It is now possible to embed video from a video host (Youtube, Daily Motion, etc.) in a review. This could be useful for looking at previews to upcoming movies as well as scenes from movies you’re reviewing.

To embed video, copy the embed code from the video host, then on your “Write Review” page, hit the ‘Edit HTML Source’ button that looks like this:. Paste the code into your post here and update. If you have any problems, questions, or requests, please let me know at admin@criticalblogs.com

I’ve installed a plugin that will show your Netflix queue, current, and/or past rentals in the sidebar. To activate it, login and go the the ‘Plugins’ menu. Hit ‘Activate’ under the ‘Actions’ column then go to the ‘Netflix’ submenu. Make sure you’re logged into your Netflix account and follow the ‘Personal Feeds‘ link to find you account ID. The feeds will be listed in this format:

http://rss.netflix.com/QueueRSS?id=PXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

You ID is everything from the ‘P’ onwards. Let me know in the comments here or email me if you have any problems or anything shows up funky.

Thanks to Albert Banks for the original plugin.

About an hour ago I got some portion of a spamblocker working and so far it’s stopped the deluge of comments we’ve had the past couple days.  I still need to do some work on it - I think it’s actually completely disabled comments from non-cb users - not exactly what we want.  But at least this will stop things until I can do some more work on it.  *Knocks on wood*

My apologies to everyone for the annoyance and inconvenience of these spammers.   Just want you to know I’m working on it and have part of the solution in place. 

I’ve installed WPMU Sitewide Feed. This generates 2 new RSS feeds - one is all new reviews and one is all new comments made on CriticalBlogs. There are still reviews and comments feeds for each blog and a feed for each movie title.

You can now also rate a movie on a grading scale A+ to F-.

We’ve been hit with a spammer the past couple days so I’m going to install an anti-spam plugin this weekend. Until then, and if that doesn’t work, you can go to your Admin Panel>Options>Discussion and moderate or blacklist based on certain words. There’s a link to common spam words there, but I just put in “welbutrin cialis blackjack” (new line between each word) based on our recent spammer. My apologies for any inconvenience or annoyance - I’ll do my best to come up with a quick solution.

ReelViews is running a banner ad for CriticalBlogs for the next month. James Berardinelli is one of, if not the most popular and respected online critics, and I hope CB can serve as a platform for undiscovered Berardinelli’s. Or you could follow my model and scribble down nonsense that you only you understand.  In any case, I hope you enjoy CriticalBlogs. I’ve put a lot of work into it and personally I think it’s super. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or concerns, please email me at admin@criticalblogs.com.

After thorough alpha testing and even thorougher beta testing, we’ve deemed CriticalBlogs fit for public consumption.  The only outstanding issues are minor cosmetic ones and nothing can possiblie go wrong.  Um, that’s possibly go wrong.  Hmm. That’s the first thing that’s ever gone wrong since the official release.  So please signup, tell your friends to signup, get Roger Ebert to signup, write a bunch of reviews, and tell me how stupid my reviews are.

New look for the main page and the default theme. The Critical Default theme is just Wordpress Default with a new header.  The front page is much tidier than before, but still being ironed out.  And I put the nice Ajax search form on the front page too.  It’s neat. 

The new features are more tinyMCE helpers in the visual rich review editor.  The CB icon is a quick way of inserting a link to a movie on CriticalBlogs.  The IMDB icon  is a quick way of inserting a link to a name (cast or crew member) on IMDB.  Both are based on the RumMovie plugin for Wordpress.

Alpha testing is over, and CriticalBlogs is now open for public beta testing. Sign up and start writing reviews! There are a number of known issues left over from alpha testing — most cosmetic, one functional. Beta testing will certainly uncover more functional issues, so please be aware there may be unexpected hiccups. I’ll do my best to fix these quickly but please have a little patience. If you find any bugs or have any questions please comment on this post, the known issues post, or email me at admin@criticalblogs.com

New features: starred reviews, favorite movies, favorite critics, movie lists, and the AKA title search. Also added two new themes: Back in Black and Copperleaf Plus. As always, if there are any features or themes you’d like to see, comment here or email me at admin@criticalblogs.com