The Moviesite Spotlight: Deer in the Xenon Arc Lights

Welcome to a new edition of the Moviesite Spotlight. For those who wonder what this is:

Every week I read a lot of great movie related blogs and I thought it was time to give the ones I visit regularly a chance to shine in the spotlight, by interviewing its writers.

This week’s interview is with Luke, writer of Deer in the Xenon Arc Lights, which is a blog I just recently discovered and stood out for me because of the way it is written.

What’s the history of your site, why did you start it?
There is no great mythology behind my movie blog, its creation is actually a kind of boring story: I wasn’t the chosen one, hand picked by fate or through feats of strength, nor did I set out on any great adventure to find it; I just had nothing better to do that day and so I clicked a few buttons and then BAM! I had a blog.

The reason why I chose that one out of all the time consuming activities available was because I had already started writing these lengthy reviews and I needed somewhere to store them, that and the fact that WordPress is free!

What makes your movie blog different from the other ones out there?
I hope this part is a little less boring, in the same way that I hope my blog is a little less boring than some of the other standard ones that you see around. I know this may sound pat but I have a problem with doing things just because I have to and this comes through in my reviews.

There are times when I will write one thousand plus words on a movie without once mentioning the cast or core concept. I’m not a professional critic and so I don’t write professional reviews; my words lack veneer and practicality, but I hope that this also serves to make them a more interesting read.

That though is not to say that I don’t take reviewing seriously, it’s only the arbitrary that I lack. If anything I am probably overly intellectual, interested more in the meaning and theory than the plot and characters.; but if that is what I’m most interested in then that is what I’ll write.

What do enjoy most about your site and what is the reason you keep doing it?
I’m such a suck up but I have to say that it is the commentators, getting feedback is always fantastic. The other upside is the way that writing them makes the time fly. It’s a four to five hour round trip for me to the nearest half-decent cinema and so I spend a lot of my time on the train writing about what I’ve just seen; which is both surprisingly entertaining and enlightening, but more on the latter later.

In which ways has your blogging changed the way you watch movies?
Good movies need I be rested just as good meat does, they need time to sit and stew in the juices of your mind after the curtains have closed and writing movie reviews is my method for this.

So often these days we are in a rush and so we walk out of a movie right back into real-life, instantly forgetting what we’ve just seen, but I choose to forgo the Bends by decompressing through my pens and have found that many movies become all the more potent for it.

What’s your favorite article you have written?

My favourite post, for all the wrong reasons, is this one: Deerinthexenonarclights.com/day-two . It was very early on in my blogging career – hah! – and to get myself motivated and writing, as I tend to fizzle out quite quickly when it comes to putting plans into practice, I decided to follow one of those “Thirty Days of Film!” memes. For a few days it went well, but eventually that floundered too. This is one of those very posts, the second to be specific, was “The worst film that you’ve ever seen” and I chose Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. The review isn’t great, in fact it’s far from good, and yet for some reason it is my most popular post by far, having been read the better part of three thousand times by random passersby. The reason why it’s so popular? I ironically tagged it with the term boobs and this, combined with the picture of Megan Fox pasted within has lead to the constant deluge of clicks.

Since then I have written better posts, more meaningful posts and more enjoyable posts but I chose this one over them not just because it is the most popular but also because of the lesson I have learnt from it. Those other posts I spoke of took a lot more time and effort to put together (although admittedly not as much time and effort as they should have) and yet it is the lowest common denominator posting that gets the public attention; so when I write something realy obtuse that only seven people view I know that this isn’t a scratch on its quality because correlation does not equal causation. It’s easy to get caught up in the quantitative view of stats, that having more is better, but I would take those seven interested readers over three thousand testosterone addled browsers anyday and it is them that I write for.

Could you name five of your all time favorite movies?

Punch-Drunk Love

The Outlaw Josey Wales

The Apartment

The Man Who Wasn’t There

Dr.Strangelove

How many movies do you watch on average each week?
On average I would say seven, but at the moment I am going through a TV and comics phase so perhaps only four?

Do you own any movie related items that you are very proud of?
I have a number of framed film posters around my room, all black and white with touches of red. That and a few bookcases full of DVD’s is all really.

Anything else you want to tell us about yourself?
Well I’m a wannabe screenwriter, so I have something of a larger stake in my reviews; because when I’m looking at what works and what doesn’t In a films script I’m looking so that I know what to do and not to do when I attempt to write one myself. I look forward to one day having all the other featured blogs reviewing one of my films, whether they liked it or not, because at least they would have given it the time and thought that it will hopefully have deserved. A man can dream…