Grizzly park was your first and ONLY experience with Wild
Turkey 101? For real? You? Hunter S. Thompson wept Nick…
Seriously though, I enjoyed your steady leak article on your
experiences with Grizzly Park. It’s good to hear you had a overall decent experience
on it (especially after how frustrating you made your experience with MEG sound). I’ve found out first hand how
quickly an on set experience can go south, so hearing someones positive
experience is always encouraging. I’ll have to check out Grizzly park now. Keep
up the good work, and give wild turkey another shot!
Nick Replies:
I had a more than decent time making the movie and I certainly don’t want to make it seem otherwise. I have no complaints at all and it was a good step towards doing my own. The next feature I work on will really take me to a place where I can truly be able to hold my own in this business and once it’s official you’ll know why. So far, I think people have gotten the gist from what I was aiming for with the piece. As for Wild Turkey, fuck that shit. It’s evil. I love whisky and if given the choice by taste it’d be below Makers Mark, Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, Jim Beam, Bulleit, and Woodford Reserve AT LEAST. I don’t drink to get fucked up and though it’s probably the best one for that purpose, I’ve had my fill with the drink.
Loved the Grizzly Park Leak. It was a heartwarming thing,
and quite interesting.
I shall try to support the film as best I can.
…for you my dear.
Nick Replies:
Can you get shitty retailers to carry the DVD? That’d help. Much to my chagrin it seems to be one of those DVDs you’ll have to order online. Thanks for the note.
Sterling Writes:
Hey I just pulled your email address off you request for
bloggers but, I wanted to give a nod to you guys and especially to you. I
really hope you are still working on the fiction Entrenched, along with any
other projects I missed from the past so many years, away from the site. I was
really depressed to see after the prologue and chapter 1, entrenched
got..abandoned?
I tried to give some help and input, my postings as
‘evilkinggumb’ will show this email attached.
Just hope the fire is still burning, if not online,
somewhere. The ideas were intriguing, and I could see soo much potential in
what the story could become. Even if my speculation was waaay off, there’s
still a lot of fruitful ground to cover.
Good luck with it either way!!
Nick Replies:
It’s not abandoned, just one of those things I have to get myself “up” for to do, and rather than just vomit stuff up [though the talkbackers seemed to think it was all bad regardless] I want to make sure I’m in the right place. I know where it’s going and think it’s pretty neat but it needs to be done right. I promise I will continue and finish it and installment three is percolating on the backend of the site. It’s rare to have this stuff commented on (check out the forums for my bands or the threads devoted to my comics for proof) but I no longer really let the response or lack thereof determine what I work on.
So, I’m writing this
out of concern for one of my favorite sites. CHUD has always been a place
of snark, sarcasm and “Piss & Vinegar” but was combined with
insight into film and general happy fun times, as our Asian brethren might
say. But now days, it just seems like a mean place.
The cynicism in most articles and on the boards is just becoming too
much. Devin has always been a decent writer but blows any and all
goodwill out the window with his treatment of CHUD’s members (Besides the
irony that he looks like the epitome of The Comic Book Guy). Andre seems
to relish in being condescending to your readers. And Beaks…mein
Gott!…what happened to Beaks? Such a cynic now.
Where’s the fun?!? AICN, with it’s poisonous talkbacks, which are
actually very self-aware and tongue-in-cheek in many cases these days, is so
much lighter and fun to read than CHUD now.
Bottom-line (and maybe this will prompt you to do another Leak Letters column),
I’ve been called an asshole on occasion and actually pride myself on it a
bit…but if someone calls me mean? Well, that bites a bit because I
don’t want to come across as a mean, hurtful person. And that is what
CHUD is becoming: the mean, bullying, fun-sucking site for those who
think they know what you should like and you’re an idiot if you don’t
agree. Devin we can take as being a bitter person who takes it out on
others and loves him some torture porn, but not all of you!
You, at least, always brought a fun balance to the site, but even you seem
tired and pissed off these days. Please step back and take a look at the
site. Bring back the fun!
Thank God Indiana Jones IV shall soon pass, then maybe you guys can smile again
versus acting as if the four Horsemen are on the way.
Thanks for reading. And I write this because I’ve read your site since
2001…every single day.
Nick Replies:
I don’t disagree that this place is in a somewhat vicious state of late but I think it has a lot to do with the stuff we’re writing about. Look at the movies that are getting greenlit. Look at the stuff we’re being handed to as event films. Look at the horror genre and how transparent and “big business” it’s become. It’s a rough time. If I had my way we’d use the blogs as our venting place as well as the signature columns to really bring the vitriol. As for me, I do at least a List of Dumb a week and sporadic pants bulge columns as well as a blog which tries to have some comic value. And the podcasts! Whether it works for you or not, we’re definitely trying to remain entertaining. Hang tight. Shit’s cyclical.
Tim Writes:
Thought this might be a book
invaluable to your site’s very entertaining posterphilia.
Kind of curious to know what the
“Goin’ Polish” poster for Crystal Skull would be. I say
“kind of” because at this point in the coverage, it might just
be a screengrab of Type O Negative’s “Origin of the Feces”
and damnit, if you’ve seen that once, you’ve seen it enough times to last
you.
Keep up the beautiful work.
Nick Replies:
That book looks AMAZING! Ordered! As for Goin’ Polish, I think we’re due for another one judging from this letter and the one preceding it asking for more silly.
The past few weeks you, Russ, and Jeremy (hell
the whole staff) have been bringing the A game in content. I’ve been a
reader since 2k. It’s not the scoops I come for, it’s the content, the
views, and the expressions. This is why I have adblocker turned off when
I go underground to chud.
Much appreciated. If we could ever keep some consistency we’ll be on to something!
Christine Writes:
Just
dropping a few comments on you. I see things are still going kinda slow. You
mentioned changes in May, hope it happens soon! Not to beat a dead horse, but I
really miss the feedback section on news features & reviews. Especially
with the last several ‘You Got It All Wrong’ choices.(Miss contributing-however
small it may be-to the discussions. Hope you do bring them back. Also, as I said
before, you really should have a weekend topic/poll/question. Anything to pick
up the lag & keep the talk going. Finally, let me pass on once again my
appreciation for the staff’s writing & contributions. Wishing you all the
best. Keep up the good work.
A
loyal Chewer
If our new programmer delivers on his promise, the talkbacks will return AND WITH ACCOUNTABILITY! Life will be grand. The comments will still be hit and miss, but they won’t be simply “fire and forget” missives sent by folks who don’t really deserve the right.. Thanks!
First of all, nicely done getting new podcasts up so
quickly. You’re making dozen people happy with their increasing frequency.
I realize the site despite all your efforts is still not
100%.
I don’t know if you agree, but trust me. More reviews
please.
Also – I voted to Kill the Talkbacks as I agree with your
“industry person” that they make Chud immature, amateur and tacky.
However…maybe I miss them. Maybe they need to come back. I know you are
working on a way to weed out fuckers, keep us posted.
The podcast was fairly good, I enjoyed the vocoded sluts
and nuttit bits, but perhaps you guys talk about them too much. Boob Testes
would probably be funnier without talking about the joke for 5 minutes. I think
the podcasts need to start off with movie/pop culture schtick right off the
back and try to save the random stuff and calls for the middle and end of the
show, the last few podcasts have started out weak and gotten better, but it
makes me want to give up. The ROFLFOTR bit was great though.
You’re right about Kristen Bell, bland bitch.
THANK YOU for mentioning Fraser Heston a second time, not
only did he direct two Chuck Heston’s in Mother Lode – but it makes the Podcast
palpably Chuddish.
And Zero Effect, a super movie.
I have forgotten all the rest of the stuff I wanted to
mention.
Nick Replies:
The sexual advice has brought new vigor to the podcast in my mind. No doubt because I am a sexual Tyrannosaurus. A few people said it’s too much but I wish we could do MORE! If you noticed, I broke them up on the last podcast instead of having them as a chunk. I always am experimenting with new ways to edit the podcast into something more fun whether it be the “Fuckaround” [which I still love to death], the robot voices, the use of music, or in sometimes mixing in some weird sounds and shit. Something else I’ve been considering; interviewing people at the movie theater. The general public’s opinion of films is bound to lead to some huge comedy gold. Thanks for commenting. Steve’s about to get married and will be intentionally horrible and away for a few weeks so Justin and I are going to see Sex and the City [together, holding hands] and The Strangers [separate, holding hands] in preparation.
Re: the Talk-Backs.
I’m sorry to see them go, because I enjoyed the ability to
make a comment (productive! constructive!) to an author without using the old
e-mail interface system, which just seemed like I was making a nuisance of
myself, especially if what I had to say was minor. I can understand the
reasoning (aside from the fact that we’re letting the terrorists win) but don’t
necessarily agree with the view that it cheapens the site. Anything open
to Joe Q Public is going to get more than its fair share of idiocy, which
logically has little to do with the professionalism at work behind the
publication. Granted CHUD would get more of an extreme version of this
(as opposed, say, to the EW talk-backs, which would never get a post from
VaginaSleestackFace or whatever the fuck it was) but I would think a regular
chewer wouldn’t be too surprised by that. In any case…
Re: Devin’s Advocate: The Batman Bullshit
…this was a good editorial, and in its subtext why I’ve
enjoyed reading the latest CHUD list, especially the pro/con structure of
it. The overall message is, this is open for debate, and actually
reaffirms each movie’s worth by the simple fact that they are worthy of
further dissection and debate. As is Batman Begins, and
I think Devin makes some valid arguments. Does anyone really disagree
that the ending is a messy let-down? It’s saved for me just by the newspaper
headline at the end (‘Drunken Billionaire Burns Down Own Mansion’), but the
conclusion could have and should have been so much more. As for the tone,
I’ve enjoyed a dark and grim Batman plenty, just as I’ve enjoyed a silly Adam
West one, but we’ve had a dark and grim Batman for four movies now (B&R isn’t
a movie), and as Devin points out there are a bunch of other interpretations
that are just as valid and could be just as interesting. Look, the guy’s
supposed to be as great a detective as Sherlock Holmes—perhaps more so—but
other than figuring out a few riddles, isolating poisoned consumer products, or
tracking down addresses, the films seem to have largely abandoned this
idea. I’m pretty certain that The Dark Knight will be enjoyable as
is, but it seems that merely the discussion of what films are or what
characters could be, compared to what they are traditionally perceived to be or
forced to become is a subject of great fear and irrationality for most
chewers. Ferris Bueller as sociopath? Terminator 2
pedantically preachy? Batman happy-go-lucky? Right or wrong,
how is it a desecration to simply explore these possibilities?
(you’ve got it wrong about First Contact though,
Nick…the movie’s balls).
Great letter. Thanks fella! We have two more installments in that list coming and then a new list right after! I promise we won’t slack next time, even if it’s just me doing the list alone.
Nick, I
read your site everyday and I love it! There are reasons that I love your site
that I won’t go into in this email. I just wanted to point out a gem of a
reference you had in the “This Feels Like and Indy Trailer”. You
referenced “Treasure of the Four Crowns”. I remember seeing this
preview years ago and thought this movie was gonna be wonderful. I was only
around 10 years old at the time. I had no discerning ability back then. When I
finally saw it I was so disappointed. Anyway, thank you for proving to me that
your site is for movie fans like me. Keep
up the opinions and the personality. It keeps me visiting daily.
Nick Replies:
Super! How much is a Comin’ At Ya! reference worth to ya?