Entertainment blogs

Blog name: Guardian Film Blog

What is it?

The Guardian film blog is a topical film blog featuring news and reviews from the movie world. New articles are added a few times a day on average, and feature a good amount of images and film clips to keep them interesting. Content varies from full-blown reviews to stories of interest or sneak-peaks of future developments.

Who set it up/maintains it?

The blog is commissioned and funded by the Guardian Media Group. Reviews and articles are contributed by various writers across the group giving a decent range of writing styles. Some recent contributors are Ben Child (a Journalist, DJ, and producer), William Leith (author), and Dave Hill (novelist, blogger, long standing journalist).

Why is it there?

From the looks of it this blog is mainly there to provide an outlet for the diverse range of authors on the Guardians staff. It is part of a larger group of culture blogs and as such provides reciprocal links to them. One can assume that it follows the usual motivation of catching some web searchers with the popular content it provides and luring them into other areas of the Guardian website. There is the token selection of advertising for both Guardian and external products as well as a more focused link to a Guardian online DVD shop (cunningly secreted next to the film reviews sections..)

Who visits?

It would be safe to assume that the page is there at least in part as an extra service for loyal Guardian readers as well as the passing trade. From the look of the feedback to some of the articles the main demographic are film enthusiasts who can tend to be rather opinionated! A prime example being the agrieved response when one of the authors confused the siginificance of a red uniform in the Star Trek Series (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2008/aug/11/firstlookatsimonpeggasst)

Stats?

Newspapers are notoriously protective of their subscription statistics so detailed information is hard to find. One reasonable benchmark however is the number of subscribers to the RSS feed. Being as bloglines is one of the major players in this field some conclusions can be drawn from their stats. This blog came 6th in a line-up of most popular newspaper blogs with 293 subsribers. Its closest rival being the Independents media news blog with a paltry 99.

Is it actually any good?

Not a bad blog, and a good range of knowledgable authors which certainly helps it credibility. Nice page layout with plenty of embedded media and also a useful weekly film review archive making it easy to trawl through back-catalogues. It also shows that the authors are privvy to some insider knowledge as the articles are fresh and on the whole very topical. My one main reservation about this blog is that it is inescapably under the umbrella of a national newspaper. Everything from the writing style to the advertisement layout screams formal publication and although the writing style is fairly relaxed, I just dont feel satisfied by the majority of reviews. They tend to be a little short and theres a lot of name dropping of actors and directing staff that serves more to clutter the opinions rather provide a definitive review.

At the end of the day this blog will fill a few minutes with some topical titbits but it is unlikely to clinch that difficult decision of "cinema tonight?"

Rating?
3/5 - Worth a look if you like being a film geek and are a fan of the Guardian style.

Rivals and alternatives?

Now I like this blog. Crucially it features comprehensive and regularly updated archives of reviews that give enough detail for you to make well educated cinema decisions. As a bonus it features webcast style review sessions with the sites authors (which can even be downloaded as podcasts for you trendy apple slaves). The writing style is similarly tongue-in-cheek , although I feel it is more enjoyable and found myself happily reading even lengthy articles. A particular favourite is the "all-time best articles" provided on the main page which provide some prime reading.

Rating: 5/5 A must for casual or religious cinema goers, never be robbed at the box office again!

This is a decent blog source actually, although not one I often use. The layout is similar to the movieblog.com model with favourite articles etc. but features an additional "tag cloud" which is a nice touch allowing the dicerning reader to quickly tease out what they want to read. Being an affiliate of the American Music Television there is the expected host of star interviews and movie premier snapshots which in all honesty do little to bolster or detract from the core material of the site. Reviews aren't bad and featured interviews are usually worth a look, currently an interview with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino holds the main page and my attention (albeit briefly). One letdown is synonomous with the scourge of modern television. Upon visiting the site and perusing the content I was continually assualted by over-sized advertisements for Fructus Shampoo that take up a good third of the page. I mean we all know that MTV are hard up but isnt that a little excessive??

Rating: 4/5 Not bad and some good content but a few classic let-downs. Boo