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Reviews, Opinions and Rants! Oh My! The January 'Beyond the Balcony' Round-Up


The first full month of Beyond the Balcony as a two writer site has come to an end, and a confession must be made that one writer has done far more of the heavy lifting than the other. Scott delivered an article almost every weekday, and well, I didn't.

But February is a new month and the theatres will be opening up in Ontario, so many opportunities to have some piping hot 2022 movie reviews. Plus, there are those promised The Book of Boba Fett reviews and the several year teased deep dives into MCU movies and Disney animated theatrical releases. So, I'll have a lot to write as we continue to try to make this a daily site for entertainment, insight and discussion.

But this post is about January and looking back at some of the significant things we explored on the site. Please jump into the Wayback Machines and see what January was all about.

Top Ten Most Viewed Articles of January 2022: 

1. The Breakdown of the Best of 2021: By far, the most popular post of the month, and will likely end up being one of the most viewed of 2022. If you haven't listened to our top ten favourite movies of the past year, then we'd love for you to check it out. Everyone else did.

2. Time to Admit that I May Have Been Wrong About Malignant: The Joy of Changing Opinions on Movies:  This post was actually from October, but due to a marketing campaign, was very popular in January. I still haven't revisited Malignant.

3. What Am I Doing with My Life: Introducing Christopher's Weekly Media Diary: I stopped doing this the past two weeks, but it will return this Sunday.

4. Finding the Magic in the Curse of the Child Chaos and My Charlie Brown-ish Kick-Off to 2022: True story, I was about to delete this post, because I felt that no one wanted to read about me going on about trying to find the positives in my kids going back to online learning. I was wrong, and glad Scott convinced me to post it.

5. Time to Rock Your Imagination. Ontario: The Annual Hype for the Toronto Star Short Story Contest and Some Creative Writing Advice: I looked at the start of this list and realized none of them are movie reviews. This is my big challenge of trying to balance the reviews with the other type of writing that clearly has an audience. Or as much of an audience that this humble little site can garner at this point.

6. REVIEW: Don't Look Up: One of the most popular movies of the past month happened to also have our most popular review.

7. REVIEW: Riders of Justice: Always fun when a review of a lesser known movie draws some readers. It also should be noted this movie made Scott's best of 2021 list too.

8. REVIEW: Mother/Android: I hope Scott didn't upset the Chloe Grace Moretz fans that must have tracked down this review.

9. Everett Reviews Video Games: Yooka-Laylee, Among Us and Moving Out: Oh yes, it was actually a three writer site this month.

10. The Breakdown of 'Hotel Transylvania: Transformania,' Brazen,' 'The Wasteland,' and 'Four to Dinner'

Highlights of January: They may not have been the most read pieces of January, but these are the articles that we feel are some of our best work over the past month.

Welcome to 2022! Here is How the Spicers Rocked the 2021 Christmas Season: I like to show off my awesome family.

Don't Look Up: If You Didn't Like It, You Are Part of the Problem (sarcasm): The stance in this article applies to more than Don't Look Up, as it argues that not liking a movie has nothing to do with not agreeing with the message. The two things have always been separate.

Advice's Greatest Value is What it Says About the Giver of It: I give advice about advice.

True Crime Docuseries: The Puppet Master Hunting the Ultimate Conman

Reviews of January: The reviews that haven't been mentioned yet.

REVIEW: The Lost Daughter

True Crime Docuseries Review: Catching Killers

True Crime Docuseries Review: The Time Square Killer

REVIEW: The Tender Bar

REVIEW: Under Siege: Scott proves that he can appreciate movies led by actors that he normally dislikes.

True Crime Docuseries Review: Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan

REVIEW: Cats: I have no idea why this was reviewed in 2022.

REVIEW: Spider-Man 3: Some have argued this is much better than its reputations. Scott argues otherwise.

REVIEW: Victor Frankenstein

REVIEW: Empire Records

The Book of Boba Fett: Episode 1 'Stranger in a Strange Land Review: Setting Up a New Crime Empire: Way behind on this one, and doesn't look like we will be caught up by Wednesday like I had hoped.

REVIEW: The Silence

The Movie Breakdown: The episodes that haven't been spotlighted yet

The Breakdown of 'The Tender Bar' and 'Mother/Android' and Remembering Betty White, Sidney Poitier and Peter Bogdanovich: There is a lot in January that I wanted to write that I never did, but my biggest shame is failing to write about Betty White and Sidney Poitier. I am glad they could be honoured on this episode.

The Breakdown of the Critically Panned Movie - 'National Treasure,' 'Gods of Egypt,' 'Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,' 'Constantine' and 'Empire Records'

Anything that you loved from this month that we did not spotlight?

What is some of the work that you've done in the past month that you'd like to promote?


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