What is TNMC?
TNMC stands for Tuesday Night Movie Club. Before there was a website called TNMC there were a group of co-workers who started going to the movies as a group on Tuesday nights way back in October 1997. The first movie the Club saw was the David Duchovny blockbuster Playing God. Yeah, we don't really remember it either. This fine example of a film led to other distinguished entries in the series like Starship Troopers, Gattaca and Alien Resurrection. Soon Club outings seemed to resemble episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 more than anything else. It was obvious something needed to be done.
Swift action was taken and the comments of the Club were collected on a small intranet website at the office. This was a source of great amusement but destiny was still calling. Thus, in May 1998 the website debuted to an anxious public on the free website host Geocities. Public response was overwhelming as two or three people flocked to the new site.
With such a clear demand for what the Club had to offer, plans were put into place quickly to expand beyond the movie reviews that formed the site's core appeal. In December 1998, Bad Movie News appeared on the site. Since so much of our fun was based in bashing bad movies, it seemed only natural to start reporting on them as well. This met with an equally warm public response as traffic spiked by as many as ten more visitors a day. We had obviously touched a nerve.
The following summer saw the first cracks in the tight unit that was the Club. The outdoors proved a great distraction to our critics and the number of reviews dropped. In an attempt to fill that void, a second movie news section was added, appropriately dubbed Good Movie News. We were now equipped to deal with any sort of movie. Armed with some exciting movie scoops for films you probably wish you hadn't seen, the new section helped create the first real bump in traffic. Geocities was clearly no longer the way to go and the site moved to its own server for the first time, aided by an interest from advertisers in reaching our peculiar audience.
Since those heady early days of excitement, the site has changed dramatically in purpose but has developed a unique voice in a sea of websites dedicated to film. We expanded into television, first with coverage of the show Farscape and now many more. The two news sections were merged into one. Sections for movie posters and trailers have been added. A forum appeared for readers to give us feedback and talk with each other. We added columnists in the form of Deadpool and Hollyfeld. A DVD section sprang up as well. The original Club eventually faded as its members went their separate ways but the site remains and in a much stronger and more meaningful way. Now with a steady audience, we aim to cover all types of films from the Hollywood blockbuster down to the student film. It's been a strange trip but an entertaining one. Hopefully you'll stick around to see what else happens.
John 'Batman' Shea
Editor in Chief
