Welcome to another edition of Follow Friday where each week I feature and interview a fellow blogger and follow their suggestion to another blog to feature next time. I prefer this over a blogroll because it gives each blog their own time to shine, plus I personally rarely click on blogrolls so why would I expect you to? Not only that, but I get the chance to check out some great blogs I might not have found otherwise found, talk to some great people, and share the conversation with you. Of course, if you would rather see something like a blogroll, I have collected all of my previous Follow Friday sites in list form which you can find right at the top of the page. Last time Le0pard13 of It Rains… You Get Wet led me back to Radiator Heaven so it allowed me to have my own choice, and I picked Morgan on Media.

I’m not entirely sure how I first came across Morgan’s site. I imagine it was likely either because he left a comment on one of my posts, or I saw one of his comments on one of Fogs’ posts. Either way, I’ve been a regular visitor to his site ever since. He has a very similar taste in movies as I do, so if there’s a movie that he likes and I’ve never seen before, it makes me much more inclined to want to see it. I also enjoy his discussion posts on Hollywood pitfalls as well as tips on how to theoretically avoid them. And I recently found out that he’s also a former City of Heroes player. There’s a lot of great stuff to find over at his site, usually reviews of movies from a few years to many years back, as well as some bad ones that just have to be watched out of morbid curiosity (and aptly titled “Morbid Curiosity Files”). So let’s hear from the man himself.

Bubbawheat: I know one of my favorite things to read on your site are what are essentially advice columns to Hollywood. Such as your thoughts on how to do a remake, or an adaptation, or in a roundabout way your top 10 signs of a bad comedy film. What are some other topics you hope to cover sometime soon?

Morgan Lewis: I’ve got at least a little more unsolicited advice to give to Hollywood. I plan to write articles on rebooting an entire franchise and canceling a television show eventually. And the 10 bad comedy warning signs will have some companion lists for other genres eventually as well. I’m still hashing them out, but you should expect to see the horror warning signs during the month of October.

BW: I think one of the first things that attracted me to your site was a similar taste in movies, this may be a cliched question to ask, but what are your favorite five films of all time?

ML: Cliched, but tough. But at least you didn’t ask me to pick just one. Off the top of my head, I’m going to have to say Ghostbusters, The Blues Brothers, The Empire Strikes Back, Groundhog Day, and The Muppet Movie.

BW: Those are some great choices, and as I suspected, many of them are also my favorites. You also share a somewhat morbid curiosity towards bad films, what’s the worst “bad” film you’ve seen, and what’s the best?

ML: The worst film I’ve ever seen — and I maintain the worst film anybody has ever seen, even people who haven’t seen it — is Manos: The Hands of Fate. I watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 take on it, and even that was unbearable. It was before I started blogging, though; I’ll have to do an in-depth review of it someday, though I honestly dread the prospect of watching it again. I’ve also seen (and reviewed) Plan 9 From Outer Space, and while it’s not as bad, it’s still pretty terrible. The “best bad movie” I’ve seen is probably The Toxic Avenger, at least in terms of being a genuinely enjoyable movie. As far as making fun of it goes, that’s Cool As Ice.

BW: What was it that made you decide to start a movie blog in the first place?

ML: Writing reviews helps me to formulate exactly why I like or dislike a particular film, which can help me to pick out different movies to watch. Plus, I had been participating in the comments sections of other blogs for a short while, and I felt it would be fun to share my thoughts with other people. Not to mention I sometimes wound up writing an article-length comment in response to something, and felt like I had to trim it down to something reasonable, and I hated losing the writing so completely. (My writing may have various virtues, but brevity is not numbered among them.) And, of course, having the blog gives me an added incentive to keep up on my movie watching.

BW: While your site isn’t totally a movie blog, you also cover the occasional book, album, or TV show. About how often do you get to cover something besides movies? Do you think it should be more, or is it about right?

ML: The overall balance is probably about right, since most of my readers are mostly interested in the movie reviews. But I do like covering the other stuff. I don’t get to cover them quite as often anyway, though. TV shows I generally only like to cover on a season-by-season basis, so that keeps them fairly spaced out. Books can take a while to read, at least when I’m splitting my free time, and for the most part they aren’t as freely available as movies; there’s no Hulu for recent novels, and I can’t simply channel surf for them. The price can actually add up quicker than movies because there isn’t much of a “free” option there for me (I live out of town, so I have to pay a fee if I want to use the library). The album reviews are the smallest section, though, and that’s partly for the same reasons as with the books, and also because I generally prefer to keep those to strictly-new albums and most of my
album purchases aren’t new.

BW: What’s your favorite superhero movie?

ML: Tough one. As you’re aware, it’s a genre I’m fond of, so there are some hard choices near the top. The one I watch the most is 1966’s Batman, though.

BW: And finally, what blog do you suggest I follow for my next Follow Friday?

ML: I’d recommend checking out Mark Walker at Marked Movies. Mark reviews a lot of interesting films, both new and old, and he has a few recurring features that are a lot of fun to read.

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Good choice, I’ve read a couple of his “Let’s have a sit down” features and they are fantastic, looking forward to reading more over the next couple weeks. Thanks again for answering my questions, and coming up over the next week or so will be my reviews for Tim Burton’s Batman, Batman Returns, and the new DVD release of The Dark Knight Returns: Part 1. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.