New year, a few changes

Ken on Cinema enters its 5th year of existence! Let's hope 2014 can be as great of a year in cinema as 2013 was. I will still review 2013 movies in full, up until February.

I have a slightly different layout now just to keep things fresh. I hope you enjoy it. I like the somewhat classic layout, keeps things streamlined.

One main change in 2014, my reviews starting from 2014 and beyond will no longer have any ratings or grades. Every three months or so, I may give a "top 5 of the year so far" or something... just to give you an idea of where I stand on things. But, as I have realized this year especially, grades are meaningless. If I write reviews for other sites, I may have to use a grade or a rating, but on here? No more. I want to emphasize the quality of the review, not just for me but for others as well. What is a B+ or an A- when it comes to movies anyway? Or an A and an A+? It just started to baffle me when I had to come up with a grade for a movie... why am I thinking in grades and ratings? What about the movie itself? I hope this will help me watch movies without ever thinking about that kind of stuff. Keeps things pure.

When I write movie reviews from 2013, I'll use grades still just to keep the symmetry going. But all 2014 movies and beyond: no grades. It's become too trivial for me now.

I wrote 48 new movie reviews in 2013. I hope it will be more in 2014, but we'll see. I would like to update the blog more, in general, but as I continue to write for other sites (The Playlist, Whatculture), it may stay at the pace it's at now. I appreciate the free reign that I have here though and I will still be writing the majority of my reviews on here overall. We'll see where things go in the future.

Happy new year!