Written By: Dan Geer
That’s right! PopcornMonster.com celebrates its One-Year Anniversary today! Wow, has it really been one year already?
When this site was first launched, I really had no idea what exactly I wanted to do with it, other than to create a place that felt different that your normal movie blogging sites. I think I just grew tired of visiting movie sites where there was so much negativity, particularly towards movies that I am fond of, and I wanted to create a site where it was exactly the opposite.
It is really difficult to find a movie site where the users and writers of those sites don’t fuel that negativity. They are too grounded in reality to the point where going to the movies is no longer a fun and entertaining experience of escapism. It’s turned into “not enough character development” this, “too CGI” that, etc. in the minds of movie “fans.” It’s as if they are so intensely focused on nit-picky details to the point where they forget to just sit back and watch the movie. Suspending disbelief is not an option for movie-goers these days. That is where this site comes in – hence the slogan, “Removing the cynic from the cinema.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all about giving a film a good critique. A film can be great, good, okay, or downright terrible. The problem lies in the fact that people go into movies already critiquing from the get-go (sometimes with their minds already made up), instead of letting the movie become real to them first – immersing themselves into the universe presented before them. Once the film is over with, then it is time to come back to reality and think back to what one liked or didn’t like.
It is not completely up to the creators of the film to make people believe. In the moment of watching a film, people need to let themselves go and do the very best they can to try and believe what they’re seeing as if it were real, particularly when it comes to fantasy, sci-fi and action movies. Watching a film should be more like looking through a window and becoming an eye-witness to events that are happening right before your eyes on the other side. It is both the job of the creators of the film and the audience to make that happen.
This site was started to help movie-goers get a true sense of what going to the movies is really all about. So far, I think it has been fairly successful. It is still a small site compared to other movie sites, but it is growing in its readership and I am very excited about that.
This site is also about networking. Since this site was created, it has networked with a few other bigger sites, thus attracting more and more readers. It all started when I wrote a feature entitled “Top 10 Memories of Anticipating The Phantom Menace” last year for the 10th anniversary of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The article got a very good response from readers, and was posted on many Star Wars sites and message boards, including TheForce.net.
From there, this site seemed to flourish. Since then, TheForce.net has been gracious enough to feature a few other articles of mine (Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Article 4, Article 5, Article 6, Article 7), and we’ve also been featured on a number of other great websites like XFilesNews.com, BacktoFrankBlack.com, Frankensteinia, etc. To top it all off, BLT & Associates has also had quite a presence here, giving the site various press releases, pictures and video clips on comics, movies and TV shows – including Emily Blunt’s The Young Victoria and ABC’s Modern Family sitcom.
What a year it has been. Lots of movie news, reviews, articles, and connecting with other movie fans around the world. Happy One-Year Anniversary, PopcornMonster.com, and may this next year bring about many more exciting prospects!
