This blog is going into retirement.

I started blogging film reviews on April 4, 2013, the day that Roger Ebert, an icon in film criticism, passed away. Both Ebert and Gene Siskel were essentially my introduction to film criticism as a legitimate practice, rather than just a way to measure what an aggregate thought of the movie or an excuse to make lame jokes. At the time I started writing, people had recommended that I should start a blog because of how I often posted my opinions about films on Facebook and how articulate I was on those posts.  Ebert's passing was a sign for me to take that chance and find an outlet to express what I thought about filmmaking as a craft, mainly focusing on the technical aspects of filmmaking that I had learned from University and how those techniques were employed to tell the story at hand.

That was why I started Remini-scenes.

And now it's time to finish it.

A lot of events and things coincided to make this decision abundantly clear to me.

1. Burn-out.
After the last few months of 2017, when I completed my Nicholson-Meryl-thon, I was exhausted. I was astounded that I actually bothered to do something like that without thinking about how it was going to affect my schedule or my mentality, and possibly my tolerance for those actors in certain roles. At a certain point, writing those things became an obligation rather than actual fun, especially when I had to watch or rewatch movies that I didn't like. I got a lot of milage out of reviewing those things, a lot of readers from across the globe, but it still wasn't fun for me, so I gave up on that entirely. I love that I got to talk about the scale of a lot of cinematic universes, two actors' incredibly noteworthy careers, and even getting a chance to highlight some films made by fellow Canadians. Those efforts were incredibly fun and gratifying when I was finished, but the process of it became more gruelling as time passed and the landscape of my life changed.

2. #MeToo and the downfall of certain influencers.
I've written a lot of reviews where I talked about films made by people who have been at the centre of controversy since the #MeToo movement started in October 2017. People like Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski and to a much lesser extent Bryan Singer had an impact on my life and the kinds of movies I watched a lot of, whether because of how widespread their influence is, personal admiration for their craft, or just how consistently they pop up in certain genres. I'm happy with a lot of things I said about their films when I wrote those reviews, but not all of them, and I don't feel like I can willingly talk about any of their other works on a public forum like this for a long time. The same goes for online influencers, some of whom had a bigger impact on my style than I would want to admit. I don't rewatch a lot of the old Honest Trailers any more, and I've completely abandoned Channel Awesome; in the latter case, I instead follow the staff and writers I admire who used to work for that company, watching Lindsay Ellis and Kyle Kallgren regularly because of how well researched, fun, or honest they are on their own. Time will tell if I'm able to look at any of these filmmakers and influencers and see to what extent they really impacted me, but I don't feel like that's happening very soon.

3. Guillermo del Toro winning Best Director and Best Picture.
Well, now I don't know who to stand up for! The voting body of the Academy gave proper respects to my favourite filmmaker of all time. Why should I honestly care about anything regarding the Academy Awards anymore!? At this point, I don't and shouldn't. I finally got some gratification out of one of these awards seasons, the first time that had happened since 2013 and 2003 before then. The Academy and I very rarely share tastes in our concept of 'best movies' anymore, and it's not something that I'm going to use as a reference for what movies I want to make.

4. Mistaking my personal perception of a film for the general perception.
This is a thing that's especially relevant in my longer think pieces, more so than in my reviews. Me saying stuff like Zero Dark Thirty coming out too close to the events it depicted and thus making it feel like propaganda was something that I felt rather than what I saw the majority of critics or audiences say about it. That's the main instance of it I can think of, but I do need to stop thinking about my opinions being the centre of the universe, something I've tried my best to avoid in my writing, but sometimes still slips through the cracks. I've made generalizations to better fit my narrative, which is not something that you should be doing as a critic.

5. I'm now officially working in the film industry.
In 2017, I was a locations production assistant on Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy, the closing film at last year's TIFF. I have not seen the finished film myself, although it is apparently scheduled for release this April and I very much look forward to seeing it in the theatre. I honestly couldn't be more happy that this was my first production. I took the chance, got my name out there, and worked for pay on a film which featured filmmakers and actors I admired, wherein I learned a lot and felt ready for any challenge put before me. I've since worked on three other productions in Winnipeg, and with luck I'll be able to continue that through the ensuing years... assuming that my cold-weather gear actually works, because winter in Manitoba is a known hater of everything and everyone. I'm not a feature writer-director yet, I'm aware of that. This is just one stepping stone toward achieving that goal.

6. Echo.
This was the other. I couldn't be more proud of how my audio drama Echo has turned out. This show started as a College project, and has since transformed into something else entirely. It essentially was a dare that I gave to myself to make this series the way that I did, and it became an outlet to express a story that was all my own. It may wear its influences on its sleeve, but the story and characters are my creation. That is something I hesitated to do for so long, and now I've done it. I am grateful to everyone who made that possible, be they my family, my actors, my script editors, my composer, my supporters on Kickstarter, you all gave me the chance to tell this story. And now that I'm close to the end of telling that story and planning to tell even more going forward, I feel like it would be unfair to criticize other peoples' work in public. There are so many storytellers out there who put their hearts on the line to make art that they are proud of and that matter to them. In amongst all the industry and the marketing and the commercialization of films and stories, a lot of people make them because they love them and want to express themselves through them. I took the initiative to do that for myself, and anyone who does that deserves to be proud of it. I therefore feel like I shouldn't criticize their hard work as if I'm absolutely right anymore.


I feel incredibly fortunate that people have read this blog for so long and seem to have enjoyed it. I've never been openly criticized for my opinions on this blog. I suppose I'm quite lucky on that front. Hopefully, whatever I've written here has not hurt anyone else's opinion of these films or offended anyone for any reason. I'm just a nerd who tried his best to say what he felt over the course of 6 years. Hopefully, it was the passion for film that came through more than anything, and the things that I cared about and appreciated were what resonated the most with everyone who read these reviews.

Speaking for myself, not everything that I've written on this blog is necessarily my best work or stuff that I'm completely proud of. However, I don't think I should necessarily get rid of these reviews just because I'm not going to write them anymore. Depending on how this blog is affected by the discontinuation of Google+, I'm going to try going through my old reviews and editing them slightly so that I can remove some of the things that don't quite reflect my personality anymore without completely altering the opinions that I had. If not that, I will catalogue some of the reviews and posts that I'm most proud of and transfer them over to a new website, whenever I decide to make one.

*UPDATE: As of May 2022, I have decided to revert the majority of my posts back to draft form. This is a personal choice. If I should decide to revisit some of my old reviews and find them satisfactorily written and/or for the most part still reflective of how I feel, I will re-upload them at a later date.*

If you've been a fan for a long time and still want to know what I think, feel and understand about different subjects, you can find me on Instagram. Keep your eyes open for updates on when I'm producing new works, like new episodes of my podcasts, or just exciting events that I'll be attending in the future.

Skye Thorleifson - Instagram: @daskyethor

Echo now has six episodes available, currently distributed on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Breaker and other podcast apps through Anchor.fm. The last two will be made available on Fridays over the course of the next two weeks. Being a narrative podcast, you will have to start with 'Episode 1 - Welcome to the Earth', which I will link to here. Be sure to leave a review, and follow the show on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Echo - Episode 1: iTunes link
Echo - Instagram: @echopodcast2019

I'm very happy to have worked on this project for such a long time, but with nearly 300 posts and 6 years experience, it's time for a change. Thank you all for joining me on this journey.


"What I owe you is beyond evaluation."
-Alec Guinness (actor) and Robert Bolt (screenwriter), 'Lawrence of Arabia'