Hey there folks. For those of you who have not been listening to the various “Uncut” shows around here, there is a MAJOR announcement coming in the upcoming days regarding The Movie Blog and its future. Everything is about to change. No, I’m not talking about a redesign or adding another writer… The Movie Blog as you know it is preparing to come to an end. I’ll give more details in the coming days when I’m able.
Anyway, I thought it would be appropriate to take a look back over the last 4+ years and list down the top ten most defining moments in the Movie Blog’s history. A lot of great things have happened, but these are the ones that I feel helped shape and define what The Movie Blog has become. So here we go:
#10 – Live Shows
The live version of The Movie Blog Uncut has less than a fraction of the listeners the main Monday Round Table does, but doing the live show and having the ability to interact with the other members of The Movie Blog community was a huge thing for us. I think it did more for me in understanding the site more as a community of fans than just a blog and that has been extremely valuable.
#9 – 2007 Podcast Awards Nomination
No, The Movie Blog Uncut did not win the podcast award this year, but being nominated was an important event for us. It signaled that winning Podcast of the year in 2006 was no fluke. It told us people were still listening and that we hadn’t lost our voice. Oh it sucked to lose… but just being nominated was fantastic for us.
#8 – Oliver Stone Interview
No, Oliver Stone isn’t the biggest name in Hollywood by any stretch of the imagination, but he was the first significant filmmaker that I was ever invited to sit down one on one with to discuss a new film project of his/hers. It signaled a shift in how The Movie Blog was perceived by Hollywood I think. I basically don’t accept interview invites anymore (because I find interviews boring untiless it’s with someone I really like or have some sort of vested interest in), but that first one was HUGE to me. Man, I can’t even begin to tell you how nervous I was getting ready to walk in that room and meet Stone. I’ll always remember that.
#7 – July 24th 2003, The Movie Blog is Born
I will never forget that night. I was sitting in a friend’s basement and getting ready to turn my regular blog into a film blog since all I was doing was talking about movies anyway. To my shock and amazment, “The Movie Blog.Com” domain name was still available, so I snatched it up… and on the evening of the 24th I put up my very first Movie Blog post… a post about Seabiscuit of all things. And so it began.
#6 – 2007 MTV Movie Awards
Covering awards shows isn’t really my idea of a fun time (unless it’s the Oscars), but there were two really significant things about being invited to cover the 2007 MTV Movie Awards. 1) The Movie Blog was the only Online Media Outlet invited to be on the Red carpet. 2) The Movie Blog was the only Canadian Media Outlet invited to be on the Red Carpet. It was a tremendous honor… and even though I was the VERY LAST person in line on the carpet, I got to meet and photo just about everyone there. I got sunburnt, but had a WONDERFUL time, and I got some fun pictures.
#5 – Todd Brown Branching Out To Form Twitchfilm.Net
Those of you who haven’t been around long enough may not realize that Todd Brown of the amazing TwitchFilm.Net got his movie blogging start here on The Movie Blog. As he does now, Todd gave amazing coverage of asian and other foreign film… but the site was too diverse and we both knew it. It was agreed he should branch out and launch his own site (hence Twitch came into being, and the internet movie community is a much better place for it). This was significant because it focused The Movie Blog on it’s mandate… popular film. Yes we talk about some foreign and smaller film from time to time… but our main focus is mainline Hollywood film. That’s our arena… and once we focused more on that, the traffic to the site started to grow significantly, and with Todd focusing on his niche, TwitchFilm has become one of the very best film sites on the net. Todd and I are still friends and I count myself as a big fan of his.
#4 – 2007 Comic Con
The 2007 Comic Con has been one of my all time favorite experiences. It’s where I really understood how much the online movie community has grown in size and influence. Walking around San Diego I had to have been stopped at least 15 times by fans of The Movie Blog who recognized my ugly mug and went out of their way to come up to talk to me. That was such an honor. A VP from Universal recognized me and grabbed me, I got to MC the Sunday Comic Con Panel for the up coming Lakeshore/MGM film Pathology in front of 3000 fans, I organized 2 fantastic parties, met and hung out with some FANTASTIC movie webmasters, and just in general had a blast. Comic Con will be an annual event for me now.
#3 – Time Magazine
It was almost surreal. Back in April I picked up a copy of the most widely read news magazine in the world… Time Magazine, opened it up there there was a full page picture of yours truly fronting an article about how online movie pundits are growing more and more in their influence with Hollywood and the film industry in general. It was like a moment of Zen, or reality for some of us online guys. It was the moment where we said “this isn’t just in our heads. People really are paying attention to what is going on with the online movie world”.
#2 – Paramount Shuts Down The Movie Blog
This was huge. From the first day Transformers had been announced, no site on the web has been cheering it on more than The Movie Blog. Then I woke up one morning to discover The Movie Blog had been shut down by the legal department at Paramount Studios over a Transformers picture (that was just of some cast standing around off camera… it didn’t show ANYTHING from the film). I wrote an open letter ripping them a new one… it got picked up by Digg, and then within 6 hours just about every major news outlet contacted me about the incident. 1 hour after that a Paramount Lawyer called to apologize. I DID NOT accept. The next day the Vice President of Paramount called to apologize for the incident.
The Paramount issue was a flare shot into the sky. The online Movie Community was now a significant presence and studios would now… for the first time… really have to start being cautious about how they dealt with online sites. To their credit, Paramount did what they could to make up for the incident… and Transformers turned out to be amazing.
#1 – Launching The Podcast / Winning Podcast of the Year
Without question the single most fun thing about the regular routine of doing The Movie Blog has been doing the Audio Edition/Uncut podcasts. on November 10th 2004, I was joined by my friend Doug Nagy to launch the very first movie related podcast on the internet… The Movie Blog Audio Edition. We knew it was by far the best thing going on the site… but it wasn’t until we beat out TWIT, the most widley listened to and popular podcast on the net for the 2006 Podcast of the Year award that we realized other people thought we were doing a pretty good job too. To this day, The Movie Blog Uncut is the single continuously longest running podcast and still my favorite part of doing The Movie Blog. Darren Doug and Bruxy just make it so much fun.
So there you have it folks, the most defining moments of The Movie Blog’s history. Stay tuned over the coming days as we make the announcement that will change everything around here. As the final Star Trek: The Next Generation episode was titled: “All Good Things….”
John, since your a fan of twitchfilm.net, why not add a link to the site at Blogroll to help promote foreign films to your readers.
Not to brag, but I called #2 the day it happened. :)
I smell a Movie Blog: Uncut Television show in the works…
I bet John is moving to L.A.
Hopefully he will continue the blog and live show.
I’ve been thinking some more and here’s what it boils down to:
Thanks John for all the insight.
@ Darren
As of recently, John has handed over the TVShow Blog to me. (I owe him my soul, but its a done deal)
theTVShowBlog.com has no plans of disappearing.
“The Movie Blog as you know it is preparing to come to an end.”
I wonder what Johns means by ‘as you know it’.
Well if TMB is ending, I for one am grateful. I might be able to get my life back. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TIME I SPEND HERE?!
In all seriousness, John, if this is the end, I for one would like to wish you the best of luck and good fortune. TMB brought me much enjoyment, but we all grow and move on. The best to you.
Hey John,
I don’t make myself known too much around the comments here But Ihave been a reader since day one. I can still remember telling my brother in the begining “remember themovieblog”
I’m also another Ontario kid, and have been able to share the perspective on local news you have published.
won’t it be wild when every other blog on the internet has the headline. “Credits Roll on the Movie Blog”
I really hope your not selling out to a big company.
Maybe it’s a joke for Halloween? Dunno…
Worst.News.Ever.
I hope this is not really the end. I have really enjoyed coming here for years now.
John, I really hope that you are bluffing, please tell me that you are bluffing!
My theory… I think themovieblog is moving to a “Digg” format.
Robert(wolf) wrote:
“I remeber last year I broke up with my GF, on that same day Doug left TMB. I was more upset about Doug leaving.”
Man, that got a belly laugh out of me sir:)
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=jSi_mr_lfjE
good times
If The Movie Blog comes to an end, it will be a black day.
I remeber last year I broke up with my GF, on that same day Doug left TMB. I was more upset about Doug leaving.
This shows how much I love this place!!!
Oh, Jeez! :(
John, are you gonna be playing Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ some time soon?
It’s probably best if John shuts it down or hands over the reins. His head seems to be other places nowadays. When was the last time he actually reviewed a movie? Maybe he should let Serena take over, she seems to be passionate about the site. As a fan of the blog, I just want to read about movie reviews, opinions, gossip…. Lately, It feels that we’ve been logging on promotional website for doc called “Prince of Peace: God of War”.
John, you’re not doing the blog anymore? I mean, I haven’t been listening to the podcasts lately, but it would really suck to know this is coming to an end. You should do a complilation for one last movie blog round table that features the most hilarious moments/saddest and a final farewell. I know, kind of generic, but it’ll be awesome.
John has done a phenomenal(sp) job with The Movie Blog and it’s the end of an era with it going away, however rest assured that John will not be vanishing from the face of the web. I know he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes!
I do invite all you good folks to pop on over to my site for reading and commenting. I don’t pretend to be nearly as entertaining as John but it’s a pretty cool site if I say so myself. And yes, I’m trolling for visitors. :-)
Best of luck John!!!!!
Vic
ScreenRant.com
If The Movie Blog does come to an end, it’ll be a sad day. The people part of The Movie Blog community have been devoted to this website for a long time, listened to the podcasts, participated in the live shows, read the different posts and listened to Doug’s rants, and we all enjoyed it very much, so we’ll miss it very much if it disappears completely. Also, you should do a Top Ten list of Most Hilarious Movie Blog moments, or Top 10 Doug Nagy rants. My favorite rant would have to be when Doug was yelling about Titanic not being an action movie.
Curious to see what metamorphosis the Movie Blog undergoes. Hopefully it does not mean the end of the podcasts!
This is kinda sad…this has been my homepage for quite some time now…I looked forward to waking up and reading the comments…But, Hopefully it won’t be gone completely. I’m looking forward to the news of what’s up next.
Well John. You know I’ve been coming here 2-3 times a day since before the first Audio Edition (Yes kids, that’s what it was called back in the days). I am proud that I got the chance to post on the Movie Blog, even though my life at that time wanted differently.
It’s been a very good ride, John. If I ever go to Canada, I hope we can go out for a Coke or something. Whatever you do and whoever baught you: Don’t ever go “off the air”, dude.
I’m looking forward to seeing PoP-GoW, soon in a DVD-player near me.
/Onkel J
John, I have been listening to the movie blog audio edition since episode 4, and after i heard that episode, I went back and of course listened to the first 3 as well. I then began reading the site religiously. Your show and the engadget podcast were the first podcasts I ever listened to and have since done a few podcasts of my own including my own movie one that myself and a couple of friends do. You have been doing a great job in this medium, and I hate to see it go.I bid you farewell and wish you the best in all you do.
By the way, i meant defining moment for me, not overall. Just in case you think i’m a raving ego-maniac :p
Ha ha, yeah John; i can just see in my head, you, Doug, Darren & Bruxy playing a game of poker tonight and you say:
“So, five-card stud, nothing wild…….and the sky’s the limit.”
Bum da daaaaaaaaaa, bum da da da daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
I really hope that statement turns out to be true. I hope the sky is the limit for all of you who have been involved with TMB and enetertained us for no money:)
I’ll share a defining movie blog moment with all of you; the first time i found the show. I was, and still am, part of a Superman forum. One of my friends there pointed me to the video edition where John, Darren, and Doug talked about the aborted attempts at making at Superman V. I though it was funny and the guys had great chemistry but i wasn’t sold yet. Nevertheless, i went to the site and downloaded the latest podcast. I believe it was the one where Doug gave his review of the horror film ‘Stay Alive’. John asked him what it was about and Doug replied:
“It’s about these…….asshole kids”
John was in hysterics and so was i, and from that point on, i knew what set this podcast apart from the others and why i have been a loyal reader/listener ever since. I’m pretty sure that was my first one. It could have been the edition where Doug reviewed Ice Age 2 (“i don’t wanna see god damn relationship problems between woolly mammoths”). Anyway, you get the point.
John, is tonight going to be the final roundtable podcast for the movie blog as we know it?
Touche.
Also…how does this affect the TV Blog?
“All Good Things…”
Oh great, now I’m worried I’m going to have to find a new movie podcast. Please let this announcement be a good one…
As suspected…but “as we know it”? Does that mean it will exist in some form? Shall the Int’l friends just go on and just defect to Filmjunk or Slashfilm right now?
(I read both on occasion anyway, not a slam on either one) and man…you just got done with the redesign…
will the Facebook group still be open?
Questions!
Questions!
Hey Jim,
HAHA!!! I said “defining”… not hilarious. :P
Doug Nagy F*CKING a squash was not number 1.
I am dissappointed.