Intro To My Website

Hi, I'm Mike. I am a film major. I Recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton. As a child I remember my home already being filled with VHS tapes. One of the reasons we had so many already was that my father opened up a video store and named it after my nickname, which you wont get. I was taken to the movie theater a lot too by my father. Some of the movies I was taken into probably wasn't suited for a child my age, but that's how I found out what kind of films, stories I like. I still remember my first Rated R film alone. It was at a mall and having seen the trailer really made me want to see this film when I saw it on the marquee. The movie being Rated R, I needed to be accompanied by an adult or get permission to see the film. I begged my mom and she said yes, but she hardly knew what I was about to watch. If she did I wouldn't want to know what would've happened. That movie was Robert Rodriguez (2005) Sin City. It was just me in the theater. Well me and a couple in the back who spent most of the time making out. But it was cool, just me, young, my own first Rated R pic. At that time I probably didn't know about Film Directors, Screenwriters, maybe just actors. My passion continue as I got older. In High School I was always excited for new movies to come out in theaters and I would rent movies from Blockbuster. It was also at this time that I decided to start collecting physical media. In high school my taste was different from now. I believe at that time I was only really into Blockbuster films. I could not watch other films with just talking most of the time. I wanted the action, the gun fights, the car chases, the cgi, the fantasy, the cliche. It wasn't until right out of high school I always say this movie made me change course and opened my eyes. The trailer to David Fincher's (2010) The Social Network impressed me. I decided to go watch it and one question I kept asking myself after it was over on my way home was "Why did I enjoy this movie so much if it was mostly them talking?". That's when I started to think about Characters, Dialouge, Score, Editing etc. I'm not quite sure if it was then that I started to read reviews or articles analyzing films but i wouldn't be surprise if it was. I decided to go back to school one day and try to follow my dream of a film director and screenwriter. I started to say that I at least want to go knowing I tried. But still right now I ask myself did I try enough? I took classes which taught me a lot about films from the 30’s to 60’s, 70’s. I learned about auteur directors, movies from across the globe, different genres and film vocabulary. I still learn something new every time I read a review, or analysis on a film. Even as I had to do my internship this year at an Art House theater I heard even more new vocabulary of genres I haven't heard from. Having to read and do analysis on films in school was one of the most gratification I could get. I'm passionate about it as much as I am about making films or writing stories. I’m someone who believes in film criticism, film analysis, whatever you’d like to call it. I belive it's very important for filmmakers, film students, it helps us learn what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong, what we could do better on the next one. I think it could help create that next big auteur director. It will and can inspire many. In this current time what I use to see as a great art form is now being attacked by many that consider film critics mean and angry. I can understand that, but there are many articles out there to explain why film critics do what they do and i don't thinj they're angry and mean. I am not going to be one to sugarcoat my reviews like many do nowadays. It seems now that people are too scared to be honest because they feel like they won’t be part of the club, that they won’t be able to be considered a “true fan” because they gave one bad review or they are just really attached to a film in a way they probably shouldn’t be. I love film criticism. I read good ones and bad ones. Some I may ignore half way through because I don’t agree with it or some actually open my eyes to say okay that’s a good point as to why it’s bad. “How do I not make that mistake?” Or the good ones which is always fun for me because I end up seeing these established film critics saying what I was feeling about the film. I do my best not to read reviews until after I’ve done mine because I don’t want it to influence my review. But there are times I do read some before because I’m already so excited for the film I want to know a bit more. Like today the reviews to one of my favorite directors Michael Mann’s (2023) Ferrari came out and I just had to read it. Speaking of Mann if you ask me the question “What’s your favorite all time movie?” My answer would be Michael Mann’s (2004) Collateral. I love that film. I do have a YouTube channel you can follow under the same name Cinematic Mike. I started it in 2019 or 2020. People had told me to do it years before that but I was too shy, too scared to learn, which is not always good but you have to. Like this website also. I didn’t know how to create a website or what to do on it. I’m still learning right now as I’m writing this. Watching Youtube tutorials. Things here and there got me upset trying to create this, it happens, but I guess we can just keep trying. Like my YouTube Channel Cinematic Mike I will be doing reviews on films here and anything else that might be related to film or the film industry. After reading so many articles I started to feel like I want to show my critiques in article form to show people what I see and what they could take from it. Whether they can agree with me or not. I’m actually kind of excited to start this and have a portfolio of the films I analyze. If you want to come along on this journey with please do and subscribe to Cinematicmike.com