I first started doing movie and video reviews when I was part owner/operator of a magazine back in the late 1980's. They was so popular, that I started doing it for every issue. People seemed to like my reviews, the way I wrote them, or the voice I used. I've always been fascinated by movies. I like to think that I approach a review from a movie lover's perspective, rather than that of a movie critic. I feel the semantic difference is very important. To be a critic is to be critical, it's in the definition. I don't like that idea, too many negative connotations for me. I'll stick with movie or video reviewer, which, I feel, has a more neutral feel to it. I'll let you decide.

When I first started, I used a five-star rating system to grade the movies, but after a few years, I abandoned that idea as my reviews would often contradict the star rating. I found it difficult to rate a movie by "stars," as it's such a bloody arbitrary system. I can really like a movie, but it may be technically a piece of trash, so does it deserve one star or three? I may hate a movie, but it might be technically superb, so I had to ask the same question. A really bad movie may have one or two redeeming values, and how do you judge that on a scale of one to five? I was going nuts trying to decide, and so many movies ended up being 2.5 to 3.5 stars that it became ludicrous, so I abandoned the whole idea.

I first put up a website in about 1997, and kept updating it for many years, until other things pressed in on my free time (such as work, or family life), and the site languished for many years. Recently, I began to update it once more, but found that it was so outdated in design and technique that it was painful to do, so I took the plunge and developed this version of the site.

I decided to put all the reviews in a database to ease the updating process, and bring all of the older reviews to the same status. I have not edited older reviews as of this time, but that is not out of the question. Sometimes my views about a movie will change, and if it does in such a way as to warrant it, I will write a completely separate review of that movie.

Some technical notes: I learned FileMaker Pro for Mac many years ago, and have used it for many years to publish data to the web "on the fly." As this is the database language I know, this is what I have used. I own my own server, and that's another reason to keep things in FileMaker. However, this causes some issues with some users of Windows computers, in particular, those behind corporate firewalls. FileMaker Pro publishes to the web through port 591, which is a valid, recognized port by whatever authority deals with this stuff, but many corporate IT departments close down port 591. If you have problems getting to the reviews, this is probably the issue. Please contact me directly about specific reviews by emailing me here.

Thank you for visiting my site, and I hope that you return again soon. I will keep writing reviews and posting them here on a regular basis. You can also find access to my reviews at the Internet Movie Database.

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