Happy birthday to us! On 4 July 2010, a mere 7 years and several lifetimes ago, we launched what is now The Reel Bits. Isn’t it nice of the US to be celebrating with fireworks in honour of our birthday?
Originally called the DVD Bits Blog, an offshoot of the now defunct DVD and Blu-ray review site, the blog soon took on a life of its own. Over 800 film reviews, dozens of news reviews, and thousands of articles later, THE REEL BITS is the magnificent empire that you see before you today.
With an international focus, but a particular interest in Australian releases and independent cinema, our comprehensive coverage of local cinema and festivals has made us a go-to guide for our legions of fans. Just ask the thousands of daily visitors to our tent-pole page, the Australian Release Dates calendar.
AOh, memories! Some of the changes to the site (and Richard) over the years.
We’ve undergone some massive changes in that time. Our focus has shifted from just reviewing to comprehensive articles, interviews, and multimedia coverage. It’s not all been peaches and cream, with an unfortunate hacking incident in 2013/2014 that harshed our mellow severely. We’ve happily drawn a veil over that an moved on. Cosmetically, we look much prettier than we used to. The same can not be said of the Editor.
Undoubtedly the highlights are the people we’ve met along the way, and interviewing people like Tom Hiddleston and Jaimie Alexander, Hugh Grant, Hugh Jackman, Barnaby Southcombe, Joe Cornish, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, Simon Pegg, J.J. Abrams, Rob Sitch, Jason Segel, Ivan Sen, Steve Carell, Jason Bateman, Colin Treverrow, and P.J Hogan have not only allowed us to hopeless name-drop, but filled a series of tick-boxes on our bucket list.
2017 has been a massive revival for us in a number of ways. Last month, we covered 51 films at the Sydney Film Festival, and are on track to our biggest year yet. Later this year, editor Richard Gray will release his first book, Moving Target: The History and Evolution of Green Arrow through Sequart Publishing.
We’d like to take the opportunity to thank the studios, PR companies, as we literally couldn’t do this without you, especially those of you who gave this online site a shot when nobody else would. You know who you are. Naturally, you Constant Readers need a big thank you, but like Spider-Man, action is your reward.
Here’s to another 7 years of random luck!
