What a crazy ride today was.

Yes International Friends, the news of The Movie Blog demise was greatly exaggerated!

After a great chat with my new cohorts in crime we have a vision and a direction for the future of The Movie Blog and despite getting all cozy here in my new home, the first act my esteemed councillors commited themselves to was to name me Senior Editor of The Movie Blog.

For a while now, the better part of the site was already being written by me, and that will continue. In our chat tonight we addressed a number of topics and shared some ideas for the direction of the site.

I know I appeared to be dropping our luggage and running for the hills, but after a VERY interesting chat, I have been convinced to step in and run the site, to continue the spirit of The Movie Blog and to support the community and people we have grown to love there no matter how much we disagree.

I promise this will be a whole new ball game, and a whole new adventure. The Stub will run mirror to that site until all the new features are implimented, so you are free to come by here as well.

This site leans toward my personal vision for The Movie Blog, and you will see the lines blur very soon as I take over the Legacy I helped create.

Thank you all for your support by coming here, and I hope you return to The Movie Blog as we enter a new chapter.

Just like those fancy doors at the mall, when one door opens for you it might open yet another door, but behind you that first door is closing. This is how I feel about The Movie Blog closing down. Its kind of sad, but for John Campea and I it is a logical progression for each of us and this is a bittersweet step forward.

John has found a comfortable home at AMC’s Script to Screen where he is Senior Editor. Its a great news site. And while I have been with The Movie Blog even before its inception, John and I have been working more recently with the intent of me finally moving on with my own spinoff site - THIS site.

I know this has been here for a while, but this is the “soft open” as we have finally made it public that this site exists.

But I wanted to offer my own message of thanks to John for giving us The Movie Blog, and a stage upon which I was able to voice my movie opinions. This opportunity has become such a part of my daily routine that I actually miss it when I wasn’t writing. John taught me everything I know about Movie Blogging. When he started this site (with a post about Seabiscuit) the term “blogging” was still called “Web Logs”. And when John started “The Movie Blog” he (along with many others) helped create and shape the film blogging community that we have out there today.

I am privileged to have been along for that ride.

When John was busy with his own film project he asked me to step up my contributions, and eventually I became the primary writer for this site. While I was often amused and ribbed people for calling me John in the comment section, the running gag seemed to imply that John fabricated this pen name “Rodney” to continue working here under a pseudonym. But we are in fact two different people, yet each time I was “mistaken” for John, I was actually flattered that I lived up to the standard he set with this site.

Most people don’t know this, but John and I met when we were both around 21 and even lived together for a time. And while he has been a boss, a collegue, and a mentor, he will first and foremost always be my friend.

I thank John for letting me play in his sandbox. I thank the International Friends for coming to read my posts every day.

I just hope that you see the end of The Movie Blog as we do. A new Beginning.

Keep following John over at Script to Screen
I will be keeping business as usual right here.

And welcome to all the Movie Blog readers who have come to get their daily fix right here.

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I am a Stub and so are you.

For the better part of a decade, I have been doing movie reviews, news reporting and blog punditry revolving around the movie and tv news circuits. The last site I had the privilege to work for was The Movie Blog and after 6 years of writing for them, I decided to branch out on my own. In TV terms, I am the spinoff.

So when deciding on a name for my new home, I turned to John Campea, friend of over 16 years to see if he had any ideas. The only thing he had to suggest was that I not include “Movie” or “film” in my name because that is so overdone. So he set me off on a different line of thinking I would have tried for and then one night while watching TV it struck me.

I was watching Bryan Fuller’s Pushing Daisies episode titled Circus Circus, where the following scene takes place:

So inspired by this line There are two types of people in this world -
Those that take all the risk and make you feel something besides the dull thudding of your own heart,

and Those that pay to watch…. …with a ticket stub in their pocket…

So I am a Stub. I pay to watch, and like you and your friends you discuss it and share what you have paid to watch.

You are a Stub too.