Autism with NO limits: How I got into films and became a critic

It can best be described as nothing more than a happy accident, and that’s really all there is to it. I had been watching films for a while, but it wasn’t until I was five years old, when I got my first cinema experience one night in a Cineworld seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, that I really started to get into them. Before that, my film watching was mostly kept to a small tv in my old bedroom.

After that night and over the years I started to develop a habit where, if a film caught my attention either through advertising or just happened to be on a screen as I was passing through a room, I would watch it. I took to a great many of them and disliked some in equal measure. I got to know and understand that feeling of anticipating a film at a very young age.

As I got older, my tastes evolved. I was in cinemas more and more and I would occasionally find myself seeing something that I had no prior interest in, but if lucky enough, I would manage to enjoy it – at least most of the time.

I casually expanded my knowledge of film and film-related subjects with help from my dad and his own love of cinema. I gained a lot of knowledge about different directors and actors, and what year this or that film came out, which led to several discussions about film with friends in school and helped me to expand my knowledge further. This would sometimes lead to lively arguments, much to my teachers’ dismay.

At around the age of seventeen, just about anyone in school that I knew had an idea of what they wanted to do in life but I was still undecided.

However, around January 2017 I was in a cinema and the idea of maybe being a film critic started to creep inside my head. I had an idea of what a critic was, I had heard their reviews of certain films a few times and I remember disagreeing every time except maybe once.

And now here I was, thinking about becoming a critic myself. So I did some research on the subject until I felt willing to give it a shot.

A month later I set up a blog called The Truth About Movies and published my first review. I normally summarised the plot, the acting, the writing, the cinematography and the score, plus one or two flaws. And ended with a conclusion plus a rating. I did more of these reviews as the months passed and got some positive feedback on just about all of them.

The blog did well and about two years later, was turned into the site Andrew Moodie Film Review that I use today.

I was delighted in 2019 to be awarded Highly Commended in the Creative Communities category in the SCLD awards ceremony held in Edinburgh.

Thanks to the success of my reviewing so far, I am currently a finalist in the Autism Leader awards, which is to be decided in Birmingham in December 2019.

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Andrew Moodie

Film reviewer at reviewsphere

Born on 19 November 1999, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the first film Andrew saw on the big screen at the age of five and he has been a keen admirer of films ever since. He expanded his film taste and knowledge through the years before deciding to become a film critic at seventeen. He started reviewing films through a blog called The Truth About Movies, now upgraded into a professional website called Andrew Moodie Film Review. When not reviewing he enjoys listening to old music and film scores, exercising regularly and is rather an obsessive reader.