My mission, should I choose to accept it? Talk about the movies at the box office, home releases and more.
Mission accepted.

Starting next Thursday I’ll be joining the @jonmccomb980 show on @CKNW to give you the latest on #movies & new releases. Stay tuned! #film

— Ria Renouf (@RiaCKNW980) July 30, 2015

It all started with a request.

“How would you feel…talking about movies on air?”

Me? Talking about movies? I guess I could. I love movies!

What kind of a movie-goer am I? What kind of things are you going to hear about from me?

I’m that person in the crowd who loves the ironic, sees artistic value in what the average watcher would consider awful, and I’ll even watch things like Sharknado. I’m also not an idiot. I don’t want to be belittled by a film studio that thinks they can pull a fast one on me with poor writing, terrible direction and blatant disrespect for the story they’re trying to tell visually.

My high school was near a comic book store. While I didn’t always have money to buy comics, I was always happy to flip through a couple of pages (the comic shop workers were always nice to let me do that), and sporadically follow all sorts of different story arcs. Among those that I opened: Batman, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Spiderman – just to name a few.

My upbringing was pretty strict. When I wasn’t at badminton or basketball practice, I was staying home – and when I wasn’t studying, I’d play video games or read. My collection started small: a Nintendo 64, a Nintendo DS Lite. That grew into a PS3, a PS4, an Xbox 360, and a 3DS. My bookshelf was a visual feast of hard and paperback cover books, often ordered through Scholastic. A Series of Unfortunate Events took up one shelf alone. Anna Karenina, War and Peace, and Vanity Fair sat next to Gone With the Wind – so my mind was always off the ground. Thinking, strategizing, imagining.

So where do I come from when I watch these movies, and share my opinions?

The above is just a snippet of where I’m coming from. I’ve always loved movies. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not a movie critic. I’m not going to sit there and give you the sociological breakdown of the movie. I’m just a girl that loves to go to the theatre with friends and family each week to check out the new releases. But you can always guarantee I’ll have an opinion once the credits roll. I’m not Siskel or Ebert.

Does it mean that I’ll be basing some of my reviews on the things I’ve grown up on? Absolutely. I’ll get mad if Q*bert speaks English in a movie (thanks, Pixels) or if a book gets destroyed by a movie (thanks, Paramount Pictures, for doing what you did to A Series of Unfortunate Events).

Sometimes we’ll agree, sometimes we’ll disagree. I guarantee, though, that we’ll have a good time chatting about the week in movies.

I always appreciate feedback, your two cents, and your comments. Hey – journalism is all about learning and sharing, right?

It’s going to be a fun ride! Looking forward to having you come along.

R