Movie Blog Mission Statement

My love for movies started at an early age. When I was three I could, for all intents and purposes, recreate the entire opening twenty minutes of "Star Wars" complete with sound effects. I fell in love with comedies well beyond my years ("Monty Python and the Holy Grail") and just knew that the first "Batman" with Michael Keaton was the best movie that didn't involve R2-D2 that had ever been made. "Jurassic Park" is the movie that really opened my eyes to the magic of film at the ripe old age of 10. And I will still argue that "Independence Day" is a great film because I can't shake the feeling of awesomeness I got watching it from the front row on Opening Day.

I started writing about movies somewhere around 2006 or 2007. As an underemployed, lesser-motivated student, I had lots of free time to kill with daily trips to Blockbuster. I filled up my movie rankings with movies I knew would be terrible, I caught up on some of the classics, and I wrote about it along the way. My production level waned and my writing shifted from site to site, blog to blog for a while, but I have remained committed to trying to write whenever possible. For the last two years or so I have been dedicated to writing for my blog, The Soap Box. I have written about sports, life, and stupid stories that sprang from my imagination. Recently, however, my writing focus has moved more and more towards movies and so The Soap Box Office has been born.

The Soap Box Office is designed to keep the average movie watcher in the know concerning the newest releases, casting news, and movies to look forward to. I don't consider myself to be a critic, so to speak, and I'm not a movie snob. You won't find many vague references to foreign films or language that requires a thesaurus app to comprehend. I'm not convinced that a "classic" is a "classic" just because it's old. I respect the older films but they often bore me. I incorporate my level of enjoyment into my ratings as well as "quality filmmaking" which is something I feel too many professional movie critics have lost as of late. And if those qualities make me an unsophisticated twit then so be it. I'm just a regular dude who sees a lot of movies and I write for other regular dudes (and dudettes, too, if you'll forgive the dated terminology). If I like a movie I'll tell you why and if I think it sucks I'll let you know that, too, plain and simple.

I'll try to do it all in 1000 words or less while providing a little comedy, opinionation (obviously I'm not above making up words when it suits me), and links to the "important" news of the day. If any of that interests you, I hope you'll stop by from time to time if for no other reason that to give yourself something to do at work when you're pulling a Peter Gibbons (that's an "Office Space" reference, naturally). Leave a comment, click a link, or quietly poke fun at my nerdiness to make yourself feel better. Whatever works for you. Just don't bag on my obsession with Chewbacca or expect me to say ANYTHING good about John Travolta and we can be friends.

Where we're going we don't need roads,
Brian