Hello friends!
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| Me circa Jan 2015. |
I started this blog in May of 2012 after seeing The Avengers multiple times and being annoyed at how hard to was to describe my love for it. I figured that if I could write it down it would make better sense to me, and it worked out wonderfully. My original idea was to give tips in each review on what to look for or notice in the particular movie in order to enjoy it better (thus the title, "How to Watch a Movie") but that idea never took off past the idea stage. I do, however, still always try and see, and then include in my reviews the positives about a movie even if I don't like the film in question overall, so I wound up keeping the title anyway. So if you think I'm going to be pretentious and try to tell you literally how to watch a movie, don't worry!
My favorite movie genre is science fiction. Straight up, honest-to-goodness science fiction. If it's science fiction, I want to watch it -- no exceptions.
My favorite movies are subject to change quite often, but the top-something list typically is an interesting hodgepodge and looks something like this:
The Lord of the Rings trilogy -- always at the top.
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Princess Bride
Warrior
The Way, Way Back
District 9
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
And right now -- perhaps because it's new or perhaps because it's really that good -- Star Wars: The Force Awakens!
My favorite movie as a kid was The Lion King, and it will always have a special place in my heart.
Reading occasionally. I love reading but don't read very often. My favorite book is The Great Gatsby, but it has been rivaled recently by The Martian.
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| Maybe I only love them because of their beautiful covers? |
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| GAH. |
Making art. I enjoy drawing and painting with different mediums... I'm good at recreating what I see, and not-so-good at translating my imagination to paper. I also don't do it as often as I'd like, because I have a hard time regulating the time I spend on it. Typically it'll completely consume me and I won't be able to do anything else until I'm done, and that gets very inconvenient.
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| This copy I did of a Van Gogh (*winkwink*) hangs above my desk. |
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| I'm best at pencil or charcoal drawing. This is the latter. |
Photography. I guess this is also included in "making art." I love taking photos, but, weirdo that I am, I find that dealing with people while taking photos totally ruins my concentration and seriously lessens the artistic quality of the pictures -- unless I get into a zone, which takes a while. So I never got into doing portraits, but I did do lots of sports photography, and loved that.
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| My favorite place in the world. |
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| I also played the flute until I graduated high school. I took this when I should have been practicing. |
Acting! I participate in a group that puts on shows every year, and have done for a long time. I absolutely love it. I also take singing and dancing classes but there's nothing like acting. Learning the craft has given me a huge amount of respect for that aspect of movie-making, but I don't do because it relates to movies and entertainment -- I do it because I love it and could never give it up.
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| Channeling 1959 for "Happy Days: The Musical!" |
Though I rarely if ever talk about my faith in God in my reviews, it certainly shapes my view of movies and translates indirectly to the reviewing. This blog is dedicated to God's glory, and I am eternally grateful to him for making storytelling via film a thing.
One last point: if you want to make me happy, leave comments! I absolutely love getting them, and don't be surprised if I respond with something even longer than you sent. Talking movies is one of my favorite things!
Thanks for reading!
The horses are so beautiful (and cool signature)!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sarah! :D And thanks -- I spent many hours when I was supposed to be doing math perfecting it! ;)
DeleteSarah ,
DeleteI love this. This is so awesome. I love the drawing of the horses which reminds me of the coming of the Lord riding on a horse. From looking at the beautiful creatures that the Lord has made you can tell that He is a God of Wonders. I don't know if you have heard of Sherwood Baptist Church but they have made wonderful films each of their movies have had an influence on my life how to be the man that God wants me to be. I never knew that you were so musical. That's so cool. Also I will list Sherwood Baptist Church's movies:
Flywheel
Facing The Giants
Fireproof (stars Kirk Cameron)
Courageous
War Room
Overcomer
Life Mark
Being on the email subscription for Sherwood Baptist Church's film maker's Stephen and Alex Kendrick I know when they come out with a new film. I read an article that they are starting production of their 8th film during the summer of this year and they will launch their flim next year. The article that I read never showed what the Kendricks plot was not title of flim number 8 will be.i love other flims too.
Hi Sarah!
ReplyDeleteI think you're my new coolest Christian blogger girl! :-) Another homeschooler that has a passion for movies and stuff, YES. :^) I mean, most homeschoolers don't even have a TV or anything... Kidding! :-P
Haven't been browsing around blogs much for a while, but came across yours last night accidentally right when I was supposed to go to bed... So of course, instead, I spent a couple hours skimming over maybe almost half of your posts back to 2012. :O) I knew I wanted to say something about the awesomeness "right away." Although, the last 2 blogs I found and thought the same about (well, not quite like this ;-)) happened about 35 and 55 WEEKS ago, and I STILL haven't contacted them :-O, so yeah, I can be slow...
You don't have an e-mail or Contact page, so I figured your About page was best place to leave a comment. Do you still see the comments on old posts? There were a few I could comment on. :-) Actually, it's like I want to talk about every movie or TV show with you now! Haha.
Hopefully soon, I'll be in the "movie business" myself (for people to get stuff at home). I hope it's epic, even if just in my own simple way. :^)
BTW, for fun and laughs, I've had some ideas for stuff that I think should be made:
1) A movie (or reality show) like "The Fugitive" about clairvoyant little people
2) A sequel to "Snakes on a Plane" (haven't seen it...)
3) A documentary about the effects of air pollution on rare bird species
I can share the titles (the fun part :-D) later... Maybe -- maybe -- the first or third could be guessed, haha.
Finally, all your pictures are beautiful. :-) And those horses! Where is your favorite place in the world...? Hope you have a great day! :~)
Take care and God bless,
Matt
Hello Matt! Thanks for reading, and commenting here! I'm so glad you enjoyed the reviews. :) I do see comments on old posts, so feel free to comment away! I'd love to hear your thoughts, and discuss them with you.
DeleteThat's cool that you want to go into the movie business. It seems like it'd be a lot of fun, even on a small scale. :) So I guess the titles are a clever play on words or something? I can't think of what they might be.
Thanks again for stopping by! :D
Hey, thanks for the welcome. :-) Hopefully you saw that I commented on the Liebster award last night -- I'll do the second part later hopefully. Any other reviews I comment on should be much shorter. ;-D
DeleteSo before that yesterday, I checked out your tweets (only glanced at Twitter the first night). Wow, I don't know what to say... :-O "Who is this person?" "Am I part of some kind of Truman Show thing?!" Ridiculous, but in a good way.
But all the PERSONALITY (saw a bit of that in reviews here). And things I was going to mention or ask you about, like... Time Lapse!! I think that's around when I watched it, too. Yup, yup, spent some time thinking about it, and did a quick replay of most of it right after to recheck stuff. :^)
The way your life is like Tangled, LOLs. And I get that end of the mayo jar thing, haha. I'll follow you, but I wanted to share my other profile and site stuff first... And you're now my first blog follow -- I think? It doesn't show on my Blogger profile like other people's, so... *shrug* (I also added my "movie domain" e-mail to my profile if you want to e-mail sometime. :-) There's no corresponding site yet, just the presumptive name!)
Since you mentioned Zach, I'm a lot like his Chuck character in real life (minus the secret spy stuff). Plus Shawn Spencer from Psych (note: it's good if some of the things I write are taken with his sarcasm/tone), and some of the Monk character.
Oh, I don't intend for the business venture to be on a small scale -- Netflix is one of the companies I'm taking on (trying to be like Reed Hastings with a bit of Martha Stewart, haha). I just can't know what the reception will be like among people. But even if it's not as big as I want (disruptive, and people like you knowing about it without me telling them, etc.), I don't think it'd be a total failure. :O)
Now here's those movie titles:
1) Small Mediums at Large
2) Spiders on a Tricycle (seen on the IMDb boards back then and it always made me laugh)
3) One Flue Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Yep, clever. =)
God bless!
- Matt
Wasn't Time Lapse so good?? I was so impressed and creeped out. For some reason I never reviewed it though. Maybe after I watch it again.
DeleteHaha, glad you enjoyed my Twitter feed. A combination of Chuck Shawn and Monk huh? I can see that a little from your writing style. :)
Oh yeah, I didn't think you meant it to be small, I was just saying that I thought that the movies would be a fun venture no matter how small the scale. :D
Haha, great titles!
So you're actually familiar with all of those characters??? :O)
Delete"Dude! What?!"
"You know that's right."
"I've heard it both ways."
"Animals do things on the ground; terrible, terrible things." (Gets Married)
"A public nuisance, the worst kind of nuisance there is." (Man Who Shot Santa Claus...? I think)
Re: Chuck, I kinda wanted to change my name to Devon Woodcomb -- so I could be "Captain Awesome." ;-)
Again, I'm not sure I liked Time Lapse quite as much as you, although I really liked it and wanted more! Your tweets with its writer -- his Twitter says something about working on a sequel!? Is there really going to be one?
Did you know -- I saw that it's basically the same story as the old Twilight Zone episode "A Most Unusual Camera" (S2E10). On Netflix if you wanna check it out quick. :-)
Have you ever seen Triangle? It's a less-straightforward time loop/travel one that I liked after seeing it mentioned on IMDb. (Most of what I "know" about quantum physics, I learned from its IMDb board. True story. :^))
Or continuing with titles that start with "T," but not about time travel in this case, how about Tucker and Dale vs Evil? (Again, fine, but was expecting something more epic seeing what fans said...)
Gotta go for now, so just posting these comments for now! Be back later/tomorrow to say what I was doing while "away," and the other blog I commented on (if you didn't see...), haha.
Like James Bond, I "will return." ;-) BTW, there was a kid in Sunday school named "James Bond," but that's before I knew who that was. There were some others talking about it that I didn't "get." (But really, if you have that last name, what else would you name a son?)
Totally! I liked Monk when it was airing, but it annoys me now. And Psych and Chuck were fun. :) Haha, I don't think your name has to necessarily be Devon Woodcomb in order for you nickname to be Captain Awesome...
DeleteI thought that was more referring to his next film, not a sequel to Time Lapse... I can't really see a sequel happening. Is it really? That's neat. I like The Twilight Zone, so maybe I will check it out.
I haven't seen Triangle. I'll look it up. And I have an interest to see Tucker and Dale vs Evil, cause I like Alan Tudyk and loved Cabin in the Woods which it seems similar to, but haven't seen it yet.
That would be a temptation if you had that last name....
(I thought I just posted this, but then it was gone...)
DeleteAbout the sequel, I dunno -- I was asking you! Haha I think the Twitter bio said "next one," after mentioning Time Lapse, so guess I just misinterpreted... :-/
Forgot to say, I was "supposed to" comment on one of your previous reviews on July 23 -- can you guess which one? (Hint: look at the date of my first comment here. ;^)) I was going to mention it a month ago, leading up to it... I don't have much to say about the movie, since I've not seen it, just the silly date/time reference. :-D
Anyway, first half of July I was trying to figure out some of the movie stuff, building an initial "inventory" list, etc. (this won't really mean anything to you). I only got through 360 titles in 2 days, and it was getting old. Way too slow though (even if my family helped), when I need to do 10-100 times that many. Not just my OCD/perfectionism, since can't get stuff wrong. So went to figure out how to automate that process more... Guess I came up with something better, but didn't implement anything yet. *end rambling*
BTW, I got the idea for the movie thing after seeing a wedding dress business, of all things, on Shark Tank!
You know how you said working on art, etc. can completely consume you? Well that's kinda how I am with most things -- just dedicated to concentrating on one thing, and then I don't do anything else, like comment here, or even watching stuff, etc. Haha, so that's my excuse. #lame
That still left me plenty of time before the 23rd, but then I started thinking about stuff for another site project, heh. (You'll be able to put the pieces together from links below!) Been kinda banging my head off-and-on about one idea for a year-and-a-half. :-O (I reference the opening line of Kelsea Ballerini's "Love Me Like You Mean It" as a justification for said feature. So obviously it's very important. :-P) I developed a different mindset, that I think leads me to a workable solution...
So, that's "where I went." Pretty satisfied with July progress on both things. Besides technology, my passion is helping people. :O) Now I'm kinda off both again for now, to get back some development to help the Internet-as-a-whole (exaggeration!). From 3, 8, and 13 months ago, oops. :-( Started, mostly done, but need to finalize and present what's usable... THAT is what I was doing in June before getting passionate about movie stuff again about a week before finding your blog, ironically. :-)
I left a comment on Katy's "Ode to DVDs" post... I saw it and had to comment "right away," but waited a week (same story, haha). Then I was coming back to mention it here, but had to wait for approval to show up, so.....
Ignore my diss about your comments. ;-) I probably would have made Blogger account, eventually, to comment here! I had considered it for a blog or two before, but was "forced" to this year. For this: http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/2016/01/singles-day-2016.html (My comments there as well)
Then I realized the other day that I could just tell you which ones I commented on, and you can find more about me if you want (since you haven't e-mailed, haha; not sure my profile has even been viewed since I added that...). That's the only reason I've been waiting to FOLLOW you on Twitter. :o) For some reason, I wanted to follow before I needed to tweet again... For a "TV crush's" birthday, LOL, and World Elephant Day now. :-D
Anyway, on the link-up I commented on #103 (link in 2nd comment still works) and then #91. Country music and Monk references (fave quote at the end) and another TV character I'm like... :^) That and my Twitter is about the most there is about me! (Besides forum and mailing list messages.)
Have some other miscellaneous movie comments, but this was too long already! :-/
OK, so now I know I submitted my comment twice. :-( The first time I didn't hit reply on yours, so did it right the second time. And it disappeared too. Is that because of the link and needs approval?
DeleteWell, sorry for the duplicates! If they both show up I'll delete one if you didn't. :-)
Yeah, they were sent to the spam folder. Not sure why.
DeleteI dunno, Young Ones? Since I posted that that day. Sounds like you've been having a productive summer though, so that's good.
If you want to follow me on Twitter I'll be happy to follow you back. :)
Because of the link, like I said... Or I'm just "spammy." :-P
DeleteNo! That wouldn't be much of a puzzle, would it? ;-) I mean, how much time passed between then and July 23? And that was the reference... And like if you had reviewed V for Vendetta, I would have waited until November 5th, haha. (BTW, I still intend to comment on actual [old] reviews, instead of just here, etc.; there's plenty of them and I know the OLDEST one I was going to start with 6 weeks ago. Hang on...)
Of course I wanted to follow you immediately, and was just waiting like I said! Did you see I started following a couple days ago...? :-)
Sorry if I kinda overwhelmed you with all that random stuff, hah. Just used to telling the other few bloggers more about me in the first or second e-mail so I'm not too anonymous, etc. And it didn't seem fair that I "knew everything" about you, LOL. But I haven't seen any other views of my profile or other site, so I guess you didn't mind [my commenting as a "stranger"]. :-O (I don't think it's ever been the case that *I* have more pictures than someone; and what other Christian site has a Borat emoji and, for now, a Childish Gambino reference?)
I was gonna ask before if you ever post on the IMDb boards? LOL, here's my account: http://www.imdb.com/user/ur6570699/ (Nothing except my few posts) The oldest one that I remember on Grosse Pointe Blank is gone, too old I guess. And I HAD a post or two about Wayward Pines last season -- wonder where that went! *shrug*
And that handle, like Twitter, is what I've used forever. Funny story about its origin!
Man, I really liked Complications and it ended with a cliffhanger... But Jason O'Mara doesn't seem to have much luck with shows! Oh yeah, literally just remembered, when I looked at your Tweets with replies (didn't do replies first time) a month ago... Didn't go back more than a few months, but you liked Life on Mars too! ;o)
Can't seem to remember much of the movie stuff I was going to say, but I just got caught up on another show I was going to mention in the Liebster thread. Didn't expect to be so wowed and I can hardly wait for the next season. :-O Not sure if y'all would be interested in it or not.
I'll see if I comment there now, or later. Also been waiting to drop some Michael Shannon comments somewhere, haha...
Wait, so 28 Days Later...? But July 32rd was only 26 days after June 27th...
DeleteI didn't get a notification from it for some reason, but I found you, and followed back. Not sure what you're referring to about your "other site" though -- I've not found it.
Nah, reading is all I ever do on IMDb.
Yeah I love Life on Mars! :D You've seen it? Poor Jason though... he got a gig as the new director of SHIELD on Agents of SHIELD now though, so that should be fun. :)
My comment (duplicated) the other day disappeared again after I submitted it... Not sure what was wrong this time. Do you have it in the spam folder or were able to see it somehow...?
DeleteYes, of course you're right! :-/ And I'm even doing date calculations all. the. time. :*( To be, uh, "fair," I always had July 23rd (not 32rd like you wrote ;-P) in my mind as 28 days after June 25th, which is the night I first found your blog, and when I referenced the comment date I didn't account for it being, of course, different!
ReplyDeleteYeah, watched Life on Mars while it was on! (Have more comments about it. ;-))
The other stuff you couldn't find -- in the last chunk of paragraphs from the comment on the 8th is where I put the link clues to follow if you were interested. :-) I just assumed you weren't like when I referred to my e-mail info, and that's cool.
I don't know if you saw my comment on Katy's DVD post, where I said you were lame :-D, but from that, one thing led to another, where I realized I could tell you how/why I made the Blogger account earlier this year (but would have for your blog otherwise!). I don't know that you'd care about the comment content otherwise @ Katy's -- just talking more about the business part of the movie business that I'm passionate about, etc...
Besides that, follow above, the link to Kelly's Korner blog link-up -- I said I left comments on #91 and #103. The latter has a link to the most sort of "profile" I have online, and from that XO domain, you can obviously derive the address of my "other site," which just has a placeholder page up, unlike the movie domain...
Hello! I am a member of the cast/crew and was wondering if you would be interested in viewing and reviewing the Bigfoot film A Wish for Giants. It is not the typical Bigfoot movie. In fact, it has won the Best Dramatic Feature at a film festival and is in consideration for awards at several other festivals.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link for the film. The password is tailgate
https://vimeo.com/252565232
Thank you for your consideration of viewing and reviewing the film! You should enjoy the movie
Hi, Sarah! I'm a Christian as well, and a longtime movie-lover. I actually want to go into the movie-making business at some point. Your art is very beautiful. Quick question: what TV shows [if any] do you watch? Some of my favorites are Battlestar Galactica [2003 version], NCIS, Longmire, Chuck, Burn Notice, Liv and Maddie, Girl Meets World, Leverage and The Librarians.
ReplyDeleteHi McKayla, great to meet you! Thanks so much. :) I have watched NCIS, Chuck, Leverage, and The Librarians but don't watch any of those currently. I was also a big Castle, Doctor Who, and Psych fan. I like earlier seasons of The Office and Parks and Rec, and I currently watch Supernatural and Agents of SHIELD on weekly cable. Right now I'm watching Brooklyn 99 and The O.C. off Hulu and waiting for the next seasons of The 100 and Riverdale to hit Netflix. And I love Stranger Things (season 1), Dark, and Black Mirror from Netflix too.
DeleteOoh I'll have to check those shows out. I love the earlier seasons of The Office, too. I watch a lot of things on streaming services so I've seen a lot of shows after they've come out. I think some shows are great for the whole show and some start out great and end up kinda meh. Just my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI've been doing that more and more too. It's nice to not have to wait a whole week between episodes! I agree, and with the ones that get meh I let myself give up when they get bad. appreciate the good while it lasts, then move on!
DeleteHello Sarah, Thanks for sharing an excellent post. I read your entire article and I really love it. However, Before watching any movie I watch the movie trailers to have an idea about the movie's content.
ReplyDeleteWonderful article. Fascinating to read. I love to read such an excellent article. Thanks! It has made my task more and extra easy. Keep rocking. فیلم
ReplyDelete