About

Hi, thank you for stopping by, be it accidentally or on purpose, either way, I’m truly grateful you’re here.

My name is Ben Hunter, or Benny Lindo my in adverted pen/nickname.  To find out about who the heck is behind all of these blog posts and such that you’re reading about, check out the section of this website that’s strictly about me and who I am.  This part is about the entity or company that I started and write for.

I work in different aspects of the industry like most.  This is the movie entertainment side of things and “Parnella Pictures” is the movie production side of my company to service my work as a filmmaker.

There are so many ways to categorize movie reviews.  So to make things easy for my readers whom this is all for, my reviews will be either:

COMMERCIAL
ARTHOUSE
EDITORIAL

To my fellow movie geeks, you know what this is.  Over the years of doing this, I’ve developed an interest in catering to the general public.  Every film writer of some sort has the love of teaching and informing with their work.  With mine, I want to cater to the run of the mill moviegoer that just wants to have fun at the movies.  So even with the serious films I review or talk about (which there are just as much of if not more than the fun type of films), I still want the average moviegoer to get a feel for that particular subject or film and take away something great from it that they didn’t have before knowing of the film.  So my geeks know the above categories, but to the average person who probably has an idea but not quite sure, well then let me teach and inform a little.

COMMERCIAL
You probably guessed this one right off the bat.  Yes, this is the fun, “I just want to turn my brain off and have a good time at the movies” type of film.  Just think The Hangover, Iron Man, Transformers, Die-Hard, any comedy that Seth Rogen and all his buddies will have you laughing out of your seat with, and the like.  There’s not much to the story as it’s pretty straight forward, something to get you smiling and enjoying yourself, that’s it.  This is probably more than half of the American population.  We think of movies as entertainment, so when we want to be entertained, we don’t want to work for it as we would an answer on a test.  Not to generalize, but there’s a reason these types of films get more attendance numbers, because they’re catered to EVERYONE.  Also not to rank them in a particular hierarchy (I’ve had this discussion more times than I would like to have had), just to put things into perspective.  This is the type of film most people want to see most of the time when, “It’s time to go to the movies!  What should we watch?”

ARTHOUSE
Sometimes you’ll hear “artsy”, “arsty/fartsy/smartsy”, “serious”, “Oscar caliber/Oscar worthy”, “foreign/it had words on the screen that I had to read the whole time”, all of these and more make up this category.  This is the heavy stuff, the films that fill the Oscar ballots or The Academy Awards as they’re formally called.  Since all the commercial films generally are the ones that make more money in the box office (for a number of reasons like marketing and general awareness, to name a few), the arsty films or the arthouse selections are the ones held in high regards, sought out by the movie geeks, film junkies, critics, professors, scholars, and such.  Also why the common moviegoer has no idea what half of the selections are on that year’s Oscar ballot.  Us movie geeks primarily give the theaters business for these selections.  These are the types of films that for the majority of them, one has to have a particular taste for that type of film.  Whereas, we can all watch Transformers, a commercial film, and be thoroughly entertained.  But films like Amelie, The Red Shoes, A Streetcar Named Desire, Nosferatu, or Amadeus take a certain type of interest or will to want to sit through type of feeling for certain people.  But Transformers, no need to mentally prepare for anything, turn off all that mental preparation and just watch the film and have fun.  If we were going to watch The Social Network instead though, I’d tell you to prepare yourself for the smartest most intellectual movie you’ve ever experienced.  So read a quick article or chapter in a book and prepare for one of the most mentally stimulating experiences ever, with no gun chases or explosions to give said experience.  That’s the difference between the two and this is a great way to categorize everything.  I could go further, but this is the best way to keep things simple.

EDITORIAL
So if commercial and arthouse are how you can separate everything in half, then this isn’t a category for official reviews or critiques of films.  You can think of this as an “everything else” category, but I like to think of it as a “special category”.  To make this simple to help understand, if I review The Terminator, then that’s a review I’d file under … yup, “commercial”.  If I wanted to talk about how brilliant of a job James Cameron did with directing the 2^nd installment or how his involvement with the entire series was, or one day on my blog I just start writing and I say something like “you know, I was thinking about Arnold Schwarzenegger today, how he started in Hollywood, when Terminator came about, his work in government, then going back to acting, etc …” That post would be a special post or an “editorial” piece that deals with a particular topic in the film industry, but is not an official review of a particular film.  Yet still generating awareness of the subject matters at hand.  A good example would be how I reviewed the Oscar favorite for 2013, Gravity.  Looking back, I revisited this piece and split this into two selections instead of one.  As the first half I officially reviewed the film and then the 2^nd half I pretended I was one of the many, and took what I heard from EVERYONE who worshipped the film and acted like I was disagreeing with everything that I myself had just reviewed the film with paragraphs earlier.  So the first piece was a commercial film review (yes some commercial films get Oscar attention which always excites me) and the 2^nd piece an editorial selection on my blog about how I went in depth of why I felt the way I did about one of the most talked about films that year.

POPULAR REVIEWS
On the site on one of the sidebars of information and cool things to check out that I’m doing with my blog, you’ll see some selections of my most read reviews.  When the storm blew over for all the comotion created, I realized my review for Gravity received so much attention and I had a blast with the experience of that post.  That review was by far the most reviewed post I ever had, very popular because it was so different from the common point of view with the film.  So be on the lookout for stuff like this.  Last I checked, Gravity was surpassed in views!

QUOTES
As a film lover, I tend to quote movies a lot.  All my friends know this about me; it’s like the first thing they’ll tell you when you ask about me.  So I wanted to incorporate this in my latest upgrade to my blog.  So be sure to check out my quotes section located in the sidebar as well as a link within the sidebar to its main page.  Within it, yes, I’ll have a quote from a particular film that I’m into at the moment.  If you can go to my contact page and tell me what the movie is from, there will be a special prize in it for you, the first person that can correctly do this.  Now, since we live in the age of Google, this is far too simple of a task.  So tell me the movie, but also tell me what review I talk about that particular film within.  It can’t be a review of that actual film that I quote on my blog, but a completely different post that I reference it within.  So if I quote Titanic, don’t go to my contact me page and tell me “your quote is from Titanic from your review of Titanic”.  This is designed to reward the following of people that I have been SO BLESSED TO DEVELOP.  I want to thank them personally for choosing to read me when they can easily read someone else.  I get it, most people don’t want to read a lot, if you’ve made it to the end of this page I consider that a blessing in and of itself; this is the age of MTV, short attention spans, media, smart phones to gain easy, quick and efficient access, and pop culture, I get it.  There are a million of other bloggers out there that you’ll immediately click onto once quickly skimming through whatever I’ve recently posted.  I’m not upset about that at all, it’s truly a blessing for someone to even enter my website in the first place, I’LL TAKE IT!  However, to those who come and more importantly, to those who STAY, I want to reward them for doing that because I'm so thankful they want to experience all I have to share!  I’ll make it kind of simple if you just read everything.  If you skim, you’ll most likely skim over the hidden clue.  That’s fine, with everything else you could be reading, I get it.  I just want to reward those who are dedicated to following me and experiencing everything I have to offer.  You have to truly want to read everything I have to say to get this prize.  That’s what this whole reward thing is for, to honor those who truly want to hear what I have to say.  So go to my contact page located at the top with the rest of the social media icons, or in the sidebar, tell me the movie of the quote and the review I mention it within, not my official review of that particular film, but a completely different one that I reference it within and there will be a special prize in it for you.     

NAVIGATION
At the side of every post there are bright words near the top.  These are called "tags" or "labels".  Each tag references a particular post within Parnella.  If you click on the tag, it will take you to the home page and reveal every post that relates to it in the bottom half of the page.  There's also a section within the side bar that's filled with tags, or tiny little words that pertain to everything posted here.  Click on one of those and the same will happen.  You can always just go to the search bar located in the top righthand corner of the homepage, and type in whatever you're searching for as well.

My "Reviews" item within the main menu at the top contains the 3 sections of my work here, if you click on one of those, it will take you to home page and give you everything posted that relates to the pertinent item that you clicked.  So if you clicked "Arthouse", it'll take you to the homepage and give you all the arthouse reviews.  Scroll through the selections by clicking older or newer at the bottom of the list.

At the bottom of every post, there are related articles you can view as well to keep you in the mood.  Also at the bottom is a rating system of what you thought about that particual post.  Feel free to click one of the choices, it helps me keep things fresh, new and exciting for you my readers!
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The rest of the site is pretty self explanatory so look around and feel free to stay as long as you like!  I keep things professional, civil, and respectful with all my work.  But I always write with passion.  So you can bet your bottom dollar that I mean it when I talk about what I think about Beyonce or The Rock as actors.  Hopefully I can spark a little passion in you during your visit here.  No two minds think alike, and I completely welcome opposing views, I just ask for the same respect I give in return.  Even with that said, with some people in this universe I was just not meant to be acquaintances with.  I understand that completely and have no problem keeping people away that don't want to be here.  I only want those who welcome healthy discussion and further love and respect.  I mean it when I say I feel honored to have visitors simply click on the page and quickly browse around and I want those here who truly deserve to be here.  My goal here is to put a smile on your face, brighten your day, and help you live a better life of love and happiness because of your visit.  I’m really excited you’re here.  So let’s have some fun talking movies!

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Thank You,

Ben Hunter