This is Cinema365

Hi there. My name is Carlos. Pleased ta meetcha. This is my movie blog. I have been a movie critic for print weeklies and online groups since the mid-Eighties. Before that I got the journalism bug at Loyola Marymount University, where I had gone originally to study law, then Communication Arts (essentially film and television) before becoming entertainment editor for the school newspaper. I have also been a rock critic as well. I love to write, and I love to watch movies, so this is a natural.

Originally, I was going to write about a single movie each day, generally a review but not always. Now, I’m trying to write two reviews a day. Some of the movies will be current releases, others will be off of Video on Demand. Hopefully they’ll inspire you to respond, or help you choose what movie to see. I hope so – this is supposed to be fun!

This is an outgrowth of the Friday Night Movie Bunch, a loose-knit group of people in the Orlando area who went to the movies every week. Although that group is now down to my wife and I (and we generally go on Saturday afternoons anyway), the spirit is still the same. Usually I’ll tell you which movie is going to be up the next day.

Every Thursday, I’ll be publishing a list of movies that are coming out that week ending on Friday. These are movies opening in the Orlando area although there will also be coverage of the rest of Florida as well. I’ll give a little bit of information about the general plot and sometimes a little commentary as well. I’ll also provide links to the film’s website and to the film’s trailer, generally from their IMDB video page. I’ll also provide the MPAA rating for American readers. I will either list it as a wide release – generally playing at all the multiplexes in town – but for independent releases, I’ll list the theaters individually.

A word about some of the categories on the reviews: REASONS TO SEE is a summary about why the movie is worth your time and effort to seek out. REASONS TO AVOID is a summary of the negative issues. FAMILY VALUES are a list of things parents might want to know are present in the film before allowing their kids to see it, generally based on the MPAA rating (when available) but also from my own observation of the movie. TRIVIAL PURSUITS is a factoid of generally fun or interesting or, more often, useless information about the movie or people connected with the movie. COMPARISON SHOPPING lists a movie that the one being reviewed resembles either thematically or in general. I try to avoid comparing sequels to their predecessors or remakes to their originals because that’s not terribly useful. In our new features reviews, there’s also CRITICAL MASS which quotes the scores awarded the movies from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic so you have an idea what other critics are thinking.

In addition, there is a monthly PICK OF THE LITTER feature that summarizes the dates for most wide releases (at least the ones I think are worth seeing) as well as selected independent films that, based on what I know about them, I think might stand out above the rest. I try to have that out by the last day of the previous month, although from time to time I run a little late on that.

If you’d like to contact me directly, either leave a comment here on this page or you can reach me at the site’s official e-mail at cinema365@live.com. Feedback is always welcome and filmmakers or publicists looking to get a review on this site should contact me there.

Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I love writing this – coz I’m probably not going to stop. Seriously. Those threats just aren’t going to work.

LEGAL-LIKE STUFF: All reviews, articles, commentaries and posts are the property of the Cinema365 blog and its owner. Republication of any review, article, comment or post may only occur with the written permission of the writer. So there.

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