Ain't It Or Ain't It Not?
The Big ManYou sell your script, you fight your way through development hell, you lock horns with the studio, you stay on the project, you parry and thrust with the director and get your star and the green light flashes go.
Congrats.
But before you get to Roger Ebert and the red carpet and the box office stats, the odds are good that you’ll be hearing from Ain’t It Cool News. Love him or hate him, Harry Knowles is a factor in our lives. He may not affect things the way the mainstream media believes he does, but he’s out there, his correspondents are out there, those pesky TalkBackers are out there, and they won’t shut up.
Nor should they. I know a lot of filmmakers get annoyed by Harry and AICN. I take a more moderate point of view.
AICN’s meat and potatoes are early script reviews and test screening reviews.
I’m not a big fan of early script reviews. I understand why people are interested in them, and there are worse things in the world than generating curiosity in one’s work. On the other hand, works in progress really are works in progress. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for audience input into the process. I love test screenings. Still, writers need some time to be able to flail around a bit before getting a project on its legs. Sometimes you have to go too far or break some rules to help you eventually find your way. God forbid someone gets their hands on an experimental draft and craps on it.
But that’s not the AICN function I want to talk about today.
A week ago, we test-screened Scary Movie 4 for an audience in Burbank. By all of our estimations, the screening went very well. Our numbers were very good, but for a spoof comedy, it’s less about numbers and more about laughs. The audience laughed. A lot. They laughed all the way through.
It was a good screening.
Somewhat predictably, two reviews ended up on AICN. Now, I happen to be a long-time and fairly frequent reader of AICN, so I know how to translate reviews of a movie like Scary Movie 4. Given that it’s a third sequel, given that its target audience is younger than the average AICN reader, and given that its level of comedic sophistication is fairly low, the possible reviews would probably work out as follows:
“Like getting smashed in the face by Satan’s balls over and over” = bad
“A few laughs, but mostly boring and stupid” = average
“People around me were laughing a lot, but honestly, did the world need this movie?” = good
One of the reviews seemed average, and one seemed good.
I’m not precious about this stuff. I understand that a movie like Scary Movie 4 isn’t going to light a fire of excitement under anyone with a little bit of cynicism in their bloodstream. People see a movie with the number “4” on it, and even the optimists must conclude that a gross exercise in commerce is afoot.
Which is true. It’s not like the studio is looking to change the world. They want money.
For me, however, it’s not a gross exercise in commerce. For me, I’m honestly trying to start and keep an audience laughing solidly for 80 carefree minutes, so when the reviewer says the audience was laughing their asses off, that’s enough of a takeaway for me.
But what about the Talkback section?
Ohhhhh, those talkbacks. Should they be listened to? Harbinger of the audiences to come? Ignored? Weird obese virgins nattering at each other about minutia?
Ain’t it or ain’t it not cool?
I like reading the talkbacks because I really do get a sense of where the project is or isn’t connecting. It’s one thing to theorize about what that “4” means in a public relations sense. It’s another to hear people talk about it in a blunt fashion. I like knowing who people really do think is cool, and I like knowing who people really do think is lame. That’s important. It’s not productive to sit in my room and scowl about how the talkbackers are a bunch of vulgar jerkwads obsessed with oneupsmanship (although some of them are). There are bits of collective truth to be mined from those threads.
Thing is, talkbacks are insular. They’re their own subculture that has turned back and around on itself. It’s not like you’re getting a hundred honest opinions. You’re getting a hundred statements that are partially honest opinion, partially competitive writing, partially intentional deception, partially delusion and partially deconstructive critical anarchism.
That’s why you somehow have to learn to take the talkbacks seriously without taking them seriously, if you dig.
Kevin Smith, who never fails to fascinate, has opted on at least two occasions to literally respond, item by item, to talkbacks. This would seem to define “insanity.” The best he can do is use a bully pulpit to beat up some guy whose name is something like TheRealVinzClortho, but it’s not like Clortho will feel anything but delight at the recognition. The worst he can do is actually appear to lose the exchange with a talkbacker making a valid point. Either way, fighting the talkback is like firing a gun into a black hole. As was the case with Kevin Smith, the talkback simply assimilated his responses and then begain talking back about them.
If the talkbackers find this article, someone will no doubt talk back about it too. I will probably get bludgeoned for it. That’s the tricky part about even mentioning talkbacks. They get pretty recursive.
In that regard, one of the smartest things Harry Knowles did was put that question mark after the title of his site. AICN is an endless question. Ain’t it cool? Sometimes yeah, sometimes no. There’s plenty to learn from all that chaos. Don’t fear it, don’t take it personally, don’t believe every word of it, don’t deny every word of it…and above all, don’t fight it.
It is what it is, and it ain’t what it ain’t.
[url]http://www.slashfilm.com/article.php/20060305161729697[/url] Another review if you want to hurt yourself :D
Well, seriously, I noticed 2 different types of “good” reviewers.
1)The “one-day” reviewer who can say in simple terms why he did or didn’t like a movie : “bad actors, not enough jokes, rythm problems…” You can have the same point of view after watching the movie but anyway, you’re not really convinced at this time because this is such a subjective opinion.
2) Journalists who can bring new elements (how the movie was made like problems during the production that the crew doesn’t want to reveal) that we can call “objective” elements. “the director and the producers had creative differences so, it explains why the movie is just average”. Nevertheless, you can agree with some elements but not with the conclusion. For example, I remember a “good” bad review of SM3, and the guy (a huge ZAZ fan I must say) explained that : “Zucker repeats his successful jokes 3 or 4 times and uses the exagerated facial expressions of his actors, as a reaction to a joke like to say to the audience : “You have to laugh here”. Only the recorded “sitcom” laughs are missing.”
I completely agree with him but… he doesn’t stop me from appreciating the movie a lot ! Weird…
Craig,
I don’t blame Harry for building a platform for him to get free trips and get scripts recognized. I’d say he would be stupid for not cashing in on whatever foothold he could get. If payola goes on, I’d be looking toward Premiere and Entertainment Weekly, and find out if money determines who ends up on the front cover. I’m betting it does.
Whenever studios fly in reviewers for press junkets, they go out of their way to treat them well, because they want good press. Harry uses his site to get what he wants. Hollywood, if their smart, uses sites like his to get free advertising. God Bless America.
But I’m biased as I met Harry at the screening of Close Encounters at Devils Tower, and at a screening at the Austin Film Festival. He seems a decent fellow.
As for the talkbacks, I can’t read them. The anonymous flaming is just too much for one soul to bare. I feel that with every talkback I read, a little part of me dies.
is that who entourage are taking a poke at in that episode at the comic convention? where they end with him taking it in the butt from three girls wearing strap ons?
i have to say, though, that i have enjoyed reading kevin smiths replies. you have to bear in mind that was he usually does (not always, but usually) is correct mistakes and blatant lies.
the one he did on rotten tomatoes was good fun and interesting to see how these people behave when confronted by the person they are slagging off.
also, his activities inspires some great lines from others too. my favourite being “i mean, if you call tom cruise short on a message board, you don’t expect him to show up at your front door the next day with a measuring tape, do you?”
CRAIG:
Believe it or not, I’ve never visited AICN before. So I clicked on the link you provided and—
—can’t focus eyes…layout too much…
What the hell?
First of all, I tried using the SEARCH function to find Scary Movie 4 and 1377 results came up. None of them Scary Movie 4.
I typed in “Craig Mazin”. This time 2044 results came up. Nothing, Nada, Zippo. Now I know this site is popular but I can’t imagine anyone not immediately smashing their monitors trying to navigate that thing.
Am I just waaay out of touch? Am I just retarded?
the reason craig’s name comes up, but you can’t find him mentioned is because “mazin” comes up in the word “amazing” and that’s what you’re actually finding.
yeah, the search funcion over there is a bit shit.
Just think. The current site design is the updated, user friendly design.
Yes, it is awful, and unless you know what to train your eyes on, your head will explode.
In the search window type: “Scary Movie 4”
And be sure to include the quotes or you will get a bunch of unrelated stuff.
Hey Craig,
Nice post … I’ve been reading Harry since 1999 (eek), back when the site used to be called AINT IT COOL NEWS … but I think it’s really slid downward … it used to be a way of slipping past sleek marketing and getting to the geeky heart of cool movies we love to love, but methinks harry hasn’t just sold out (which I cannot blame him for) but lost touch with what he started and why in the first place … just my opinion, of course.
John August posted a great article on it (and other things) called Professionalism and the Rise of the Amateur …
” i have to say, though, that i have enjoyed reading kevin smiths replies. you have to bear in mind that was he usually does (not always, but usually) is correct mistakes and blatant lies.”
I enjoy Kevin Smith and his replies because he does it in such a self depreciating fashion that it practically disarms the talkbackers. It’s usually a fun thread to read, no matter how obnoxious the posts get, Smith always has a funny line or two.
Wow, Mr. Abrasive, I never noticed that about Craig’s name!!
Craig, if I were you, I’d change my name to: Craig A. Mazin’!!
That’s too good to pass up.
As for AICN, those talkbacks are like entering the 7th Circle of hell.
Stick with CHUD.com. Same kinds of news, MUCH higher quality of journalism - the reviews, especially by Devin Feraci, are quite good.
And the forums are at least modestly more civilized than the AICN talkbackers.
I won’t use CHUD, because everytime I say it in my head, I think of the acronym, and then I get scared.
I love when Kevin Smith responds to the talk backs because it’s funny as hell.
And you know what? He’s smart for doing it (maybe a little insane, yet) but in the process of responding he sometimes is able to get converts who inevitably come over from the AICN site and start posting on the View Askew board (Kevin’s site) and become fans. Maybe they don’t come in droves, maybe a few come to the site to bitch more, but some talkbackers see Kevin’s responses and start to dig the guy, which may lead them to actually buy a movie ticket to the next flick. Kind of genius if you ask me.
Anyway, the site as a whole…I dig some of the stuff on there, HATE the layout…I really like Moriarty’s stuff. I think the site, as others have said here, has gone downhill in terms of actually providing cool news scoops.
I’ve checked out the site plenty, but not as much in the last year. It is ugly as sin, plus any sort of “news” is pretty dated.
I used to check out his reviews, but got tired of hearing about the 9 hours PRIOR to whatever screening he was attending before he even starts to review anything. It’s a boring site.
And the talkbacks are ridiculous. They just get on their to smash whatever is being discussed, and are truly useless.
Craig :
Maybe you could add an article to this one, about spoilers (from the crew or audience). Are you bothered with that ? What do you think about the fact that some people know a lot of things about the movie BEFORE watching it ? (sometimes all the movie) Are there “good” spoilers and “bad” spoilers ? It would be interesting to have your point of view about this “modern” method.
hey craig
what’s with dave r’s post?
‘Weird obese virgins nattering at each other about minutia’ - yes. this is what it is. forgive me for my blunt subjective objectivity, but - this guy is a little (lot) ‘look at me, aren’t i important? aren’t i? please say i’m important?’
look at that guy. that face, expression. he’s a little boy hoping for acceptance. although, i wouldn’t call him/them ‘weird’. they are found all over the place — the product of sheltered childhoods, the fantasy of the internet, the illusion that cruising the net is a substitution for living, fear of committing to anything other than anonymous opinions traded online (in very competitive style — ‘i’m a person with an opinion because i hit 200 sites a day and you’re just a typist’).
i liked janet maslin;s movie reviews very much (new york times). she’s moved to books now, but… elvis mitchell (formerly with npr, then nyt, now has ‘the treatment’ on kcrw in santa monica) is one of the best. these guys (and many other legit reviewers) form opinions based on depth of life experience. real ‘hello how are you’ life, not point and click episodes. they take responsibility for what they say and offer a unique perspective. they are, however, in the minority. that’s too bad
z
your point being..?!
I find that if you need comic relief during the day, click on an AICN article with a sci-fi or comic book theme, and just skim the talkback subject lines. You don’t even need to read the actual comments. It’s ugly in there.
That said, everyone I know who still bothers to visit the site goes for Moriarty’s contributions and not much else.
The pre-LOTR Peter Jackson question and answer stuff was when that site peaked.
I think AICN just shows that its better for people to be talking about you (whatever they are saying) than not talking about you at all.
Someone should send Mamet a link to The Unit talkback.
“I like reading the talkbacks because I really do get a sense of where the project is or isn’t connecting.”
I have a VERY hard time believing that Craig. If you think you do, well, more power to ya, but myself, I think you’d be much better served consulting tea leaves or chicken entrails to get any sense at all of where a project (or anything else for that matter) is or isn’t connecting. Imo, talkbacks are completely, utterly, and irredeemably useless.
“It’s one thing to theorize about what that “4” means in a public relations sense. It’s another to hear people talk about it in a blunt fashion.”
If talkbacks DID talk about anything “in a blunt fashion”, that’d be one thing, but personally I’ve never seen that. I really haven’t. In fact that’s precisely why I gave up on reading talkbacks a few years ago.
After a while it occurred to me that “talkbacks” are rarely, if ever, anything at all more than gang-bang bitch sessions. It’s a kind of new online sport. The idea seems to be to compete for who can trash whatever is up for discussion, but that’s about it.
Occasionally a post will mention something the poster thought was (at best) “o.k.”, but one of the apparently inviolable rules of talkback is that if you mention something you like about whatever is up for discussion, you then have to trash at least two other aspects of whatever is being discussed to make up for it, and you’re always better off (and agreed with more), if you just stick to tossing out trash.
The rest of the rules of the talkback world… ;-)
2) Cynicism = wisdom.
3) Post hoc, propter hoc - is a legitimate proof to any supposition.
4) All those that get off their fat asses and DO, are lazy idiots that produce pure shit, which is a shame, since they could have produced pure genius if only they were ME.
5) If you don’t think whatever is being discussed completely sucked, then you’re a hopeless moron and there’s no point responding to your obviously flawed arguments.
6) speling, gramor, an lojik are no subatute for CAPS AND LOTS OF EXCLAMASHUN POINTS!!!!!
Did I forget any? Anybody have a few more “talkback rules”?
One thing I think really has to be kept in mind about talkback posts is that the posters don’t represent any kind of average cross section of an audience. They represent, quite literally, an infinitesimally small lunatic fringe within an audience. They are the perpetually pissed off boobs of the world. If a TV show has 5 million viewers, or a film sells 5 million tickets, you can count on there being a hundred of them or so that are perpetually pissed off boobs in dire need of a place to vent.
But that’s all you’re looking at, and personally I’d be very suspicious of any conclusions drawn about how or where anything at all has hit or missed based on what the perpetually pissed off boobs of the world (figure .002% of any audience), have to rant about.
Poop.
That was me just above. Forgot to fill in the name field again.
Damn. I forgot rule number 7!
7) Anything repeated often enough is the gospel truth no matter how crazy it is.
Craig… for what it’s worth I overheard two people talking this morning… women in their twenties… “I went to see THE HILLS HAVE EYES this weekend.” “Was it scary?” “Yeah, it was… that reminds me… they had this trailer for SCARY MOVIE 4 on before it. It looks hilarious… the whole theater was cracking up.”
She said something about an IPOD which was a Tripod or something like that… anyway… I’m going to look now for the trailer on-line.
Derek:
If we get women over 20 to come to our movie, we will make 400 million dollars. :)
Craig,
You do realize that by blogging about AICN, you’ve opened up a portal to hell. Harry will read your post, then link to it from AICN. Then legions of talkbackers will flood this site, and unleash a barrage of obsenity that will make a trucker driver cry.
I’m new to this screenplay writing and promoting game, but it seems to me that any script being produced is a miracle in and of itself. The amount of support 120+ pages of bound words needs before becoming that 2 hour epic is astronomical (and closer to a lottery win than anything else).
The most vocal critics appear to be those who are the most bitter, or the most jealous over someone else’s script being chosen for production over their own (if they even have a script). Rather than sit around and rip apart the works of my fellow screenwriters, I would instead hope to learn from their examples and apply those lessons to my own work – not bash their efforts (because that kind of animosity come full-circle to bite one on the arse). And it’s also futile effort… most movies are steaming piles in the end.
Never been before. Visited for first time today. I’m with Kevin. Off to find my migraine meds.
ok, so, since we haven’t had a huge postfest over this topic, there’s something i’d like to bring up …
“For me, I’m honestly trying to start and keep an audience laughing solidly for 80 carefree minutes”
craig, have you - or anyone - ever seen the extras on the fawlty towers box set where john cleese goes into detail about writing comedy?
the thing that hit me the hardest was his assertion that you should only keep an audience laughing for 45 minutes, then give them a break before going on with the laughs. he says this is a physiological thing - the human body needs a rest from the exertion of laughter.
the biggest british romcom of all time is a point of this and it says it all in the title - “four weddings and a funeral”. the funeral part gave people a chance to breath, relax their laughing muscles and going to a different emotional space before continuing with the hilarity.
perhaps interestingly, richard curtis is a huge cleese fan, so maybe he has been aware of this advice for some time?
is this something that comes into anyones writing?
or is this a whole other post … ?
Mr. Abrasive:
You are correct.
BUT…
Not to answer for Craig but there’s something inherently different between Comedies and Spoofs.
Comedies have (or should have) elements of drama to properly balance it out. That’s what makes a great comedy.
Spoofs are absurdist, non-stop gag fests with no center of reality. One scene a character might get hit by a car, or a truck, or a meteor—doesn’t matter. All that character needs to do is brush themselves off and continue with the scene.
A Fish Called Wanda is a great comedy.
Airplane is a great spoof.
I’m sorry, but Craig or Adam? Whattup widdat word wrap/nowrap? (on “I’m one of those talkbackers…”) Is that a “you may use tags” thing?
I just figure this threads about done, and that’s all I got.