A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

A screenshot of my Blu-ray.com Collection Page (A-C). Notice that It: Chapter Two is in the "Ordered" category. Hi, there, Constant Reader, and welcome to another edition of Bloggin' On, my blog-within-a-blog where I write stuff that doesn't fall neatly into the usual categories of reviews or socio-political commentary. It's Thursday, December 12, which for most of us means that Christmas is only 13 days away.  (Have you finished your holiday shopping yet? I have!) Here it's still morning in my little corner of Florida; it's almost nine o'clock as I sit here tap-tap-tapping away on my keyboard. Right now, it's also quite cloudy and cool; the current temperature is 67℉ (20℃) and the sky (at least from what I can see through my writing room's window) is a leaden shade of gray.  According to my PC's Weather app, the high temperature is expected to reach 77℉ (25℃), and it looks like a cold front might be passing through this weekend; it w...

Pros:  Good 720p video; great sound, has Anynet+ technology built in Cons:  Requires some assembly. Samsung LN32D450 32-Inch 720p 60Hz LCD HDTV A few weeks ago, I decided to replace my first Samsung LCD TV because it was having issues with its video playback.  The sound worked just fine, but apparently (see dtvengineer's comment to me in the Comments section) some of the components that control the backlight went bad and the picture took, well, like forever to show up on the 26-inch screen. At the time, I had no idea if this malfunction was repairable (as it turns out, it was), but because the service warranty had expired and I had no idea if I could afford to have the set fixed, I opted instead to buy a new TV set.   When I set out to purchase my replacement set at my usual online emporium - Amazon.com - I was  not  looking for a bigger set than my now-malfunctioning 26-inch TV.  Sure, larger sets have their virtu...

Author’s Note: This is the original review of Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith that I wrote on May 19, 2005…the day the film premiered on wide release. I wrote it for Epinions as soon as I got home. As a result, it captures the emotions I felt on that day and my initial impressions about what at the time was the final Star Wars movie. The “title crawl” I came up with, obviously, is not the one from the actual film. I could, of course, have looked up the text from the movie’s crawl and replicated it here, but I wanted to present my review as I wrote it on that day. Pros:  Stronger-than-usual Prequel narrative; exciting action sequences; great score Cons:  Padme and Anakin storyline weaker than expected. And you, young Skywalker, we will watch your career with great interest. -- Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to Anakin Skywalker, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Someday I'll be the most powerful Jedi ever! I promise you. I will even learn to ...

I know that many, if not most, of the problems that affect everyone's hit counts are purely technical or related to the site's business model. We reviewers can't solve  those  problems. Sure, tech-savvy Epinions members who know how to crunch data and have hands-on experience with website design and operation should chime in and suggest fixes to Damon and his colleagues. I'm a writer, so I can only sit on the sidelines when we discuss Google Panda, Alexa ratings, the SdC database, and things of that nature. As a writer, though, I think we need to consider the possibility that we need to change how we write our reviews. Many of us, including me, tend to write long and detailed reviews in an attempt to cover every feature of a product. We have a site-wide tendency to describe not only a product's important features, but to pad reviews with "facts" that a typical website reader might not care about. The average reader does not like having to wade through ...

Dear readers, Even though I am not feeling all that well as of late (I seem to have picked up a nasty chest cold or something), I will be working on a few reviews this week for Epinions' $10-for-10 December promotion. I'm not sure in what order I'll do them,  and given the circumstances I don't know if I'll even be able to get them all done by December 31, but these are the products I plan to write about: Prometheus, the Alien semi-prequel directed by Ridley Scott The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan's final film of his Batman trilogy Seven of the Harry Potter movies (I've already reviewed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ) Charles B. MacDonald's Company Commander Regarding Henry , a film by director Mike Nichols.   I bought it for my mom's Christmas present so I haven't watched it yet, so if I do review it, it will probably be one of the last reviews I'll write this year. If I can "suggest a product" (SA...