Well for the second time in as many weeks, I was invited to be a guest on another movie site’s podcast. Last time it was as a guest of The Movie Blog and today Screen Rant was featured on the JoBlo podcast.

I was surprised by the invitation both times, and both of these sites were very gracious in their comments about us. It was a lot of fun both times and it’s spurred me to thinking about re-starting podcasts here on the site.

Hey gang, yesterday John Campea of TheMovieBlog.com was kind enough to invite me to be a guest on his Movie Blog Podcast. John’s podcast is the longest-running movie podcast on the net (and the third oldest ongoing podcast, period).

Also on the podcast was TMB regular guest Christina Warren of Mashable.com and FlickCast.com. Here are the topics we covered:

• Jennifer’s Body
• Edward Norton claiming no cameo in Iron Man 2
• X-Men: First Class casting
• Nic Cage leaving Green Hornet, and the mess that movie seems to be in

We were going to cover a couple more items but we had so much fun just with those above that we ran out of time.

You can download it directly here or you can head over to The Movie Blog to listen to it (but do come back and tell us what you think!).

I’ll be doing another guest appearance on a well-known movie site’s podcast soon!

Mike Fleming, one of the seasoned veteran entertainment reporters over at Variety posted an op-ed piece yesterday where he talked about the good, the bad and the ugly in the blogging industry, as seen by an old  pro.

While the piece tried to walk the middle of the road, it inevitably skewed toward the condescending end of the spectrum, addressing those of us in the blogosphere in the tone of a teacher addressing the impetuous students in his freshman journalism class.

Funny part is, I don’t even disagree with much of what Fleming said. However, Mr. Fleming needs to recognize that there are sites like Screen Rant out here already working hard to be everything he wishes bloggers could be (and so much more than that).

Hey folks. We’re going through a transition here on the site so at some point tonight I’ll be shutting down commenting so that we don’t LOSE any of your comments. It’ll happen around midnight EST and I’ll probably bring commenting back on line around noon tomorrow (Saturday) barring any complications.

The look of the site isn’t going to change, we’re just doing some things in the background to help improve the performance/speed of the site for you.

Thanks for your patience.

Vic Holtreman, owner/editor-in-chief

Well I’m not sure how this happened exactly, but TotalFilm.com has nominated Screen Rant as one of what they consider to be the five most influential movie blogs.

I’ll tell you right now that I know we don’t have a chance in hell of beating out the other four (most of whom are friends of mine), but it’s an honor (and a surprise!) to even have been nominated.

In the interest of trying to increase the community feel here at Screen Rant, I’ve added Google Friend Connect to the right sidebar here on the site. That means you can become a friend of Screen Rant via Google or other OpenSocial-supported type accounts. You can read all about it here and check out the video below for a quick explanation of how it all works.

Basically if you have a Google account (and who doesn’t?) it’s a piece of cake to sign up.

Will I keep it on the site? At this point, I don’t know for sure. I’ll be playing around with adding some of their widgets, like giving visitors the ability to review posts and such.

So go ahead and join, I’m lonely all by myself there on the right. It might be fun.

This has been percolating in the back of my mind for a while now – like an itch I couldn’t quite scratch, but today it finally bubbled to the front of my brain. Something seems to have changed for me regarding Screen Rant, but it creeped up on me slowly so I didn’t really notice what was happening. I think I may have to thank my pal John from The Movie Blog for providing the trigger along with a post I read over at Dosh Dosh regarding shifting from being a writer to an editor in chief of a website.

It may seem like we just went through a redesign, but that was not only not that different from the one before, but was purely cosmetic. This time we’ve gutted it and moved it to a completely different platform. We will be adding features that I’ve wanted to offer you for a long time but haven’t had the ability to implement.

I just pulled an all nighter so the site is up but no bells and whistles beyond the new look yet. If you were subscribed to comments on posts, you’ll need to re-subscribe to continue to get updates on those.

There will no doubt be lots of little buggy issues and if you find any please let us know about them by either leaving a comment here or shooting me and email via the contact page.

I hope you folks like the new design and I’ll alert you as new features come online.

Thanks,

Vic Holtreman
Owner: ScreenRant.com

Hey gang, just a quick note that the comment feature will be turned off at approximately 11AM PST / 2PM EST today so we can do some work on the website. Comments will be re-enabled by tomorrow morning at the latest.

FYI, if you subscribe to comments on various posts, unfortunately you’re going to have to RE-subscribe to those when the upgrade is complete as we’re going to a different system. So you may want to bookmark your favorite discussion posts so you can come back to them later.

Hi folks,

If you experience any site wierdness this weekend it’s because we’re moving Screen Rant to a new host and server. I apologize for any inconvenience and don’t hesitate to let me know about anything that doesn’t seem to be working right.

Thanks for your patience,

Vic

Hey folks. Screen Rant is moving to a new server in order to improve performance of the site. The temporary downside is that due to the nature of this sort of thing, some comments may be lost during the transfer for technical reasons.

Due to the way the internet works, some of you will be looking at the version of ScreenRant.com that is on the old server (on which this post won’t even appear) while others will be looking at the site on the new server.

It may take a couple of days for all this to work itself out and I apologize for any annoyance caused by comments that will seem to have vanished. I’ll probably even end up losing some emails in the process.

To be honest I’m not happy with the way the hosting company is handling this and I when I have the time I will probably look at finding a new company.

Thanks for your patience.

Here is the official Screen Rant 2008 movie preview! Below you’ll find a list of 48 movies that you’ll most likely consider seeing this year along with a description, month of release and recommendation for each one.

I realize that “Top 10″ lists are all the rage at the end of the year and you’ve probably noticed that there haven’t been any of those here. I did think about it, but really – there were already so many other sites churning them out (and some of them did quite a nice job) that I didn’t feel the need. Plus, I just didn’t see enough movies in 2007 to be able to create my own list of best, worst or otherwise.

However 2008 looks like it’s going to be a pretty awesome year for movie fans. To prove it, from the list below movies that get a pre-release recommendation from me outnumber obvious stinkers by a margin of almost three to one! I was truly not prepared for numbers like those when I set out to create this preview.

Now I’m not going to mention every movie under the sun here – just the ones that I think Screen Rant readers will be most interested in. Namely, sci fi, fantasy, and superhero flicks with a few others thrown in. There are view-worthy movies not mentioned below as well as upcoming bombs that are missing from the following list.

Keep in mind that my predictions are based on my most excellent gut-check instincts but are no guarantee that I am 100% on the mark regarding how great or awful the movies listed below will be.

So read on to see Screen Rant’s 2008 movie preview and recommendations of what you should go out of your way to see – and what you should avoid like the plague.

I just wanted to wish our readers a very Merry Christmas (or Happy Hanukkah). Heath, Niall and I are all spending time with our families and that’s why the last couple of days have been light on articles. And being that tomorrow is Christmas Day, I will NOT be seeing AVP-R… at least if I don’t want to sleep on the couch for the foreseeable future.

Don’t worry, I will get a review of that out since I’ve been looking forward to seeing whether it will be better than the last one.

In any case, here’s wishing you and your families a very happy holiday and I hope you have a safe one with Santa bringing you lots of great stuff.

Sincerely,

Vic Holtreman

P.S. Alcadyzaar, if you look in the upper right corner you’ll see a little Christmas present: Movie quotes are back.

I thought you might be interested in an update on what’s going on with the site.

First off I want to congratulate the winners of the Screen Rant Suggestion contest:

“Zipper” Stevens and Andrew Phillips

They’ve each won a $20 Amazon.com gift certificate (BTW guys, let me know if you haven’t received them yet).

Zipper was the random winner and Andrew won for best suggestion(s). There were a bunch of great ones and it really helps me to know what you would like to see (or not see) here at Screen Rant.

Among Andrew’s suggestions that I thought were great:

Hey, here’s a chance for you to make Screen Rant a cooler place to visit, and to win something at the same time!

I am forever on the lookout for ways to make ScreenRant.com a better movie and TV site. I want to make it a place that you’ll want to come back to more often. A place that you’ll enjoy so much that you’ll want to tell your friends about it and have them become regular visitors as well.

So I figure what better way to do that than to ask YOU what you’d like to see on the site?

Wow.

It’s hard to believe that Screen Rant has been online four years already. When I started this site on November 11th, 2003 I had no idea what I was doing… I’d just always been a movie and Sci Fi fan and with this whole internet thing that seemed to be up and coming, I decided that I wanted a place online where I could talk about movies and TV, both the good and the bad. I never thought anyone would read it outside a couple of friends of mine.

The first thing I ever posted was Sandy Collora’s short fan film Batman: Dead End. One of the coolest things I’d ever seen up to that point (I wonder what he’s up to these days…). Other early posts included my review of the horribly dissapointing Matrix Revolutions, how much I disliked the Battlestar Galactica pilot and a rant against talking in movie theaters.

I’m going out of town for a few days but I’ve got a few stories set up to auto-post while I’m gone, including a commentary on why some mediocre movies make a gazillion dollars while other, better movies get seen by hardly anyone at all. Oh, and be on the lookout for a Halloween contest/giveaway that’ll be starting some time this weekend as well (so tell your friends!).

In addition, Heath and Kane will hopefully help keep you fine folks up to date on what’s going on in the movie biz.

See ya in a few!

Vic

So you’ve arrived at Screen Rant today and your first reaction was probably “What the heck? Am I at the right place?” Well you are, indeed.

I thought it was time I updated the look of the site, and while it took much longer than I expected to get it done, it’s finally online. I hope you guys like it, although I’m sure it’ll take a bit of getting used to. I decided to keep the overall color scheme is the same so it wouldn’t be too jarring of a change, plus it’s kind of a signature of the site.

Hey folks, I realize one of the things you’re NOT supposed to do on a blog is apologize for a lack of posts, but I’ll do it anyway. I’ve been working on a major site redesign for a while along with some other things and have just not had the time to dedicate to posting movie news and opinions recently.

I’m a computer geek at heart so sometimes I can get sucked into that side of things and forget to come out into the real world.

Anyway, I’m going to force myself to make posting a priority before I work on anything else and I plan on pounding out a few posts today.

Thanks for hanging in there and I hope you’ll like the new design I’ve been working on, which should be going live very soon.

Vic Holtreman

Rumors about upcoming movies are usually lots of fun to talk about – people enjoy speculating about what may or may not happen in, or who may be cast in, the next superhero/sci-fi/action/etc. movie.

The problem is that sometimes rumors come out pretty fast and loose… and in the battle for scoops among movie news sites stuff sometimes gets posted without any fact-checking.

One of the things I’ve been missing on the site is an “About” page, with a picture of me and a short bio. I’m having the site redesigned (hopefully it will be done very soon) and I’ll be incorporating that into the new website.

In the meantime here’s a pic of me at a very important movie studio, courtesy of SimpsonizeMe.com:

Just, wow.

I hadn’t been to the San Diego Comic-Con in about seven years, and this was the first time I went as a member of the press. If I had to pick one word to describe my experience it would have to be:

Overwhelming.

I did have a lot of fun, especially at the parties held after the days’ events. In the photo above are some of the folks I met who run other movie sites that I visit every day. From left to right they’re Jessica from FirstShowing.net, Peter from /Film, John from The Movie Blog, Kevin (crouching) from Cinematical, then there I am in my Slusho t-shirt next to John from Advanced Iron and finally Alex from FirstShowing.net. I also met Jen from Rottentomatoes.com, and folks from Chud.com, Rope of Silicon and other sites.

A bunch of movie bloggers met with Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (the guys behind last year’s Crank), whose next film is the upcoming thriller Pathology. They gave us a sneak peek at the first ever trailer for the film. From what was in the trailer, it would be the red band version so I anticipate it will be cut a bit before being released. Pathology stars Milo Ventimiglia who plays Peter Petrelli in NBC’s Heroes.

First I have to say thanks to the guys over at Lakeshore Entertainment and to John Campea over at The Movie Blog for putting the gathering together. It was great to get to meet the guys who run FirstShowing.net and SlashFilm.com. I also met some great folks from RottenTomatoes.com. All great folks and it was great to finally meet people that I’ve “known” online for quite a while.

One extra cool thing was that Zachary Quinto, Milo Ventimiglia and Masi Oka from NBC’s Heroes were there. I had the opportunity to speak with Zach and spent quite a while talking with Milo, who stuck me as a really grounded guy. Super-nice guys, and it was actually weird talking to the guy who played Sylar but not having him creep me out.

In an effort to cut down on the “ums”, “uhs” and other annoying pauses, this week’s rant will be covering fewer topics.

In this week’s rant:

- Iron Man movie stuff, including the photo that crashed my server.

- I introduce the newest Screen Rant contributors: Kane Adrian, Shane Hallaran, Heath “Metal Head” Mcknight, and Bruce Simmons.

Do you love movies and talking about movie news? Well I’m looking to add a couple of movie news writers to Screen Rant. There’s just WAY too much news out there for me to cover all by myself, and I tend to editorialize quite a bit which makes my writing take longer, so I’m looking for a few people to add as contributors mainly to just keep folks up to date with the latest and greatest movie coverage news.

I need people who actually have some time to write about the latest movie news. I’m not looking for huge, lengthy pieces – I would say anywhere from 150 – 300 words per story is fine and ideally I’d like to see at least 1 – 2 items posted per day.

I’d prefer folks who enjoy Screen Rant’s “spin” on the movies, but all are welcome.

If you’re interested, here’s what you need to do:

Man oh man… First, let me say I deeply apologize for the site being down for over 24 hours! What a nightmare the last day has been.

Update: I know one of the rules of blogging is that you’re not supposed to apologize for a lack of posts, but I will anyway. My email is still down and my brain is fried from too little sleep so I don’t know how coherent any new posts from me would be anyway. Hang in there with me, folks!

The hard drive of the server on which Screen Rant is hosted died. It died so badly that they couldn’t recover the data from it, although they spent hours trying. So they had to do a restore from backups and due to the number of websites on the server it took a REALLY long time to get the site back up.

I’m debating whether to add a forum to Screen Rant. I don’t have anything as fancy as a poll, but I’d like to know whether you’d like to see a forum here on the site in addition to having the ability to comment on posts.

It would of course have movie and TV categories, general and specific to individual movies and TV series, but I could add other topics as well like comics or general discussion.

I really enjoy the back and forth when you leave comments here on the site so I’d be more than happy to host a forum where we can talk about our favorite movies and TV shows at length.

I’d like to hear from you on this, so if you have an opinion either way, please leave a comment below with your thoughts.

Thanks!

Vic

Hey, would you like to add both a snazzy look and Screen Rant news to your website, blog or MySpace page?

Check out this cool widget that is easy to cut and paste into your site: