Myself and Crank Director Brian Taylor Drinking it up at Comic Con in July

Hello there! It appears that I haven’t been around here in a while. Since April, to be exact. I would be willing to bet that readers of The Columbus Movie Guy are anxious to hear all about what has been going on. But then again, if you read my work here then you are probably already reading me over at Film School Rejects. Either way, let me give you a little update on what has been going on.

Business is good. What can I say? It is good to be in the online film community these days. Film School Rejects has been reaching record levels of traffic, gaining fans all over the planet and well, starting to make a little cash. I can see the end of my career in retail, it is the light at the end of a long and zombie infested tunnel (I use the zombie reference only because I just watched 28 Weeks Later on DVD).

It is also a blessing that I have been able to make such amazing friends in the community, both local and around the world. Just this week myself, Peter, Alex, John Campea and Michael from MoviesOnline.ca started writing a “Best of the Web” article that takes the best editorial from each of our sites and puts it on display to readers of all four sites. It’s very cool. The first edition can be found here.

Fat Guys at the Movies is also rocking and rolling all over the place. Since I last checked in here we have dropped 30 more episodes on listeners from all over the globe. We are also now on 650 KGAB in Cheyenne, Wyoming. That means Darth Cheney has our back, man-sized safe and all.

On to other topics of note. I have been noticing a trend lately. It is an alarming trend, one that consists of quite a few disappointing movies coming down the pipe during a month that usually houses good flicks. Recently I have been thoroughly disappointed with both We Own the Night and Michael Clayton. Don’t get me wrong, they were not bad movies by any means. They just weren’t great movies. I guess that is the result of high expectations.

But then again, I did have pretty high expectations for the movie that I saw this morning, 30 Days of Night. After getting a chance to meet and chat with author Steve Niles at Comic Con this year, I found myself drawn to 30 Days of Night despite my relative pansy-itis when it comes to horror and gore. High expectations and all, the film still managed to blow me away. It was intensely scary, extremely well executed and even though it was a little long, it held its level of intensity throughout. Chalk that up to another great outing for director David Slade (Hard Candy), who is quickly becoming one of my favorites in the field of suspense. I will drop a link to my full review next week, but for now you should know that 30 Days of Night is a film at which you should be looking if you dig great horror.

That brings me to the conclusion of this update, short-lived though it may be. I will be shooting for a once per week updating schedule for CMG, focused on updates from the world of film journalism (and I use that term loosely). So stay tuned, there is nothing but life in front of us. We just have to go out there and live it.