Filmonic will be moving to a new, faster server over the next 24 hours so there may be outages. Everything should be fine tomorrow and the news will be flowing as normal.

In the meantime check out the Filmonic gallery!

Over the past 24 hours or so the site has been having a few technical problems. I woke up to find the site had been down for around 7 hours (not good) and it has been screwing up at random intervals ever since.

I don’t know the cause of the problem yet; it’s probably some highly complex server issue that my mere movie blogging brain cannot comprehend. Or it could be the Chinese. Either way, expect turbulence and errors until the problem is resolved.

Update: It’s not the Chinese.
Update 2: Everything should be fine now!
Update 3: Filmonic will soon be moving to a new server. Expect outages in the meantime…

Update: The deadline has now past. Please do not apply unless you are some sort of movie blogging God!

Filmonic is entering it’s third year of existence, so I think it’s about time we shook things up a bit. Over the years there have been a few people writing for the site, with Dave joining last year to write reviews and the occasional news updates, however the site has mainly been updated by myself. I’ve enjoyed it. I wouldn’t have lasted all this time if I didn’t, however I think Filmonic would benefit from some new thoughts and opinions.

I’m thinking about bringing 2-3 new writers onboard who will post news, trailers and reviews. If you don’t write reviews that’s fine, neither do I. If you read movie sites and blogs on a daily basis and are interested in writing for Filmonic then read below!

• Filmonic is run on a blogging platform called Wordpress. If you’ve had experience with Wordpress in the past then that’s a plus, however if not it’s quite simple to use. I’ll gladly teach you how to use it if you need help.
• Ideally you would be able to write around 5 posts per week, however I value quality rather than quantity. I’d prefer you to write one great post a week, rather than 10 half hearted posts that could barely be considered ‘news’.
• It doesn’t matter how old you are or where you live. As long as you can write a coherent sentence and know your stuff when it comes to films then you’ll be considered.
• If you are chosen you will have a month ‘trial period’ where I will check your posts before publishing them.  After that period is over you will be able to publish news whenever you like,  and you will be paid for each post. It won’t be anything life changing, but it’ll probably pay for you to see Avatar in IMAX 3D again. Possibly even twice!

If you are still interested after reading all the above then send an email entitled ‘Write for Filmonic’ to contactfilmonic[at]gmail.com with the following:

• Your name along with a few sentences about yourself. Where you live, your movie interests etc.
• If you have past experience writing for a blog or website (include links)
• Two original writing samples between 200-500 words long. Pick news topics from the past month or so and pretend you’re are writing them for Filmonic (you’re into movies, pretending should be easy!)
• A list of 5 movie sites or blogs you read on a regular basis.

The deadline for applications will be Friday 15th January. Feel free to post any questions or comments below!

Those of you who use Internet Explorer 7 and/or Windows Vista may have had some trouble viewing the Filmonic RSS feed recently. The problem is an annoying one and it will hopefully be sorted over the next few days.

Update: Problem solved!

Over the weekend I updated the site to the latest version of Wordpress (the program Filmonic runs on) and earlier today I noticed that the there was a huge drop in RSS subscribers. After doing some digging I found that the RSS feed was actually broken and wasn’t showing up at all, which I assumed had something to do with the recent Wordpress update. After further digging and troubleshooting I found the cause of the problem and the RSS feed is now working normally. Sorry to those subscribers who had no updates over the past few days. All is now well.

If you are currently thinking ‘What in the Dark Knight is an RSS?’ then fear not, I shall explain. RSS basically lets you know when a site has been updated with a new post, so you kinda get news ‘as it happens’. You can get RSS updates in an RSS reader, such as Google Reader, or by email. I have subscribed to the RSS feeds of many news sites and blogs to I can stay up to date with the latest news to update Filmonic with.

If you want to sign up to Filmonic’s RSS then click the big orange button in the left sidebar, or just click here.

Sometime last week (I think it was the 5th) Filmonic had it’s 1st birthday…Hooray!

To ‘celebrate’ I thought I’d take look at the numbers and boost the ego a little:

Hello to the 1,225 of you reading this post from your RSS readers. (To those of you who don’t know what RSS is click the orange button in the left sidebar and all will be revealed)

Hi to the 53 people who get daily emails, I hope you have set it so that you get 1 email round-up per day, as I imagine getting around 5 emails a day would get annoying!

A shady hello to those 465 of you who typed ‘brutal rape’ into Google this month and found yourself on Filmonic. I never knew the post Watchmen Rape Scene Will Be Brutal would get so much attention from you perverts.

Hello to the 144 Twilight fans who continue to comment furiously on the Twilight Cast Pic that was posted in May. I am sure more of you will comment as the film gets even closer to it’s release.

An even bigger hello to the 1 person who visited Filmonic from Malawi in southeast Africa. Could you spread the word of Filmonic around your tribe? I would appreciate it hugely!

And finally, thank you to the 150,000 people who visited Filmonic in October. I will think of you all when I move into my 15 bedroom mansion complete with swimming pool and aeroplane runway next week.

Good evening Filmonic readers,

Those of you who visit Filmonic regularly will notice that things look a bit different than they did before. Filmonic will be 1 year old this November, and I thought I would celebrate by giving the site a resdesign. A guy called Sam has been working on the design for a while, and the theme is now live, although I will be fixing things over the next few days.

If you notice something is out of place, looks odd or have complaints or praise then post it below. I will keep this post at the top of the site for a day or two so I can get feedback and so that people know of the change (if they don’t notice it instantly).

Let me know what you think via the comment box!

Since Filmonic began back in October 2007 it has stayed on the same hosting service, however the site has now outgrown that and I have just moved the site onto a VPS (Virtual Private Server). There have been a number of occasions when the site posted news that brought in a lot of attention. Sites such as Digg, Reddit even PerezHilton.com brought in thousands of visitors, which ended up crashing the site.

Now the site is on a better server it will be generally faster, and when there is a surge in visitors it will not crash (hopefully). I have now placed social bookmark buttons at the bottom of posts to take advantage of the faster server.

In some cases with moving sites, there can be errors. So if you notice anything out of place please contact me through the contact page.