The Rad Journal

There are many film critiquing blogs on WordPress that identify multiple different ways in which you can share the greatest films for a specific or general audience. My top five picks for film blogs are:

http://cinemaschminema.com/

http://fogsmoviereviews.com/

https://shootingthescript.wordpress.com/

http://ohthatfilmblog.com/

and

http://emptyscreens.com/

Each blog listed follows a unique layout and are all easy to follow, but the blog that I identify with the most would probably be Fog’s Movie Reviews as the writer, Dan Fogarty’s writing style is very funny, witty and approachable for a critical text. His blog was the winner of 8 Lammy Awards in 2013 including best blog, best movie reviewer and funniest writer.

I feel that the content of his blog is also the key to how successful it has become as it is set up so that the readers can view specific categories that Fogarty has made up himself such as “Awesomely Awful” films and “Movies everyone should see”. This makes the blog more personal to him and gives it a sentimental touch that other movie reviewing blogs lack. Besides this, Fogarty also has a clear grading system for new films when reviewing them which also holds some sentimental value and nostalgia for high school days. It goes from A++ to F and next to each grade is a hilarious explanation for why it would be allocated to a certain film.

What I hope to achieve with my blog is a sense of comfort with my writing style, especially when it comes to writing about films, I would want to keep my personal style and wit like Fogarty but also be respectful to the filmmakers and all those involved. In terms of page layout and customisation, I think that Fog’s Movie Reviews has a very clever and systematic way of ordering the pages. Although it appears simple in terms of font and colour, I feel it is this that makes it less intimidating to any reader and easier to navigate.

I tried to take a slightly different approach to the Being Connected task because in our modern society, the word “connect” has different connotations that point to technology and the vastness of the online world. However, here I have tried to point out that being connected can also mean being close to the people around you (even if they are distracted by the modern form of connection). As much as I love being online, I feel like human connection and contact is still so relevant in society because you can’t share a warm cuddle online!