular film. You should speak about the choices that the director made with respect to music, lighting and how the performances work together. Don’t forget to name the director of the film. It’s a good opportunity to link to other reviews for movies by the same director.

Talk About the Actors: Pick one or two of the actors in the film and discuss their performances. Who really drew you into their characters and why? Who best brought out the themes of the film using the acting? Was there anyone who stood out for the wrong reasons?

Talk About the Appearance of the Film: This is a general category, but you can talk about the use of color, of sets, of cinematography or even of special effects. Films, after all, are a visual medium, so you should discuss how that medium is used. You can even discuss things like the use of shadow, special camera tricks and so forth.

Talk About the Themes: Films are about something. What was this movie about? Once you’ve discussed the theme, discuss how well the film brought out the theme or any ways that it did the theme a disservice. What did this film have to say about the theme that is better than any other film. Themes are generally what directors are most interested in, so by discussing this, you’ll discuss the film in terms of what the director had in mind.

Compare the Film to Other Films: There are a few ways to do this. First, it’s usually a good idea to comment on how this film compares to other films from the same director, or how the performances of the actors compare to other performances by those actors. When doing this, comment on what is special about this film relative to those by the same artists. Second, you can comment on how it compares to other films with the same basic themes. Does it bring out the same themes in a more insightful way? Is the film re-inventing an already better-invented wheel?

Comment on the Making of the Film: One nice trick when reviewing a movie is to comment on its actual making or even distribution. If a film went over-budget, or if an actor chose this film over another, these facts can be interesting and something readers might not know, even if they’ve seen the film. You can also comment on how it was received at film festivals, if it was originally released there. Read the rest of this entry

Well, it’s been a busy weekend. I got a gig writing content and researching for an upcoming surfing documentary to be released by the same people who made the Emmy award winning Storm Surfers videos. I did a little preliminary browsing for links and spent far too much time looking at surfing video clips. I’m not on the payroll, yet, though, so that’s okay.

It seemed like a good break from all the self development “deep thinking” I was doing last week, but clearly, even in the world of surfing, people think about karma. I pinched the cartoon above from a surfing website.

During my browsing for surf video sites, I also ran across a name that is very familiar to me. Alby Falzon made the classic surf films, Morning of the Earth and Crystal Voyager. I’ve often wondered what happened to Alby Falzon and discovered that he went on to make several documentaries about arcane spiritual traditions and traveled to some of the most remote regions of SE Asia and the Himalayas to film a variety of religious festivals. There is little else about him online and I could only find one link to any of his more recent work and no direct link to him. Although I don’t think it will be a hot seller on my blog (what is?), here’s a link to his Searching for Michael Peterson DVD. Michael Peterson is an iconic surfer from the seventies. He was one of the best surfers in the world in the 1970s. He was brilliant in the water but terribly withdrawn outside the water. Later he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. It’s probably a great DVD.

I’ve never met him, but I wish I knew Alby Falzon. He and I seem to share many of the same feelings about surfing. At heart I was always a “soul surfer” – there was nothing I liked more than surfing alone on big waves and in remote surfing spots. Read the rest of this entry