Today, Antagony & Ecstasy is eight years old, and that's an awfully long time to be rocking the same old Blogger template and Blogspot address. All this time, and I still feel like I'm kind of winging it; like if I was serious about this whole deal, I should be more of a grown-up about it.
Which is why I am extraordinary proud to announce the development of Antagony & Ecstasy mk. 2, a brand new website with all the same features you've come to love on the blog, only more polished and handsome. Its home is antagonyecstasy.com, and at some point, I'm going to invite all of you to change your links and bookmarks and everything to point there. But not quite yet.
Migrating all the content of the old Antagony over to the new site is going to take ages - literally months, if I keep going at the rate I have been. But I wanted to show off the new digs, get everybody's feedback, and all, so for the month of August, I'm going to make it available to anyone who wants to take a look - or even start using it instead of the blog, to get a sense of how it's going to feel once it's up and running.
And please, I want feedback: everything from the most minor "I think the font size you're using is a point too small" all the way up to "this entire idea is misbegotten and I hate you now." I do this for you, my readers, as much as I do it for me, and I want to make sure that by the time that the new site goes live and replaces this place, it's exactly the way that makes the most people as happy as possible. So use this post as the repository for any and all comments, and by the end of the month, hopeully I'll have a good idea of where to take it.
Of course, the site is a work in progress; there are a lot of dead links and half-finished indices and all. But hopefully there's enough there that you can get a sense of how it will flow, and what the thing will look like when it's all done.
I eagerly await everybody's thoughts!
01 August 2013
36 comments:
Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.
Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.
This entire idea is misbegotten and I hate you now.
ReplyDeleteNo, but seriously. I come here for the excellent, witty reviews; as such the change in format is a very secondary concern. I'm liking the sidebar of current Box Office releases that links to your reviews of them, though, that's pretty neat.
Oh, I'll miss the quirk of the left- and right-aligned posters for current movie reviews. Of course the red/green rating system conveys the same information, but it is going to retroactively make the Cars 2 review start off on a faintly nonsensical note. NOT THAT... ANYONE WOULD... CARE ABOUT SOMETHING SO TRIVIAL, OBVIOUSLY, HA HA.
ReplyDeleteOh, now, you surely don't think I'm not so anal-retentive that I wouldn't quietly re-write pieces of reviews to make sure they fit the new format! ;)
ReplyDeleteI came here just to make the same joke Will already did. Sonofoa...
ReplyDeleteNot quite about the font, but I'm sure I'll get used to it
ReplyDeleteWe fear change.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, consgrats on the new digs. My first impression: I like it much better when the body of the post is on the front page, as opposed to it just being a collection of links. I've seen a couple blogs switch to that format before, and it's really annoying. It's much easier on the reader to be able to scroll through posts on one page rather than have to click and go to a new page for every single item.
Yeah, I like having the first article at least show up in full on the front page. Also comments migration would be nice. Also also, while you're changing the format, I'd prefer if inline links to movies linked to your previous reviews, and then in the review itself you linked, say in the first use of the title, you linked to the IMDB page.
ReplyDeleteEr, that sounded really picky. YAY REQUEST FOR COMMENT!
Coming to also say I think having the posts are on the front page, rather than behind links, is a good idea. I mainly get here through an RSS reader, so it's not a huge issue for me personally. But generally, you want the reason your reader came (presumably the most recent review) to be available on the front page, without having to click anything to get to it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting format for the reviews - I'm happy that the "good bad" movies land in the green while the "numerically" superior but disappointing movies like This is the End or Man of Steel fall in the yellow.
ReplyDeleteThe Friday the 13th review is still as harsh and scathing as it always was, but the rating has gone up a little bit - I know that getting tied up in the ratings isn't something to be greatly concerned with, but it might be a good idea to add an addendum to reviews when your opinion of the movie has changed.
I would like for there to be a predictive 'search' box function on the main page which I can use to quickly access a review that I need. I think the new site will make this easier than the current system where we have to go via movieglut.blogspot.com but such a functionality would be an even greater improvement.
ReplyDeleteOn a more urgent note, you should address the recently-identified limitation in your appeal by including a gallery of 'One Direction' photos.
Hooray for proper URL!
ReplyDeleteOn to comments:
Article font is not nice – too narrow, makes it a bit harder to read that something a bit more comfortably-spaced like Source Sans Pro (my personal favourite – I use it on my site – and available on Google Web Fonts, as are many other nice fonts like Lora (if you want a serif)). I like that it's a sensible size, though!
Also line spacing is kinda tight, and the lines themselves could do with being a tad shorter. Some fiddling leads me to suggest a max-width of 35em for the article container, and a line-height of 1.5.
The header has too many fonts, imo. The text on the right side would probably look better it used the same font as the text on the right, perhaps reversed (i.e. the "This ain't no blog..." in the "antagony" font, and the "a film site by..." bit in the "ECSTASY" font).
Popup menus could do with a border or drop-shadow to separate them from the main page background.
Page footer looks a bit odd not being centred.
And finally, I guess it might be nice if the favicon used the same font(s) as the logo image, but really that's just the tiniest of nits to pick.
Hmmmmmmmmm. Well, I can totally see the need and desire for this, but it's going to take some getting used to.
ReplyDeleteOK, here's my nitpicky suggestions: (1) Yes, definitely try having at least one full review on the front page. The fact that I can just scroll down on your blog and find like a dozen reviews right there has always been a plus for me, particularly because it puts your writing front and center and draws me in with the jokes. Many's (MANY'S) the time I've glanced at a review for some movie I've never seen or perhaps even heard of and then ended up reading the whole thing because it was just too entertaining and interesting not to. (2) I'll be the one to say it: Not a big fan of the font you're using in the reviews. I'm no font expert or anything and I know how tough it can be to get it just right, but looking at the review of Turbo, the paragraphs just seemed really wide and bulky and somehow intimidating to me. The font and set-up didn't draw my eye naturally down the page like the current site does; not sure how to fix that but there you go. Actually, it might have something to do with the coloring-maybe the letters should be darker to distinguish them from the background?
On the other hand, I really like having all those navigation buttons right there at the top, and the box office links and all that along the side is a great idea. Keep it up!
Ah, I see while I was writing my last post @Andy commented. I agree with most of what he said, including about the header.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like what @Not Fenimore said about links within reviews. I always thought it was weird that even when you mentioned in your review a movie you had just recently reviewed, the name linked to IMDb. It's easy for us to look up IMDb--it would be nicer to link to your own review.
The line spacing on the main reviews is just too tight. It needs to be aired out a bit more. Other than that, I like the new site.
ReplyDeleteClearly, the front page review is something everybody wants, so it will happen, though it's not going to be the quickest change in the world. I'll need to do some considerable re-design of the front page.
ReplyDeleteEverything else will be a bit easier: jiggering with the fonts especially. I am particularly indebted to Andy for pointing out the header situation; I've been unhappy with it since the moment I designed it, and I haven't been able to figure out why. I'm still not THRILLED with it, but it's closer.
And sure enough, I forgot that I changed the "official" F13 rating (the one on Rotten Tomatoes) to 5 from, I think, 3. My ancient Summer of Blood notes clearly indicate otherwise, and I've changed it back in both places.
P.S. If anybody has a tablet or phone, could you tell me what it looks like on those? I suspect that it looks pretty bad, but I want to know exactly how bad.
I don't have a problem with the font or line spacing. I found it very readable.
ReplyDeleteBy header I understand that you are referring to the red and gray title box at the top of the page. I think it looks very 'old-fashioned' and could do with having a more modern feel. I dislike the gray colour that is used and I dislike the 'trendy' use of lower-case/upper-case juxtaposition. The overall effect of it seems pretentious to me.
Well, I like it. (shrugs)
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the quick-links at the top. I think the review format is very nice and clean, and
the mobile version (I am using Safari on an iPhone) looks decent as well.
I agree that a search feature would be useful. I'd also appreciate an RSS feed or something for the reviews, since the existing feed seems to apply only to comments? (I would also be remiss if I didn't thank you for adding me to the blogroll! :)
I like it! I especially appreciate that now we'll be getting the ratings out of ten for all films, not just the new releases, without having to look up RT. Never quite understood the rationale behind that system.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I will say is that the indentation seems kind of extreme - a lot of blank space around the borders. And I'll add my voice to the choir for a front page review.
Congrats on the blogiversary. I really dig the new site (quick question: If I want to leave comments, can I do this now on the new site? Or should I just continue commenting here?), especially the look of each review with the poster, score, and production info on the right. Really sharp and professional looking.
ReplyDeleteI will say that the home page looks better on my phone than on my laptop. And I agree with Thrash, to me, it just seems like (even though there is a lot of content) there's a lot of empty space on the front page. But that just may be my personal preference towards things being more flush with their borders.
As far as everything else: I really dig the banner for the Summer of Blood. And, again, I like all of the pages you've set up for all of your different features. Once I'm in those pages or reviews, it looks really nice.
And your review of Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare looks really good on my phone (Galaxy Note running Google Chrome). I don't know a lot about fonts or anything like that, but it isn't harsh on my eyes or anything like that. So I say keep what you have.
I've never been one to read your reviews by just clicking on your blog and scrolling down. I almost click on the specific link to the review that you post, so I guess you can count me as one of the few that doesn't have an opinion one way or the other about having full reviews on the front page.
Congrats again on the blogiversary and the new home!
Thanks for the input, everybody! Right now, a decent way to replicate the RSS feed and figuring out if I can possibly import comments from here to there are my biggest priorities (if it hadn't been the anniversary today, there's no chance I'd have shown such a technologically crippled sight to all of you), and the design stuff will mostly wait until that's handled, but I think I'm getting a handle on what everybody's looking for.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I hope that more people chime in. There are some regulars I was hoping to hear from, and the more input the better!
Also, at this moment, The Bling Ring and the Tony Scott films have the "current" layout for review pages, so I'd appreciate anybody with a couple of spare moments taking a glance at those. It is, if anything, even more white space than before, so maybe it won't go over too well...
Looked at The Bling Ring review on my laptop and Enemy of the State on my phone. Lots of white space, yes, but it has a nice, clean look to it.
ReplyDeleteOn the phone (Enemy of the State), it looks just a tad funky with the poster and score and production credits at the bottom of the post--but only because they are a bit larger than the rest of the post. The gray box that all of that stuff sits in is flush with the edges of my screen while the rest of the post isn't. Again, not a huge thing. Looks quite nice on the phone, though, and I like that you have a link to all of the other Tony Scott films (I like the header, too) at bottom of the post.
Again, I'm not an expert in web design or anything, but there ya go.
The concentration of the Current Review and Latest News towards the center of the main page (especially coupled with the lack of any borders around the various groups of links) makes the front page look unreasonably messy, almost like the page loaded wrong and shoved some things to the side.
ReplyDeleteYour review titles look damn peculiar now. Especially on the front page, where they now occupy a space and font (appearing under the film title, and more subdued in appearance) where you'd expect a brief summary or something with at least some punctuation. I'm also not the least bit crazy about the great big "a review of..." text on the review pages proper. You tend to label anything that's not really a review as such anyway, so it doesn't seem necessary.
I do love how much easier it will be to navigate all the movieglut.blogspot business, and your Currently In Release list. Glad to see the addition of a box office top ten, since god knows it would be just fucking shameful if you ever tried to wriggle out of seeing some successful live-action-people-and-CG-animals family comedy.
Okay, clearing one thing out of the way first that is of concern to probably no-one else but me: having had my internet throttled for exceeding the data allowance (a common thing in Australia, I don't know about the rest of the world, the new site is far less friendly on slower connections than the current one. That's probably not something that you can do a lot about and I doubt it's of much concern to 99% of your audience.
ReplyDeleteOther things:
- I think the header is far too large. On a 1920x1080 screen I'm finding it takes up almost the top third. I'm also not sure about having all of the links along the top of reviews rather than down the side; I don't feel like it's something I'm going to want access to frequently enough to have it push the actual review down like that.
- As most everyone else has said, the front page would look much nicer with the most recent article displayed.
- Much as I liked the left/right poster alignment system I think that the new system is a very good idea and allows for a much clearer distinction between how much you like a film vs. how good you feel it is as a work of cinema.
- Very much a fan of having the film details down the side with the poster as well.
- I feel like the font is too large, in general. I found the site much more pleasant to read with my browser zoomed out by 10%.
- I'm not a fan of the big graphic for the Tony Scott retrospective at the foot of the Enemy of the State Review. It sticks out like a bit of a sore thumb to me, and the list of films in the series puts too much space between the review and the comments, IMO. I think I'd prefer it if the titles were much smaller, or listed horizontally.
- The box office and list of currently screening films are both good additions. The front-page differentiation between news, reviews and essays is a welcome addition as well.
- I'm not sure what the final shape of the "reviews by title" page will be, but I do feel the lack of having the complete A-Z on one page, for easy ctrl-F access to a specific film titles without having to click on a letter first.
- I'm not crazy about the favicon at this point. It looks a little "placeholdery", and it's very plain.
One last thought: Have you considered including the IMDB link to the film being reviewed in the review header? Sometimes the link can get buried in the opening paragraph somewhere and it can take a little bit of searching to find the first mention of the film's name (I had this exact problem yesterday, reading your V/H/S review).
Gah, I feel like I sound a lot more negative than is the case. I do very much like the new layout on the whole, and I'm excited to see how it develops.
Chris- Okay, that's actually a serious concern. I don't know what would be making it slow, but I can look into it. I've got a shit-ton of CSS code around the edges, I don't know if that might be part of it.
ReplyDeleteI've only commented, I think, once before, but I'll throw my two cents in anyway.
ReplyDeleteI feel like most everyone has covered the basics, but I'd like to add one thing. I liked that you could click on posters and screen caps, and they'd enlarge. It would be nice to have that back, as it doesn't seem to be available right now.
By the way, I was reading reviews for Mary Poppins on RT, and yours was by far the most interesting and in-depth I had read and I've been checking daily for new reviews ever since (and reading A LOT of the backlog as well).
I'm glad to have been here just long enough that I almost feel like an old timer trying to adjust to the change. Congrats on the milestone! Looking forward to the new site's completion.
It's still not too bad, as things go. The page took a long time to load at first, but after waiting it out it was easy enough to load up actual reviews, though the poster and score often didn't load along with them. So whatever's causing the initial holdup is a one-time sort of thing, at least until the cache is cleared. I'm not particularly literate on such things, but I can tell you that the page did load all at once when it finally came through, rather than coming through in bits and pieces as a lot of sites do.
ReplyDeleteBarely poked around so far, but I want to make an only slightly (okay, maybe not even slightly) related suggestion:
ReplyDeleteCan we get Summer of Blood next year to focus on the current modern wave of slasher films? The Hatchet series, Behind The Mask, etc?
Because I really think you'd love Behind The Mask.
Also, I really like the front page being links, and not having to scroll through 12 full reviews to find that thing you wrote two weeks ago that I'm too lazy to go to the index for.
ReplyDeleteHey, Tim! Congrats on the move -- it looks great!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you've got awesome advice already from folks far more knowledgeable than I. But oh well. Here, a small laundry list of things from someone who doesn't know jack shit about programming or design or whatever:
1) It bothers me that the "Your" in the header is capitalized, seeing as the A FILM SITE BY... font is all capitalized. Feels like it should be all decapitalized, to match the "antagony."
2) On the front page, I don't think you need to have the dates and titles of your Most Recent Reviews in bold font, honestly. It makes that section look a little mixed, and kind of diminishes the nice organized look the classy section headers give the page. I feel like italics are enough.
3) On review pages, at the top, I think it might be nice to have a few more pixels' space between the bolded Review Title Line and the "a review of (film)" line. Like, the web page equivalent of 1.5 spacing, though I've no idea what that would be. Also, re: capitalization, I feel like the "a review of (film)" line should be all decapitalized, while the Review Title Line should be Properly Capitalized as a Book Would Be Capitalized.
4) I'd reiterate the above sentiment that font size (of the reviews, at least) could definitely be a bit smaller. Something about it feels kind of sample-font-lorem-ipsum-y right now -- and a bigger font also looks real intimidating real fast when a site has paragraphs of such Impressive Length as yours does. :D
5) On the front page, I was thinking it might look a little cleaner organization-wise if there were a thin gray dividing line of some sort between the Current Review and Latest News at the top and the rest of the stuff below. As it is, the fact that they're centered differently doesn't quite look clean.
6) ahaha truly getting into the banal here but you're missing a period on the last sentence on your "how to use a&e" page
7) how dare you get twitter
8) okay i'm done
You're the tops. I'm so happy your reviews have a new fancy-looking home to properly showcase their excellence. Thanks for 8 straight years of being awesome.
Re: the whitespace issue. Whitespace is good, please don't get rid of it! In certain circumstances it makes lines too short – in Safari on an iPad, for example – so ought to be reduced in those specific circumstances, but otherwise it's fine.
ReplyDeleteAs for loading speed, I poked around a bit and ran PageSpeed on the site, and the only major things I suspect you can do anything about are compress the header image a bit better, and maybe reduce the number of TypeKit JavaScript tags (or stick to either Google Web Fonts or TypeKit, but don't use both). Other than that there doesn't seem to be much left to do.
The mobile version looks good, if a little plain, but scrolls easily and links don't mess up, which is more than I can say for some mobile sites. The only thing you want with a mobile version is clear, large fonts and an easy interface, and you've got it. Gonna have to change my bookmarks now. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteDon't change bookmarks yet! This is the "let me show you what I'm working on" phase, not the "time to nuke the blog, 'cause we've got a new hang-out joint" phase.
ReplyDeleteNo one else has said it, so maybe it's just me, but I think one of the problems with the header may be that it essentially has two slogans: the winking, charmingly self-deprecating "Your home for overly-detailed movie reviews since 2005" and the simple, serious "A film site by Timothy Brayton". The tones are too jarringly contradictory, and it kind of seems like you just couldn't make up your mind. If you really feel you "should be more of a grown-up about it", then I say go with the second one.
ReplyDeleteThat said, congrats on finally having your very own URL. I've always felt such witty, thoughtful, and erudite reviews deserved more than a blogspot. It will be an honor to be able to say "I was there when..."
Bawwww. The new site looks cool but maaan, I love Antagony & Ecstasy's being here. I've been reading since the midway point four years ago, and I have such positive associations with this place: the simple layout, the colors, the left/right poster orientation, the whole deal. It's great that you're moving, you're probably becoming a big deal or whatever and it's fitting that you have your own URL and so forth, but shoot. I really am going to miss this space. I mean, just loading an A&E page puts me in a good mood. When I see that red header and the Wii avatar, I know I am about to actually, in real life, laugh out loud at something I'm reading. The associations run so deep.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, those are my two dolorous cents. Congrats on the blogiversary and the new site all the same. I'm sure I'll get used to it and end up loving it as well.
I agree with everything Martyn said - I have always really liked the simplicity of the blog and expected the new website to be busier. It's nice to see you have opted for a very clean and spacious layout - it looks great.
ReplyDeleteI took a look at the new site on my crappy Android phone, and it's using an older version of the OS, but it has a weird link at the top of every page that says "MENU" but doesn't seem to go anywhere.
ReplyDeleteOther than that it looks good.
Also, I own a software company and could help you to spider all the comments off the old site into a database, xml, or whatever format to help migrate them.
I've been ready your every word for many years now and I have no problem with the move, I'm just glad you're doing well enough to require a facelift! It's the content I'm most interested in, anyway.
-Mike