Good morning folks! Just a little update for you all today: here in Australia, it’s a public holiday, so there will be no review up – instead, our warts-and-all look at Caligula will be online tomorrow. Stay tuned for that.

Some of you have noticed a significant slowdown in the load time for the fernbyfilms.com site over the last six to twelve months, and rest assured, we’re working on it behind the scenes to nullify any problems we are having. We believe it’s got to do with our cache system, and we’re investigating possible solutions as you read this. For this reason, you may see some slight aesthetic changes to the site. Some might alternatively label it as “streamlining”. Do not be alarmed. We’re working to make fernbyfilms.com as fast as possible in the online world.

We’d like to remind you all that our second Top 10 Greatest Of The Modern Age list comes online on Monday week (the 6th of February), and if it’s as popular as the previous one was, then we’re in for some great comments. We will be publishing out Top 10 GOTMA lists on the first Monday of each month, right up to December. Lock that in your diary!

Finally, as we’re expanding our readership across the Blogoverse, with fellow film lovers reading and commenting on our stuff, we want to throw something out to the casual reader right now – if you happen to stumble upon a great site (like this one! LOL!) then leave a comment somewhere! It doesn’t take much to throw a couple of kind words (or, not so kind, if you disagree with something you’ve read) the way of the author, and as bloggers, we all appreciate anybody spending even a few seconds to acknowledge our work – good or bad. If you look to the right you’ll notice a list of recent comments over in our sidebar, as well as a leaderboard of regular commentors; it’s called building a community, and since we all love films, it’s pretty obvious what that community likes to talk about, and we want your opinion. So for the lurkers and casual visitors, those landing here to capture some images or those who’ve followed a link in from iMDB or something, please leave a comment somewhere to let us know you’ve seen our stuff. You might never come back; that’s okay, you know, but we’d at least like to know you’ve been here! Of course, if you want to really show how much you’ve enjoyed our stuff, you can always click the “like” button on our facebook widget. That way you’re always up to date with our reviews!! Go on…. press it!

And of course, a big thanks to our regulars for always coming back to see what’s what! You guys are gems.

Rodney T – EIC, fernbyfilms.com

Happy New Year folks, welcome to the first day of 2012; the year in which, according to those who believe in the soon-to-be-defunct ancient Mayan calendar, the world will end/change.

Here at fernbyfilms.com, we don’t believe much will happen on December 21 this year, but just in case the planet Earth does suffer some terrible cataclysm, we’ll be preparing for this event with some timely final words and summations on cinema as a whole. Just in case aliens unearth our remains in the millennia to come, we want to make sure they know the truth about our world, about our culture, as we step forth into the new epoch of human civilization, be that a post-Roland Emmerich-esque upheaval or meteor strike or nuclear holocaust – whatever version of fate humanity has in store, we wanted to get our ducks in a row.

Each month, we’ll be presenting a special series of Top 10 Lists, under the headline banner of “Greatest of the Modern Age“, trawling through various films of the last 30-odd years (since 1980, to be precise), with such lists as the Greatest Actors, Greatest Films, Greatest Film Scenes and other similarly titled things to keep you entertained. Tomorrow, we present our first, The Top 10 Greatest Actors Of The Modern Age, representing the best acting talent from the last 30 years. I know some of these lists will produce some controversy, so I invite anybody with a different opinion to voice it in the comments section!

Also this year, we have a special last-gasp blow-out planned for Septembers Worst Film Week event (since we went and skipped it in 2011), as well as a number of other events planned through the course of the year – most of which I haven’t come up with as I write this. No doubt I’ll sort something out later.

So welcome to2012 folks: sit back and enjoy the ride, why dontcha!

Rodney T – EIC, fernbyfilms.com

This year’s Beneath The Earth short film competition was an undoubted success – just check out the quality of the entrants and short list of films to choose from. While perhaps not achieving the same broad-spectrum appeal as, say, Tropfest, BTE gave us some truly extraordinary short films this year, each with a style and individuality unique to their respective filmmakers. That’s the thing about short films, I guess: the filmmaker responsible has the ability to tell the story he/she wants without the constraints of studio interference or hindrance.

The two winners, one winning the judges prize and the other voted for by the public, are equally deserving of their place, although only one of them (I believe) is truly the best of the bunch. You can click here to see all the entrants and learn who won, but I’m about to cast a critical eye across both of the winners and let you know what I think, without prejudice.

Judges Choice: Photographs – Directed by Brendan Clogher & Christina “Kiki” Manrique

This short film tells the story of an elderly woman traipsing around a town taking photographs of herself. Sounds boring if you say it fast, but this is one hell of an elegant short film, a heartbreaking, wonderful, uplifting essay into loss, memory and revelation. Stunningly animated, Photographs is one of those shorts that transports you to your own childhood via the parallels of its own narrative, capturing the essence of time passing by with consummate ease. The old woman, taking photographs around town, is trying to recapture the memories of her younger days, as seen in one of the final sequences of the short, and it’s this that brings the moving elements of the short into focus (small photographic pun there!).

If there’s one thing any aspiring filmmaker can take from Photographs, it’s that animation doesn’t always have to be Pixar level quality or even realistic – the crux of a good animation is the story you have to tell, and Clocher/Manrique have got a good one. Simple, well told, Photographs is a short film that’ll stay with you long after you’ve watched it.

Audience Vote: After Ever After – Directed by Jeff Pinilla

While this film didn’t connect with me emotionally, at least compared to the other films on offer, I did appreciate the attempt to dissect a relationship breakdown. I felt After Ever After was a solid effort, even if I didn’t appreciate the story it was trying to tell. Visually, it’s quite modern, with abrupt angles, focus and color enhancement adding to the stylish, often claustrophobic nature of the imagery. I think Pinillia has tried to give the film a sense of emotional grandeur to which it’s unable to achieve, but I commend him for trying.

If I could be so bold as to mention my own personal favorites, they would have to be 2 Ambassadors and It’s Natural To Be Afraid – two exemplary examples of the short film genre. 2 Ambassadors is funny as hell (well, it struck a chord with my sense of humor) and Be Afraid is slick and stylish and so sexy-cool. It would be great if you could also check them out.

I’d like to thanks to organizers of BTEFF for asking me to participate in the judging, I had a great time watching and enjoying all the selected films, with special thanks to Antonia for her hard work behind the scenes. I do so hope to be a part of it next year!

All the films from this year’s festival are up on the main site until November 15th, so get in quick to watch some great up-and-coming talent in action! Click on the logo at the top of this post to go to the BTE Main Site!

We hope you all enjoyed last week’s Matrix-themed event, at least as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. I tell you, we’re so glad to get the Matrix reviews out of the way finally, after promising to deliver them back in 2008. Yeah, we’re a bit slow. I want to take this moment to officially thank our contributors over the last week, Dan, Al and Camielle, who assisted with some words of their own about the franchise. It was much appreciated, and I thank you all very much.

Now that the hurley burley of Neo, Trinity and Agent Smith has passed us by, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to give you a heads up on what’s happening in the coming months around the site. Since January, we’ve tried to keep the site’s main focus on film reviews and cinematic opinion, and we hope you’re enjoying our stuff. Our reader numbers are up, although we’re a little disappointed that new commenters aren’t flocking to the site (the regulars are still regular, and we thanks them for sticking around) in the numbers we’d hoped. Still, as long as the viewing numbers keep climbing, it’ll only be a matter of time.

To let you know about some of the films we’ll be reviewing over the next few months (we plan our material about 2 months in advance – this post was written back in April!), we’ve got some great stuff on the way. Tomorrow, we give you our opinion on the recent Marvel release, Thor (starring local Aussie-lad-made-good Chris Hemsworth), and in the coming weeks we check out some horror films, some dramatic films, and some action films. In June, we’re pleased to announce reviews of Mel Gibson’s Edge Of Darkness, Zac Efron’s tear-jerker Charlie St Cloud, as well as (finally) Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief and Where The Wild Things Are, among others. July’s roster is also looking good, with the Clint Eastwood companion film to Flags Of Our Fathers, Sands Of Iwo Jima, as a major highlight. In July, we have a little bit of Shrek action for you, as well as some words that George Lucas really needs to hear.

Our next major event here at fernbyfilms.com is going to be our traditional September exercise, the Worst Film Week – and boy do we have some doozies lined up for you then. We’re already scouting for more worst film posters, and we’ve got a few selections for dreadful films already lined up to review. Look for more news on that in the months to come. Also coming up this year, we’ve got something special lined up for the video-geeks amongst you: we’re currently working on some video reviews to upload. Yes, that’s right. Me, in front of a camera again, giving my verbal reviews on some of the films we see, as well as my opinion on all things cinema. It’s not entirely set in concrete yet, but we’re working on it. Look for that in Q4 as well.

As always, we welcome your comments and thoughts on all our stuff, so don’t be afraid to drop by and give us your impressions of both what we do, and what we review. Enjoy!

Rodney T – EIC, fernbyfilms.com

Morning folks.

Just wanted to touch base with all our regular readers to some of the changes around the site, as well as announce a very special event coming later in May. First, across in the sidebar is a new widget allowing you to change the language display for the site – a feature we hope will allow some of our overseas readers whose first language isn’t English to get more out of what we do here. Simply click the desired language flag, or choose from the many options in the dropdown menu, and the site will refresh with the text converted to your language of choice! It’s that easy!

Returning to the site after a prolonged absence is the wonderful Skype Device, by which you’re able to communicate with me instantly via Skype (should you have it on your computer) if I’m available. We used to have this on the site, but nobody made use of it (:() so I’ve brought it back to share with our wonderful readers as of now!! Don’t be a stranger, drop me a line or say hi!!! Check the Skype widget in the sidebar to see if I’m online, and get to messaging!!!

On another front, you may have noticed the new promotional banner for Beneath The Earth, an online short film festival (similar to Cannes or Tropfest, but online) to which yours truly has been invited to participate. I’ve been invited to be on the Grand Jury for the competition, which kicks off in April and goes through until May. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be offered this exclusive invite, and I’ll be attempting to get some of the related footage and information to you as I get it. Watch this space.

Lastly, I wanted to formally announce the upcoming May-trix Week Event, taking place (rather curiously!) in May – we’ll be reviewing each of the three Matrix films, as well as the Animatrix, and some of our friends – Dan, Al, Rory and a few others – have accepted my invitation to scribe some words about it too. May-trix Week commences in the second week of May, and will finally get the long-awaited Matrix films onto the site. I’ll even publish a couple of old promotional posters I made up to announce them from back in 2009 – that’s how long ago I thought I’d get around to it. A few weeks ago I slid a new poster up on the homepage to announce it, but that was before I actually put any thought into how I’d do it – expect to see some promotion for it around the site as well.

Welcome to 2011 everyone! It’s great to be here, and we hope you all enjoyed your holiday season as much as we did. We’re still away from the office at the moment, and the site is currently running on autopilot (in a good way, not that sinister WALL-E way!), but we thought now would be a good time to show you our new look! We promised that we’d have a little bit of a spit-and-polish around the site over the last month, and we’ve streamlined much of the content as well.

You may have noticed the shiny new logo at the top of the page, it’s a format we liked while doing the redesign we’ve decided to adopt it as our logo for the website – our original logo will still appear on all our film and video projects, but this new one is a little spiffier, a little classier, and we think just that much more easy to look at. Many of our page links have been modified accordingly, and we’ve changed the layout of our sidebar a tad, too. Don’t be frightened, this is still the same fernbyfilms.com, just a little different. Enjoy!

Oh, welcome to 2011!!!!! It’s sure to be a great year.

Rodney T – Editor, fernbyfilms.com

Well, we hope you all have a great Christmas Day, and are enjoying a little R&R in the holidays. We also hope you’ve enjoyed some of our Christmas themed reviews last week – we’ve been sitting on them since last Christmas and it’s great to finally get them out of the way.

This week, we’re on holidays, so there won’t be any new posts until New Years Day, and no new reviews until after the 3rd. We’ve got some great reviews lined up for Q1 of 2011, so make sure you check back every so often to find out what’s new around the site!

As I mentioned back in November (regular readers will know what I’m talking about), we’re currently in the process of doing some minor modifications around the site at the moment, and you might notice this occurring over the next week or so. It’s part of our effort to refocus the site to its original priority: film reviews. In our effort to try and bring in more readers, we’ve attempted to include news on upcoming films, such as The Hobbit, Superman and Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon, film trailers and other newsworthy events – a policy that we’ve felt detracts from our main goal of providing you with quality, well intentioned film reviews. So we’re ceasing that side of our site, returning to simply bringing you our thoughts on films we watch. We’re also going to undergo a little change in review policy, as well. We’re going to introduce the Mini-Review, a quick-fly guide to some of the films we watch where a full-blown review may not be warranted. Look for these to start in the months to come. They’ll contain a capsule review (as well as the technical info we already give you) of the film, with plenty of room for a more explanatory article down the track if desired.

Fernbyfilms.com currently averages about 400-500 views per day, all completely advertisement free (aside from internal promotion, of course). We intend to keep this policy of no advertising on our site, and we hope to keep the regular readers coming back to read our stuff, not just to look at the pretty pictures. For those of you who are keen on our stuff, you can now find us on Facebook, at this link here, which will update your own profile each time we post something. It’s an easy way of following us via the social network…. Go on, click “like” right now!

A few thank-you’s to get through here too, if I may. Firstly, to my wife Lisa, who has put up with regular bouts of Computer Wife Syndrome, whereby I seem to spend more time watching films and writing reviews than doing anything else. It’s great to have a wife so understanding. To Mick, my trusty admin guy, who has taught me so much this year, I thank you for the ready supply of emergency assistance for my blundering programming! I’d also like the thank the various folks who’ve contributed and supplied their feedback over the last year – in particular Dan, Al, Castor, Tieman and Rory, as well as the many single-digit commenters who’ve graced our pages – without you guys this site would be the lesser for it.

So enjoy the rest of your holidays, many thanks for reading our stuff over the last 12 months, and we’ll see you in 2011!

A little bit of housekeeping today folks, as we get set for our run through to Christmas. As regular readers will be aware, we’ve recently moved headquarters, which has been a little hectic to say the least. We’ve taken the time to stop and reflect on things about the offices, and across the site.

You’ll all be happy to know that I’ve re-registered the Fernby Films domain through until October 2012, so you can rest assured knowing we’re gonna be around for the foreseeable future – although after that comes the end of the world, according to Roland Emmerich, so stay tuned for further post-apocalypse plans in the years to come! We jest, really. Since we’re predominantly a film review site, we’re going to start scaling back the more non-review posts we present on a weekly basis – particularly the trailers and breaking news. We’ll still pay tribute to those who pass on, but our future-looking posts are going to be fewer and further between. We don’t want to become a site based on news, but continue to focus on reviews, which is where we started this whole thing.

Speaking of our reviews, you may have noticed that we post reviews bi-weekly these days, since writing and prepping each review takes a substantial amount of time. We’ve been tweaking our review structure over the last few weeks, including a modification on our “star rating” logo at the bottom of each review – we did this since noticing Dan over at Top Ten Films added a snazzy little star system to his reviews, and we thought imitation would be the best form of flattery. To complement this, we removed the rather redundant /10 rating in the summary section of our newest reviews, since we want you to read our review to get to our rating, rather than reading why we gave a film a certain rating anyway. More modifications are planned for our reviews, to streamline them going forward.

But the most important news, as far as the site is concerned, will take place in the new year. As of January 2011, we’ll be going over the site in a major revamp. You’ll notice a lot less clutter about the site as we remove a lot of pages, links and stuff currently visible that nobody reads. This will represent a major streamlining and refocusing of fernbyfilms.com towards its key target - film reviews. In the last 12 months or so, we’ve drifted into the realm of gossip and upcoming news site, which isn’t where we really wanted to be. A lot less clutter around the place, that’s our aim!

Over the course of the last two months, we’ve been breaking all kinds of viewing records, averaging around 450 views per day here at the site. While not competing with many of the bigger sites, many of whom have budgets and advertising, we’re pretty much a one-man-band here at fernbyfilms.com, so the numbers we’ve been recording since August, upwards of 400+ per day, have been astounding. To all our regular readers, I thank you for keeping fernbyfilms.com on your internet radar!

So keep an eye out for a fresh new look and feel come January.

Rodney T – Editor In Chief, fernbyfilms.com