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| I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille. |
Hello book and movie fans!
Once a year I break the fourth wall and act as the main role on this blog, not a behind-the-scenes producer, and today will mark the 10th time I get to look back.
That's right, today is Movies Meet Their Match's 10th birthday!
10. Years. Old.
I am a little bit in denial and shock and surprise, but to cope the best way is to party! On the schedule today we've got reminiscing, planning for the future, and a new project.
So first, let's go back in time.
10 years ago, on a hot day in July I created my blog. I was a bored teenager who knew some facts about movies. That has turned into a full blown love of the art of storytelling.
I've definitely talked about the external changes that happened that day--I had posts to write! Things to talk about!--but I want to emphasis what it has done for me internally. I was an introverted kid, and in many ways blogging taught me how to write and express myself. It taught me how to meet deadlines (thanks, blogathons!). It taught me how to share what I love and how to express critiques in a cogent and respectful way. My style of blogging has changed so much and while I cringe to look at those old posts (for the first...5 years?), I am grateful that they shaped who I am today. I have learned that you can't be great until you've been bad at something first. I'm nowhere close to being great, but I've moved a little bit away from being bad.
Things have changed in other ways. I'm not a teenager anymore. My opinions and criteria for stories have changed. Journalling is so important to me and blogging has been a way to process growth like no other. It's humbling to have ones words out in the open but also freeing to not just have them rattling around my head in chaos.
In the grand scheme of things, all of these lessons are just starting, and I look forward to how my skills grow in the next 10 years and what new things I'll learn. Who knows if blogs will even be a thing, but I plan on being here. I don't have many things that I've done consistently in my life, but I still come back to this, even after months of silence.
I couldn't have done it without the comments that break open that silence. Even a few words let me know I haven't been screaming into the void and I aim to make you readers smile. An actor is nothing without their audience and I am truly grateful for every reader who takes time to read my thoughts.
Together, let's go on for 10 more years!
How far has Movies Meet Their Match come?
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| Let's dive in! |
Stats:
Followers: 78. I appreciate each and every one of you!
All time page views: 1,460,939. That's...that's like a million more than last year. I'm flabbergasted and so thankful, even if I don't know how this is happening as I only wrote 25 posts this last year, which is more than the last few years but not what I used to be able to crank out.
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| Giving each of you hugs! |
Posts: 558 (this is the 559th!).
Top 3 most popular posts:
1. Older vs. Newer Review: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
2. Movie Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
3. Book vs. Movie Review: The Summer of the Monkeys
My 5 current favorite posts:
2. Various Family Dynamics // Lemony Snicket's centrality of siblings in stories
3. The Running Wild in Impractical Outfits Tag // Seeing If I Have Any Sense of Style
4. 5 Lessons From Cosmo Brown on How to Be the Perfect Best Friend
5. All My Sons // 10 (+1) More Fictional Boys I Have Adopted
Bonus: Guess the Movie from the Drawing Game! // INKtober 2025 Recap got me into drawing!
Currently about me:
I am reading: (wayyyyy too many books but to name one) Pat of Silver Bush - by L. M. Montgomery.
I am listening to (on audiobook): Manners & Mutiny (Finishing School #4) - by Gail Carriger.
I am watching: (again, far too many things but obsessively right not it's) Komi Can't Communicate. I'm a hardcore K-drama girlie, but I've been branching out into anime, too. Also Abbott Elementary which is fantastic.
I am rewatching: Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. I am using it to learn French so I am watching sans sous-titres (without subtitles; I just learned how to say that!) and pretending I know what's happening.
5 Favorite books:
1. All the Crooked Saints - by Maggie Stiefvater: I FINALLY got my little sister to read it, too, and she loved it, as how could you not?
2. Anne of the Island - by L. M. Montgomery: This was my first year without rereading it since 2021!
3. Holes - by Louis Sachar: Changed the way I see storytelling.
4. North & South - by Elisabeth Gaskell/Pride and Prejudice - by Jane Austen: It's a tie, folks.
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| Me trying to pick between the two of them. |
5. Beartown - by Fredrik Backman: Made me care about a sport. 'Nuff said.
5 Favorite movies:
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| How many ways could I talk about these movies? In-fin-ite. |
1. It's a Wonderful Life (1947)
2. Rope (1948)
3. Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
4. This Beautiful Fantastic (2017)
At the moment, on my Letterboxd account I also have Flipped (2010) and that's because I can't not mention it.
5 Favorite TV shows:
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| I'm going with these shows until the end, through rough seasons and good ones. |
1. Hotel del Luna: No K-drama I watch gets close to it, and I've watched 5 K-dramas this year alone.
2. Leverage: which....I'm still not finished with because I don't. want. it. to. end. Though I recently saw Christian Kane in Secondhand Lions (2003) and I was so happy to see my darling Eliot I might be prompted to continue watching it.
3. Robin Hood BBC: I was rewatching it by going through and drawing a scene from every episode in the winter, and I should get back to that because I still have a whole other season to do.
4. Geek Girl: season 2 is rumored to come out this year...
5. Merlin: This show is magic on an emotional level.
I'm confining this to shows that I've mostly seen the entirety of (sorry, Once Upon a Time).
Updates and Next Steps:
The good news is that Movies Meet Their Match is not going anywhere soon! Having a job means I don't have as much time as teenager-me did, but more time than college-me did, so I still have plenty of thoughts to get out of my head, so new posts are coming no matter how long they take.
I don't have any new YouTube videos to share from last year because my software wasn't working for a while until I realized I just had to update it. So I started a new fan video about a week ago and we'll see where that takes me!
Until my next post or video comes up, I have a project that you can help me on...
Call for Recommendations:
I wanted to do something big to celebrate the decade mark and it's this: you readers get to choose what I read and watch!
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| Let's talk about what you love, things like jazz! |
There are so many books and movies in the world and I hear so many good things about them, but it can be hard to know where to start or which to prioritize. That's where you come in! I would love to read and watch what you suggest!
How it works:
Name a book and/or a movie in the comment section, and I'll get to reading and/or watching! After that I'll post my thoughts here on my blog.
I don't know how many recommendations I'm going to get so I don't know how long this will take time-wise, but I'll take suggestions until December 19th, 2026. Then after that I'll get some reviews up! Or if I have enough suggestions early on then I'll post my thoughts sooner than that. I'm giving myself some wiggle room in case I need to track down rare copies of books in back alleys or peruse local thrift stores. I'll assess how this goes next year, on my 11th blogoversary, so this is a guarantee I'll stick around until then.
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| Me on my quest to find all these recommendations. |
But why does this matter? This is your chance to share! Do you have a story that you love so much you want to shout it from the rooftops? Is there a book that you wish you could rave about with someone who has read it but no one has? Is there a movie that is a cinematic masterpiece but so niche no one has seen it? Is there a story from your childhood that was defining for you and if others would just read it they would understand your soul but no one has?
I'm not worried about running out of things to read or watch (we have hundreds of unread books at my house, I'm not joking), but I want to see these works of art through your perspectives. So name a book and/or a movie in the comments and tell me why you love it. I want to share your love! The world is full of disliking things and this is a chance for you to hype up your favorite things and get some hype in return.
I'm totally happy to read or watch stories that I already have experienced and see them through a new angle. If it's a book I've already read, then maybe I'll try listening to the audiobook. Or if it's a movie I've already seen then I'll watch it with another language dubbed to practice. There are so many possibilities! But if you want to check if I've seen or read it before, here are my Letterboxd and Goodreads accounts, which are up-to-date. Or you can also see what I've reviewed on my blog already HERE. There are big things I haven't read, like Hunger Games or the end of Percy Jackson, so it can be as niche or as popular as you want. What matters is how you feel about it!
So...what should I read next? What should I watch next?
Thank you for coming to my blog's birthday party!
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| RIP Sam Neil. </3 |
What were you guys doing 10 years ago? What do you see yourself doing for the next decade? Any guesses to my GIF theme today?
Thank you whether you've been here for the last decade or just today or are from the future. I look forward to chatting with you then.
Chloe the MovieCritic
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| Chloe out. |
