Testing Scheduled Posts

What's going on everyone!? Today I am testing Blogger's scheduled posting feature. In the past, it never worked right. Every time I tried it, the post never showed up on the dashboard. But now, over a year later, I am testing it out again. So, if you would be so kind, please comment anything that lets me know this appeared on the dashboard (assuming you use it). And I apologize for the lack of posts again. Thanks to everyone for reading and for all the guest authors' articles!

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

Reader Poll: What Days of the Week are You Most Active on Blogger

Everyone, please vote on the following poll: What Days of the Week are You Most Active on Blogger. Please vote on three of the choices or for the final option, "Not active on any specific day" if you fall into that category. If you would, it would be great if you commented on the post after voting so that I know how many votes are by the usual readers. Please note that Sunday is not included among the choices since I know it is a slow day for obvious reasons.

What Day of the Week are You Most Active on Blogger

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Not active on any specific day

Poll Maker

My goal with this poll is to determine what three days of the week my main posts should be published. The schedule will not be set in stone since new movie reviews will be up as soon as possible, but for my three main posts will be posted those days in addition to Movie Music and More and other side posts. 

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

Big Changes Coming to the Blog: End of an Era

J and J Productions will be going through it's biggest change in years! If you have been following me for any length of time, you know that there is a post every single day of the week on this blog. After successfully posting everyday for two and a half years (a big thanks to the guest authors for helping), and posting nearly every day since 2012, my posting streak must come to an end. However, that is not the end of the blog; far from it. Due physical and time constraints of having posts ready every day, the quality of my work is noticeably weaker and shorter over the past few months. To fix this, I plan to now write roughly three posts a week, in addition to anything by guest authors. 

At the start of my new format, my posts might not seem that much different, but with more time, hopefully that will give me a better chance to create higher quality posts with more content and in general give me time to write what I want to write, without being interrupted by my weekly scramble to find some new movie news article. There will still be movie news, especially if it is related to something like Marvel, Star Wars, and other high profile franchises that we all love though. Hopefully, this will also give me more time to reply to comments, which I have not done much lately. Thank you, everyone, for your support over the years, and I hope you continue your support with this new schedule! Lastly, please check later next week for an important poll that will determine what days of the week that I will post.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

One Million Page Views!

One Million Page Views! Yes, that's right; J and J Productions has now reached 1,000,000 pageviews! And it is all thanks to y'all, the readers, and the various guest authors over the years! Without everyone's comments and support, I could have never achieved 1,000,000 pageviews!

Honestly, I am not entirely sure what to do to celebrate this achievement. A giveaway might be in the future if everything falls into place, but other than that, I am not sure. However, I realiz that I have not made J and J Pro as good as it can and should be. I am now back to replying to comments regularly, and I hope to continue to deliver high quality content that y'all can enjoy!

Oddly enough, I actually checked Blogger by complete happenstance and noticed that I reached the one million mark, so I took a screencap for posterity's sake. If you have any suggestions for what I should do to celebrate, let know in the comments! So, in the meantime, here are some celebratory gifs, and be sure to check back tomorrow for my special "Horror Movie Survival Guide" that will tell you everything that you need to survive against monsters of all kinds!

 A special shoutout to the guest authors throughout the years (alphabetically): Ashley Tara, Hamlette, Jamie, Jordan, JT, Maegen, Lights on Location, and Rebecca.

Party Time! 

I raise my glass to you, the reader. Thanks again! Here's to another million views!

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

I'm Back!

"I'm Back!" *Cue AC/DC's "Back in Black"* "Yes, I'm back!" Technically, I never stopped posting, and I have posted everyday for the last two weeks. However, now that I was finally able to fix my computer, I will be back with full posts, like the continuation the Top 25 Sci-Fi Movies, a review of Interstellar, and more. A review of Ant-Man is also forthcoming! Sorry everyone for the delay, but thankfully Comic-Con provided plenty of content to quickly discuss last week, and if there is anything that I missed that you want me to talk about, please let me know in the comments! Until next time, you can listen to "Back in Black," one of the most iconic rock and roll songs ever.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

Changing my Profile Name to James the Reviewer

Today I am changing my profile name slightly so that I can be up to date with Google's new account and all of its new features. To connect the blog with Google+ more easily, it is mandatory to use your Google+ profile for Blogger, and it is kind of a pain. My new name is "James the Reviewer." For all intents and purposes I will still be known as "James the Movie Reviewer" but I just go my James on the Blogosphere anyway, so it shouldn't be a big deal. The biggest problem is that when I comment on other blogs, the link in my name sends you to my Google+ profile instead of my Blogger profile so you will not see links to my blogs first, which is annoying. Well, that's just about it. Please be sure to check back tomorrow for the unveiling of my new website!

My original profile picture.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

New Signatures... Again

After the overwhelmingly positive feedback to my alternate post signature with Han Solo holding the text, I have decided to make a new (and hopefully improved) version of the signature with more defined text as well as various alternate versions with filters. What I want to know is which of the versions do you like the most? I titled each version so you can let me know which one you prefer. My current preference is a toss-up between the No FX, Grainy FX, and Dawn Light, but I want to know your opinion in the comments. Thanks to anyone that votes! Also, please check back tomorrow for a trailer review and Tuesday for my review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

No FX

Nostalgia Filter (Including Text)

Grainy FX

Black and White

Dawn Light

Aged FX

Retro

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

New Post Signature

Today I unveil my new post signatures! Yeah, I know this is not much of a post, but my old post signature is outdated with my old screen name, "James Starslayer," which is not reflexive of my current penname, "James the Movie Reviewer," or just "James the Reviewer." Also, I have two new signatures: one for my usual posts about movies and such, and another one for my anime posts, Please let me know what you think of them in the comments, and even though I am changing now, some of my upcoming posts already have the old signature, so those will still have the old on them, if I forget to change it.

As anyone can notice, this is a picture of Han Solo, my favorite character ever, from Star Wars (1977). Since my profile picture on Blogger is Han, this seems like the right one to use, and come on, Han is the best!

A lesser known character, Shiroe is the protagonist of Log Horizon. While he might not be my favorite anime character ever, Shiroe reminds me of a much smarter and cooler version of myself. Plus, he wears glasses, and he is known as "The Villain in Glasses" in the series, even though he is a good guy, so yeah, he's awesome.

This is one that I made while trying to find the right picture for the final product. Han essentially holding the text looks kind of strange, so I ditched the idea, but I wanted to post it here for fun.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

Shorter Reviews and New List System!

Lately, J and J Productions has been increasingly dull and lacking in quality content, and in the hopes of making the blog more entertaining again, I am introducing two new concepts going forward. The first is shorter reviews. While most current films and classics will continue to receive full in-depth reviews, movies, television series, and other content that either do not require as much content written about them or ones that people are not as interested in, will have shorter reviews. These reviews are still going to be plenty long enough to provide a proper review, but they will be well under the 1000 words of my typical review. To achieve this, I will cut out certain categories that are not important to the overall opinion like the "Good" and "Bad" and other parts that add unnecessary length to the review. Hopefully, this shorter format will make reviewing certain things that I would normally just skip easier, as well as making my reviews faster and more accessible to read. 

On Tuesday, I will be posting a mid-season review of The Flash to test out the concept, and with this concept, hopefully it will mean more movie and TV reviews that you want to read.

My other idea is to change how my lists are structured. Even though ranking the actual lists is one of my favorite things to do, writing why I like each one is difficult, and it takes forever. To fix this, I will write abridged reviews for each film on the list with three or four categories that are the most important to note about a particular film. Using this format will hopefully lead to a more interesting posts, and since I will either be writing mini-reviews or using edited excerpts from my reviews, it will hopefully make the process faster and higher in quality. Also, I might post the lists with fewer rankings per-list, but the posting rate should be more consistent and frequent. I do not want to unnecessarily stretch lists out, but shorter posts with higher quality content will both allow me to continue regularly and make the daily reading faster.

Below is a quick example of the concept (skip if you want to read the list next week). It is from next week's Top 10 Comedies list, and tomorrow's Top 10 Romance Movies: Part 1 will be the first list to test this method. On Friday and Saturday I will also post some lists for Valentine's Day about the Top 10 Romance movies and Top 5 Romance Anime. 

9: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is, hands down, the funniest Christmas movie ever, for at least, and my favorite in the National Lampoon's Vacation series. Also, I considered including Elf on this list, but I am not sure if it is enough of a comedy to be included.

Acting: 8.5/10- Chevy Chase as Clark W. "Sparky" Griswold, Jr., arguably his most iconic role, gives his best performance of the franchise with even a scene or two of surprisingly competent drama, but of course his comedy scenes are the highlight. Randy Quaid returns as Cousin Eddie, and if you have seen any of the Vacation films, you know that he is always the best part!

Humor: 9.4/10- Christmas Vacation is full of the jokes and humor that you come to expect from the franchise. Even though humor lies more in the cleanish lowbrow territory, which is not what I usually enjoy, it makes me laugh, and it is the type of film that is enjoyed most while other watching it with others. 

Overall: 8.1/10- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is the principle of comical Christmas disasters with plenty of humorous Holiday antics.

What do you think of my new plans? Please give me feedback in the comments and check back in the following days for my Weekend of Romance where I will be counting down the best romance stories of all-time with the three upcoming posts.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

Success! 365 Days of Posting!

After more than three years of blogging, I have finally accomplished one of my goals: Posting everyday for an entire year! In the past, I have posted than 365 posts in a year and more than 365 consecutive posts (I am probably around 500 consecutive posts), but never have I actually posted one or more posts on each day of the year, until today. Last year, I posted all but one day of the year, and the only reason that I did not succeed was because I was hospitalized for a day. Admittedly, not every post during the year has been quality content, especially on the weekends, but at least I accomplished what I set out to be with relative success. Will I post everyday next year? Maybe not; I will have to wait and see.... But for the time being, continue to expect daily updates on J and J Productions between 6:00-8:30am EST, and please check back tomorrow for updates on my upcoming end of the year posts.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

New Blog Header!

Today I unveil a new, and long overdue, header for J and J Productions 1809! Let's do a quick rundown of the various changes. 

First, instead of just replace a few posters, I decided to change things like the blog's slogan, which is now "A Blog About Movies, Anime, TV Shows and Everything Geek," and with the current direction of the blog, it seems to be a better fit. 

As for the other changes, I added the full name of J and J Productions along various new posters from a few popular television and anime, since those topics have almost become more popular than the movies. In addition to that, I replaced all of the posters, even the ones that look the same, with high resolution versions so that the header is clearer. Below the image of the new header, is the old one, so that you can see how it has changed. Hopefully, the new header better reflects the content of J and J Productions since the last update way back in the summer of 2013. Also, has anyone actually seen every film/TV show on the header? Please let me know what you think of the new header in the comments below, and check back Monday for my review of Transformers: Age of Extinction and tomorrow for my review of Akame ga Kill.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.

Blogging Tips: Part 2

Part 2 of my Blogging Tips is here with several more tips that might help you with your blog.

Plan Ahead

If you are like me, and plan to post on a set schedule, which, for me, is every day, you have to plan ahead. If you want to post something on a certain day at a certain time, or every day, you have to have posts written in advance. Whenever I have some free time and feel like writing a lot, I usually write several posts in a day. Having things written in advance provides you with the ability to post something on days when you do not have time to actually write. Often times, many of my posts may sit around as a draft for months until the time is right. For example, aside from some slight editing and this sentence, I wrote this entire post months ago. Of course, if your blog is more about your current life or you do not have a schedule, planning ahead is not necessary. 

Know Your Audience

If your goal is to appeal to your readers, then knowing your audience is crucial. Some blogs have a very specific topic like Doctor Who or Star Wars, so appealing to your readers is simple and straightforward. However, for a blog like J and J Productions, where the topic is generally everything movie and geek related, knowing when and what to post is important. Since the readers of J and J Productions range from Star Wars fans to Otaku to movie buffs, I usually try to spread out my various types of posts weekly. Of course, it does not always work, but I try my best. 

Comment, Comment, Comment, and Comment!

If you want people to read your blog, the most effective way to get people to read your blog is to comment on other blogs. Of course, you have to have something constructive to say or enjoy doing it, but if you share an interest with someone on another blog or you have something to add to the discussion, comment. For me, reading and writing comments is one of the best and most enjoyable parts of blogging. Ironically, due to my current injury of my arm, I have had to cut down on the commenting and typing in general.

Split-Up Large Posts

Having extremely long posts is often a turn off for some readers. In general, I try to keep my posts under 1500 words, although that is not always the case. If possible, splitting up larger posts that have specific stopping points, like lists, it is often a great way to both post more often and give the reader a more manageable piece of reading.

Writing Comments

In addition to commenting in general, you may need to adjust your writing style depending on the blog that you are commenting on. While this is more blogging etiquette than a tip, when I comment on a serious blog, I usually avoid emoticons, at least until I know what the author uses and prefers. Some people hate emoticons, while others use them all the time. But again, this is more etiquette than a real “tip.” Also, a general note for J and J Productions, you can comment however you want, providing there is no profanity.

Enjoy It

Last, but not least, is enjoying it. As clichéd as it might sound, enjoying what you do is the most important thing to having a successful blog. If you do not enjoy it, then why are you doing it? Blogging is my favorite hobby, and that is why I do it, among various other reasons.

That does it for my Blogging Tips. What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Do you have tips of your own? Please let me know in the comments.

If you want to contact us or have any questions please send an e-mail to johnstarslayer@gmail.com.