Movie Blog Review: Marshall and the Movies
Marshall, runner-up of last month top contributor contest, has requested a blog review as his prize. What is a blog review? If you are familiar with LAMB’s blog blustering concept then you already know what it is. You visit someone’s blog and then critique what is good and bad about it as well as give feedback on how to make it a better blog in the comments.
Some aspects to consider:
- First impression: Good/Bad? Would you leave the site right away? Why? Speed of loading…
- Header, title, branding: Any improvement possible?
- Appearance: Color scheme, general appeal, readability, theme design, clean/cluttered?
- Content: Interesting/boring? Unfocused/themed? Filler content?
- Writing: Does he have a personality? lively? funny? puts you to sleep? spelling/grammatical mistakes?
- Navigation: Can you find what you want to read? Quick/slow loading? Sidebars?
- Community: Is there one? comments, polls, contest, interactivity, participation in greater movie blog community, quality etc…
- Misc: autoplay music? (lol don’t do it), ads, SEO, anything else you can think of
- What would you change if this was your blog?
Some guidelines:
- No pity. Throw it all out there. He demanded it, let’s give it to him!
- A little tact goes a long way so be honest but respectful
- Give it a grade if you wish
- If you want to be anonymous, that’s fine but I don’t see no reason for that.
Now dear readers, please visit Marshall’s movie blog thoroughly and then come back and leave comments on what’s good or bad about it as well as give feedback on how it could be improved. Thanks to all of you!
29 Comments
Horrible. Disgraceful. Everything that’s wrong with blogging all in one site! Oh, wait, we’re not supposed to review our own blogs (all that for a cheap joke, and I bet nobody laughs).
One thing I’ve always loved about your site Marshall (if that even is your real name!) is its simplicity. Not weighed down with a lot of gadgets, and such. You got what you need, and nothing more. But I also think that’s most effective because your site is set perfectly for that. Any more and it would just look cluttered.
I also love the content. Great writing, to the point, but amusing all the same. Though at times I am left scratching my head after a few Random Factoids.
The only things I would change, if I was you, would be, first, to get a better The Lamb image (yours is blurry, and seems stretched… or I’m going blind). Second, maybe reorganize your side bar a bit. Categories down, latest posts/comments up. All that sort of jazz, you know?
Well, thank you for being honest!
Also, Castor, I’m not going to take it personally because I assumed that you just copied/pasted the outline, but I’m a “he,” not a “she.”
Wait, what? I always thought you were a girl!
Ok ok bad joke
My mistake, I would have sworn I changed them all to “he” but I guess I didn’t look close enough.
Are you still confused from my gender mishap, perchance?
Marshall, I kind of love your site, the header and the Random Factoids.
I do not like, however, the ‘read more’ option. I despise that on everything, not just yours, so…in conclusion.
Me? Never was…
I too love the way that they are offered as “Random Factoids”. There’s something wonderfully personal to that sort of style and structure.
I’m glad it feels personal because that’s what I want – I call my site “Marshall AND the Movies” because I’m using blogging to explore myself as much as I am the cinematic landscape. It’s meant as a sort of personal discovery project (like “Julie & Julia,” the movie that inspired me to start blogging), but it’s hard to stay focused on the discovery when I don’t have a humongous project that I’m clearly working on.
Although I have been working on one, I’ve just chosen not to keep my readers updated on it like a Twitter feed. Expect a giant extravaganza from this project in August or September – and I may be looking for people interested to add their opinions, potentially in a podcast. I’m just spitballing on that last bit, but it all depends on interest.
Marshall: Count me in. Although I’m not wired up to podcast, I can write good. Okay, I can write okay.
Well, I can write.
And it is my real name.
Excellent reviews, polls, and factoids. The only problem with your site is the aesthetic but that is solely the fault of wordpress’s boring templates.
Ha – look at Fitz standing up for Blogger!
I don’t think Marshall’s site design boring, though – clean and simple, as others have stated.
WordPress does have boring templates. Tis a fact, sir.
I like your style Marshall. Clean, simple layout which compliments sharp, concise content, with a nice combination of honest reviews and random comment on obscure facts which always seems to work on nearly any medium. Well done, keep up the hard work.
Thanks, that means a lot coming from someone who may or may not be a first time reader (I’m skeptical because at least I don’t remember you commenting). Anyways, I’m checking out your site right now and expect a new reader!
I was a first time reader but not for long. “Expect a new reader”- that’s either a compliment or a cheeky presumption
@ Ronan: You make it sound like a threat.
@Darren We are talking serious business here man
Marshall has no idea who he just insulted: The Godfather of the Irish mob.
I miss commenting wars.
It’s not quite time to go to the matresses… yet.
“They pull a fact, you pull a spurious argument. He sends one of yours to the imdb for a fact check, you send one of his to Wikipedia. That’s the commenting way!”
Okay, not The Godfather, but I love that quote.
@Darren Well played sir, well played. That’s Goodfellas right?
I like your site a lot. It’s clean and crisp, you don’t fuck around or make posts for posting sake. Your site is a lot better since you removed The Blind Side from your banner.
I feel the same way. Thank goodness nothing in my current banner has turned out to be a steaming pile of crap…yet.
* First impression: Clean albeit generic looking blog. Loads quickly
Just saying.
* Header: Your blog has a banner which is good. I do think however that so many bloggers use the “collection of movie posters” banner that you might consider brainstorming and making a new one that is more original
* Appearance: Not much you can do here since it’s WordPress.com. Literally thousands of other people have the exact same design which is always a downer. One thing that you can always do is look for a new template. I know the WordPress team has recently put more focus on making new templates as of late.
* Content: There is some good content to read as of late. In the past, one of the main complaint I had was the large amount of “filler” content such as “Random Factoids”, trailers and other short posts that most people don’t really actively seek.
* Writing: You have a nice distinct voice and sense of humor. Watch for excessive amount of the first person “I”, “my” etc… What can you do for me? Most visitors (who don’t know you) are not interested in personal diaries and accounts unless it can be immediately helpful in their own lives. This can directly impact # of visits and comments
* Navigation: I see you use pages and categories, have a review index, a search box etc… You are doing better than most already and there isn’t much more you can do in WordPress. One thing you can is a Best Posts links and/or Most popular in the sidebar
* Community: I know you have been working hard to get a little community started with mixed success. Keep plugging at it and try different things: Discussion worthy content, less emphasis on personal accounts, engaging the reader. Contests are good ideas but they only have a temporary effect especially if the community and reader-base is small to begin with.
* Misc: I see you have a domain. Self-hosted WordPress is only one more step away
Finally, for more visibility, you can register your blog in numerous blog indexing services, most notably Technorati, Blog Catalog etc…
Best of luck Marshall
“I do think however that so many bloggers use the “collection of movie posters” banner that you might consider brainstorming and making a new one that is more original”
Amen to that. However, I wouldn’t mind it nearly as much were the images at least high res enough to be able to see them clearly. The double whammy of the “collection of posters” and out-of-focus pics (even weirder given their size) is probably my least favorite thing about your site…which is pretty minor, so that’s a good thing overall.
Echo to just about everything else stated. I’m liking it more the more I read and get to know you, so that’s a good thing.
One other (very) minor aesthetic complaint: you’ve got the bar at the top with Home, Reviews, etc. – I’d like it better if either there were more choices, thus filling out the bar, or if the existing ones were spread out to cover the width of it.
Like others have said, nice clean site that’s easy to navigate.
Great content too, I absolutely love the Random Factoids. Always interesting to read, as well as the reviews, movie previews, etc.
Gotta represent the fellow 17 year olds in the house!
You confuse me.
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