REVIEW REQUEST:Movieguru.9f.com/

Welcome to TWF, we do ask you preview at least 3 other sites before asking for one. This helps everyone get a wider range of opinions and views.

Since I'm here,
your site has a scroll bar at 800x600
your images are very jagged, use antialias when making your graphics.
some of your content is left aligned (default) while the rest is centered, leave it all left, centered looks chessy.
It could possibly look pretty good on a large screen but at 800x600 looks to bunched up, I think the side section not being apart of the main section could like quite good.
all your pop ups arent working, they all show error 404 at bizhosting

just needs a little tweaking, maybe things like use a verdana font, a few dividers etc

As busy said, the graphics being so jagged really break the mood of the site. I would suggest a rethink of the layout itself. The blue is an ok color but there is simply too much of it for my liking.

You definitely need a logo for this site as well.

Sorry if this seems scathing but there are a lot of movie review sites out there, so you are in a very well populated area of the 'net. Have a look at some of those sites and you will get some inspiration.

For a newbie site designer you have done well. If I would have posted my first site I am sure I would never have kept designing and building sites..... It was horrible!

A little bit of advice would be that you will in time have a fairly content heavy site, and those sites IMO are always better with a simple layout which does not take away from the content but helps direct the eyes to the content.....

now, you are really going to hate me for saying this, but I am a short film maker and scriptwriter as well so I know a little about this subject.

The thing about these sites is that you have to be accurate with your information.
I looked into your review of Aliens.

Quote:
He has seemed to love making movies then and did it for the love and not for the money. All his movies at present time our just one thing special effects special effects and more special effects.

Titanic was very big on special effects but you have to take in to account the times both films were made in. Today films are hugely expensive, even relative to the mid to late eighties. Secondly Aliens was made for 16 million or so, so he did not have the money to spend on effects which he wanted to......

Quote:
The role of Ripley, at least in this film, is a once in a lifetime part and she gave it everything she had..... Cameron seems to really understand how to create well-rounded, strong female characters.

James Cameron whilst a talented and visionary director did not create Ripley or the strength of her role in Aliens. That was people like Dan o'bannon and ronald schusset, who originally created her for the story of the 1979 release of alien, directed by ridley scott. Cameron merely extended the original role and placed her in an even more 'dramatically' intense position.

Sorry about the length of this post, I did not want to scare you off! Hang in there, and look for some inspiration in other sites like yours. I also apologise for the review or your review, I just thought you should be a bit more accurate with your content.....

I agree with what's already been said but I will add that the banner at the top overpowers the site and why so much space in between? Can you not have the banner at the bottom, or if not incorporate it within the design somehow.

I am feeling like there's something wrong with the way my browser is displaying this.... will have to fire up IE... it looks the same though. The first problem is the arrangement of your white space (and in this case I mean the part that is what, note blue as oppsed to the other meaning of "white space"). It's just a really weird shape with the curved area and the round cornered rectangles hanging off of it.

Overall the layout needs a lot of little changes. Switch to a sans-serif font, avoid centering paragraphs of text as you have on the aforementioned left side rectangles. You need something that looks like a logo - that collage of movie clips is okay, but it does little to identify your site. The logo should also appear closer to the top of the screen - there's too much empty space under that banner ad there. Do something with the movie sidebar you have on the reviews page - it looks too different from the rest of the layout and complicates that part of the design a little too much. I would move it to the right side of the screen and simplify the colouring a little bit. Also make sure that your headers are sized consistently.

You need to do a lot of work on your spelling and grammar. Take the explanation of your rating systems - all done in title case. These are not titles, they are sentences and should be written in sentence case.

This is Title Case
This is sentence case.

All of your writing seems very stilted and awkward. You don't have to try to use a formal writing style on the web. In fact, it's probably better to use a bit more of a casual style without getting too informal.

Quote: Before your head to the movies or go and rent and movie this weekend,be sure to consult The Movie Guru for the lowdown on what is playing. whether it's a comedy,drama, horror or action-adventure film the movie guru can provide detail reviews as to why the movie kicked *** (Patron My French) or whether you will waste $8.50 on the movie.

Should be more like:

"Before you head to the theatre this weekend, check out the Movie Guru for all the latest reviews. Whether it's a comedy, drama, horror or action-adventure film, The Movie Guru can provied a detailed guide to the new, and not-so-new movies available both in theatres and at your local video store."

Refrain from using slang ("kicked ***") and specific prices (Movie prices are up over $10 here depending on where you go. And what if someone from, say, the UK was reading this?)

Overall your writing sounds very unprofessional and I would not have any respect for your opinions given the fact that you write like a 12 year old. Now, what you could do is kind of polish up the writing a bit and target your site towards a younger audience. I think that there can be a lot of differences in opinion depending on demographics.

Yes, I agree with what has already been said except I like blue. Here is a list of what most every website should have:

• Logo - very important to have a nice logo to 'brand' your site.
• Navbar - some way for people to navigate your site, usually at the top or on the side.
• Consistent use of fonts throughout your site.
• Nice anti-aliased graphics.
• Consistent look among all the pages.

Some you did. Some you didn't. Some like your logo are a bit obscured. The first thing that you notice when you go to your site is the top ad banner. It looks like that is what your site is about. You have to drop down a bit a see that you are about movie review. So you need to do some rearrainging. I would also lose the drop-shadowed section titles like . Replace it with something that looks a little better. I would also add some cellpadding to your tables to keep it from 'hugging the rail'. I would also stongly advise against using Iframes as they are not too good cross-browser. The code is also quite dated with font tags, centers, etc. Also there are some common coding errors like:
. With TD, it should be align=center. With valign, it should be valign=middle. There are also several instances of tags like being left open. Consider using stylesheets (CSS) to kill all the font tags and give a better look to your site.

Overall it is not too bad for a newbie to web design. Just needs some reworking.

just an added note on spelling and grammer, I think i'd have to be the worst speller and grammer writer in the world, read some of my previous posts lol, some people like Megan and MMI are talented or comes natural to them but people like me use things like word, good ole microsoft word as my proof reader, if its just spelling then there is always email (outlook express), these are 100% as words like there, their, where, wear etc that the pc isnt intelligent enough to work out which to use, my added disadvantage is my version of word is the American version so afterwards I have to go and correct all the US version words that we dont use, like color - colour, tire - tyre

you know what i think i will take your advice and make a much more easier kind of layout becouse of the fact of how many problems there are with this one also:

detox about when i said "The role of Ripley, at least in this film, is a once in a lifetime part and she gave it everything she had..... Cameron seems to really understand how to create well-rounded, strong female characters. " i ment that she knows how to act in that way not that she wrote that

Megan point taken i should make it sound alot better and more grown up

Busy my spelling is the worst out of my family i would be surprised if i could even go a pargraph without miss spelling the words and that whole said part of it is that i spell checked all of my work so..............not much eles i can do.
but thanks everyone for helping me out and if anyone has any good designing ideas post it becouse i think i am out lol....

o i forgot to add let that banner on top is made by the hosting company so not much i can do and speaking of hosting company does anyone got any good free ones?

Well, I see by your profile that you aren't much older than 12 (but then, I guess when you're that age 3 years makes a big difference ... ) Really, what you should do is target your site to teens. You can provide opinions that are applicable to them - maybe not to adults but certainly for teens. Try to go for a more colourful or edgy sort of design.

I do think that the importance of good copy tends to be underestimated on the web. "Content is King" after all, and if your content is text then it is important to provide the right tone and attitude in your writing, not to mention spelling and gramamar.

Quote: Originally posted by Megan
... not to mention spelling and gramamar.

Thats one I'm going to have to put in my big book of words I cant spell

ok here look at this and tell me which one is better
http://movieguru.9f.com/test.html
thanks
also if anyone wants I would appreciate an editor for my reviews since we all know I spell like crap.

Better but your rounded corners are still very jaggedy and are making it look ameteurish. The lolo part I think needs to be rethought. The actual part that says Movie Guru needs to be bigger and in a unique font. I;d start by getting a nice font for that then the tag line and then make it & the photos fill a narrower but longer section there. Also change the main font for the text to veranda as it's easier to read on screen.
Keep going

Good site, interesting content. I have to admit though, the banner is annoying. There are other places which don't place banners over your site, take a look. Also, try and spell check the site a bit.