We’ve received a few comments that have come into this site that compel me to send up a signal flair and explain what is going on here, particularly from people who would like to join as reviewers.
About 10 years ago when I, and anyone else who is currently publishing reviews here, began writing here as a lark, this place was an active community with multiple reviewers, run by a mysterious, shadowy figure who called himself The Godfather. The Godfather was a benevolent leader who ruled in a time of peace, allowing everyone to say whatever they wanted, no matter how wacky, free from the political constraints motivating the rest of mainstream film criticism (particularly my enemies at the late Roger Ebert’s namesake website). Plus, it had a super cool star system where we could rate the movies 1 – 5 in a star graphic.
In the years since, The Godfather disappeared. Nobody knows when or where he went, maybe he ascended to better things, maybe he’s dead. His existence passed into myth, handed down by one reviewer to the next. This place is now a lawless land. About a year ago the website look changed on us and removed those star ratings, which was not cool. We now dispatch reviews from the desolate ruins of a once great civilization. Why? Who knows. Movies themselves are creatively destitute. But we persist, on the slim chance that something might be good. Every once in a while, we are raided by bots and spam that the sacred firewall left by our leader holds off. I don’t know how much longer it will hold.
I say this because when The Godfather left, they took with them the keys of the kingdom. The Admin Rights. While those of us here can view new comments that come in and requests to join the site, we can only look on helplessly with no ability to add new people or interact with them. Because I would love to add more people and get more voices on here. We just can’t right now.