Blogiversary

(like anniversary, yeah? Maybe not.)

By a pure stroke of chance I realised that today marks the one-year anniversary of this blog, and while it hasn’t exactly taken off (though I haven’t given up hope), I thought I’d do an update on my life in front of, and in relation to, the screen.

The last year has seen my reviews and film features go from just here to The Oxford Student newspaper (controversial statement alert – the best student newspaper affiliated with Oxford University) where hopefully they actually get read. As part of my position as a writer for the paper’s film section (which has since been rebranded ‘Screen’ in order to encompass TV) I was lucky enough to attend a press screening of Walter Salles’ adaptation of On the Road ahead of its UK release (reviewed here).

Over the past two terms I’ve made a concerted effort to increase my output, aiming to write a review or feature for the paper every week as far as possible, and to post to this blog 3 times a month (pretty sure this is the only New Year’s resolution I’ve kept). As some of you may have seen, my posts here are sometimes marked to indicate they also appeared in The OxStu, but I also continue to write posts specifically for the blog – often those which are less formal or topical.

I’m very pleased to have recently successfully gained a position as one of the Screen editors for The OxStu, and over the Easter vacation I’m working (with my co-editor, deputy editors and other Screen writers) to ensure that the online edition of the paper doesn’t stagnate outside of term time.

Of course I’m also still co-running Mansfield Film Society, and our screenings continue to have bafflingly varied turnouts. I was surprised to find that the following for Japanese anime was so large at my small college. The magic of Studio Ghibli cannot be denied.

I’ve also begun presenting a radio show on Oxford’s Oxide radio station with some friends. We’re known as ‘Screen if you’ve heard it before’. This, as well as writing for the paper, has increased my admiration and respect for TV, as demonstrated by the TV drama reviews I’ve posted here, including my latest review of BBC TV movie The Challenger.

In other news, I finally decided it was worthwhile to subscribe to Empire rather than buying it from shops every month, and yes, I am enjoying my subscriber covers.

It’s a little cheesy, but I’d like to thank my friend James for suggesting that I start a film blog after we’d shared many interesting conversations about films. So far it’s been both enjoyable and rewarding, and can also be used as a great justification for spending hours watching TV.