Celluloid Club: Celluloid Club's Four-Year Anniversary

The Celluloid Club's origins are the product of an email group of about 10 of Ed's friends. He'd send out a list of movies – the early origins of our TCM TiVo Alerts – airing on that cable station four times a month. As they still do today, the lists gave a rundown of what films were on TCM with short summaries and letter grades.

David offered his opinions and saw numerous films recommended by Ed. While David watched films since childhood, his passion for cinema was greatly increased by Ed's lists. The email exchanges between the two – and others, including Steve – turned into lively discussions. The give-and-take drove several of those on the email group a bit crazy, but there were others who enjoyed it. Among the participants was Bill Kunkel, who would have played a huge role in this website had he not passed away.

Steve would send his weekly Dinner and a Movie reviews to the group, which also generated plenty of interest. For those of us who weren't regular moviegoers, the information about the latest releases were a way for us to decide what we'd see and what we'd avoid. Also, we marveled – and still do – at what exotic food Steve eats.

After exchanging emails about cinema for about two years, the three of us thought that rather than share our passion for film with a small group of people, we would do it on a larger scale. The Celluloid Club website is the end result. We had a few challenges when we decided to do this. The biggest one? None of us had ever created a website. Thankfully, Elise, David's wife, is an experienced web designer and developer, and took the time to create this website as well as be there as a troubleshooter when we needed assistance with a variety of challenges.

Naming a website can also be difficult and very exciting. We thought about a few names – some of which were either being used or were very close in title to existing ones. Ed suggested Celluloid Club, and we immediately liked it. The word “celluloid” is so closely connected to film that it was a natural fit. Looking for something catchy and approachable, we added “club.” We love quality films, but we are also big fans of B-movies, psychotronic films and so many other genres.

Over the years, we've been asked, “Why do you spend so much time writing about bad movies?” The answer is simple. A bad movie can bring great enjoyment to viewers, and oftentimes we are more interested in writing about terrible films than excellent ones.

While not part of the email movie group, Jon was a great addition to the team. His insights, humor and observations have been valuable assets to the website since we started. We're always looking for others to join our club, and have been fortunate to have contributions from several of our friends. We strive to be entertaining, informative and interesting.

On May 5, 2012, we published our first article: one of our TCM TiVo Alerts, which included Ed and David disagreeing about Bringing Up Baby (neither has changed their mind four years later). We've done about 200 of them during these past four years. Equally impressive is during that time, Steve has written more than 200 Dinner and a Movie reviews. The growth of our audience continues to humble us. During that first month, we had 310 page views. If we get that number now in a single day, it's a disappointment.

We want to thank our readers, particularly the longtime followers who found us at the beginning and have stayed with us ever since. These four years have been a joy and a lot of fun for us. We hope you feel the same.

Below are links to some of our favorites from the past 12 months. Once you're on our website, feel free to look around. There's a lot of good stuff on it!