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Who is Michael Young?
I’m a retired former software developer who is now trying to live the good life. I used to live up in the mountains of northern New Mexico in a small town almost at the Colorado border. Recently, to be nearer to family, we moved to the western slopes of Colorado. Regardless of where I live, one of things I’ve always liked to do is watch movies. Movies, for me, are a wonderful way to absorb stories in a two-hour package that is just the right amount of time. The challenge of a movie is to present a story in as convincing a manner as possible with enough complexity to keep my interest. That is the basic standard I use to evaluate a movie.
Why Oscar Movies?
The world produces something like 8000 movies every year and no-one can watch them all. So we all must have some kind of filtering mechanism. I’ve chosen the movies nominated for Oscars every year. There’s about forty of them, so that is a doable number at a rate of about one a week. And while there is no guarantee the Academy will nominate only the better movies of the year, most of them are pretty good. You could certainly get a worse list of movies and getting a better one is pretty hard.
So Why Write Reviews?
In addition to watching movies, I also like to write. And I found that, after our movie group (Joan, my wife and I and a few neighbors) would watch a movie we would usually have some spirited conversation about what we liked and didn’t. I decided to write up my reactions so they could be more easily shared. I started to email them to friends and, occasionally, I got some positive reaction, so I added more names. Almost by luck, our nearby town started a newspaper and the editor liked the idea of a movie column. So now I’m a regular contributor to the Questa Del Rio News. A little while later, I connected with a print and on-line paper in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and so I am also published in the Gringo Gazette. For a year, before they shut down, selected reviews were published in an online paper out of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I am currently exploring relationships with other papers, both print and online, throughout the Southwest. But I’m open to working with just about any publisher who wants a reliable and interesting movie review column.
And a Website?
Soon it became difficult to manage the distribution of the reviews. So we decided that an attractive web site might be the best way to provide broader access. The idea was hatched at the end of the 2019 movie year and I contacted Dan Kuehn (Dan Frank Digital Design) a Questa-based firm that specializes in websites and other digital products. And so, now, this website is now my primary vehicle. Reviews are available to anyone, free of charge. I currently do not accept advertising, but might if the offer is right.
I Hope You Enjoy Michaels Movie Moments
