Mailbagsukidoji:

Your letters. My smartass replies.Hey folks,

You have a comment and don’t want to send a letter? Please click HERE and pipe up on the message boards. Please? That thread is deader than Greedo.

The fourth of our MAIL BAG GRAB BAG winners is here as well as a host of other offerings. Folks, each week a person who sends in the letter of the week gets a treat. Isn’t that worth pegging me a little missive for?

Either way, here’s the letters.

What’s This?:


Each week I’m going to take a picture of something and it’s your task to guess what it is. First response I get from a correct guesser gets blurbed here. Send guesses to THIS LINK. Last Week’s Winner: Chip Willet. It was a MS Optical Trackball, my peripheral of choice.

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Photo From Life.


True story: I walked in Border’s Book Store one morning and caught a woman gently humping the arm of this chair.

Answering Devin’s Mail, #1.

Mitch to the left!Jpal writes:

Someone might want to tell Devin Faraci that while criticizing Dan Brown’s "eight" grade prose, he (she) may want to check the grammar

Nick’s Reply: OK, you are obviously one of three types of people. Here, let me tell you so you don’t have to wander through life thinking all is well only to be on your deathbed and crushed by the sinking realization: 1. You are a Devin hater who picked through his rather well-written (why did CNN have to use Devin’s "Retarded, ridiculous and crushingly dull," quote from it, though?) review, looking for something, ANYTHING to rail off against. 2. You are a diehard Dan Brown fan, which is its own gulag, and you picked through his rather well-written review looking for something, ANYTHING to rail off against. 3. You are an English teacher who was fired for putting army men in your female students and miss the buzz of correcting minute grammatical errors. That said, Dave Davis appreciates your mention of Eight Grade.

(SEND A LETTER)

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Answering Devin’s Mail #2.

Mitch to the right.Francis writes:

Congratulations on another review where apparently no research was done!
It doesn’t take a genius to go to IMDB.com and see that "Team America"
is not the second film made by the creators of South Park.
Reviews of films on this site are like detailed reports of the foreign
policies in Paraguay written by an intoxicated homeless man.
And you should be proud, because not having a home and being a raging
alcoholic is nothing to be ashamed of. Just ask my uncle Gil when he
gets down off the roof.

Nick’s Reply: I hope you email every reviewer who gets a fact wrong. You’d be a busy tit. You’d have emailed legendary Roger Ebert over his Equilibrium review if so. I printed this letter for one reason though, a totally great one. Guess who’ll be doing the puppet character for 11 Colonels ATTACK!? I’ll give you a hint: Team America. Guess who’s doing our claymation character? I’ll give you a hint: Killer Klowns Kouldn’t Tear Us Apart.

(SEND A LETTER)

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Answering Devin’s Friendly Mail.

Mitch to the left!Tim writes:

Yours was a well written review of the film.

Thank you for giving part of your life to having to sat through it so that others might not have to do so.

Of course, with the vastly overrated Howard (as a director, he was a great Opie), I was not surprised.

This was after all the same director that thought putting in a swinger’s party implication in "The Grinch" was something clever.

Nick’s Reply: I was astounded too that this man sent us such a nice letter. I mean, Devin used the term ‘Eight grade’. Oh, and tonight we are recording our DaVinci Code podcast. Please enjoy it.

(SEND A LETTER)

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Screenings in the Non-South.

Mitch to the right.John writes:

Sorry this isn’t a scoop. I don’t quite have my finger on the pulse of that community. BUT I did want to write in about the Jim Kelly quote you have on your site. I take it that’s pulled from the toon The Boondocks. A fucking great episode! BUT if that is the source of the quote he actually says “Man, You come right out of a Comic Strip” Not Comic Book. Not that it matters, but being it was one of my favorite lines from the show and a great nod to the shows source material I wanted to point it out.

P.S. Dude, how bout some running contests for passes to Boston screenings. I never see Boston in that list, usually is Charolette or Atlanta

Nick’s Reply: I’m waiting for reps in other cities to contact me about doing screenings there. We’ll do it in any city, but I personally can’t go hunting through the materials to find not only the right firms to contact, but also convince them of our value and impact.

(SEND A LETTER)

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The Timex Thetan-5000.

Mitch to the left!Bockelmania writes:

just wondering if you knew what watch Tom wears in MI3?
Looks like some kind of Casio G shock.

Nick’s Reply: There you go, tough guy!

(SEND A LETTER)

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Site Changes. – MAIL BAG GRAB BAG WINNER

Mitch to the right.Dave writes:

I’m liking a lot of the new esthetics for CHUD: going back to the sewer icons makes me a happy man; and the use of the horizontal ‘notable stories’ icons (I’m not sure how you refer to it) is a lot cleaner.

You still have some layout issues with the vertical ‘notable stories’ icons — mainly in that the advertisement on the right overpowers it. I’d have to say the same thing for the other ads as well. Now, I’m not what you call an ad hater and won’t tell you ‘oh I’d tell you I’d pay 39.99 a year for your site to get rid of the sites even tho I won’t’. With the ad underneath the navbar, it breaks up your site; and the small square ad on the right not being centred is distracting.
I know you prefer to getting any kind of feedback rather than none, so there you are. Feedback.

Question: There was a contest a while ago about the lame Path of Neo game that I’m pretty sure never had winners announced with it. Also, are you open to getting more free stuff to give away? I can probably convince SEGA to giving away a few 360 copies of Full Auto (no promises) if you are.

Love the Special Edition. I look forward to it as much as I do Homestar on Mondays.

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Podcast.

Mitch to the left!Tim writes:

Great job on the Podcast. Keep up the good work.

I read Meg many years ago and thought it would make a great movie. Glad to see that it’s in the right hands. I’m both terrified/attracted to sharks so it’s safe to say that I’ll be there on opening weekend with an adult diaper on.
I’ve never seen a Rush Hour film so I couldn’t care less about RH3. Much rather see Meg.

I’ve been looking for Justin Waddell’s email address but it’s not posted anywhere on the site. Please let him know that he’s the heart and soul of the podcast. His insight and comic timing are perfect.

Thanks.

Nick’s Reply: I’d rather see Meg than Rush Hour 3, even if I wasn’t involved in Meg. Even if I hated sharks. Even if I was a shrimp boat captain on shore leave. As for the podcast, thanks! We don’t get a lot ofcomments from it but I enjoy it and I know Justin and I enjoy doing them because most of our instant messages end up being podcast jokes that never make it onto the show. Speaking of, tell me what you think of this scenario:

Last night I met Steve and Will at a local bar, where we pretty much battle hardened the waitress in training with discussions of corpse fucking, the bartender shooting his sauce all over their Guinness’s, and more. As we left we saw a car with the little Jesus thing on the back, except it was modified for Wiccans. The car also had a license plate that said SURFGRL. I cracked a Potion Pacific joke and it fell flatter than Kathleen Turner. That is a fucking podcast joke. Should I have saved it, as they say, for the show?

Anyhow, Justin knows he’s the heart and soul of the show. He also knows he’s the ass and wrist of the show.

(SEND A LETTER)

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I Still Hate the Name TOPHER.

Mitch to the right.Timothy writes:

I was just on IMDb and was looking at the cast of Spider Man 3, Topher grace’s name was no longer on the list. I was wondering what the deal is, did he drop out?

Nick’s Reply: Damage control. They want some people to be surprised when he shows up in the film and maybe becomes Eddie Brock’s better half. I think it’d be funnier if he was Ben Reilly and they made the third film the hated clone storyline. Just because they can.

(SEND A LETTER)

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Lopate, Logray, and Paploo

Mitch to the left!Jeremy writes:

I just finished reading your interview with Mr. Lopate and
wanted to let you know that I liked it enough that I wished
that the interview was longer, or the site was able to
devote more space to it.

I don’t normally read a lot of reviews. Mostly because
there are so many of them, just go to Google News on the
release date of a movie, or the day after its been screened
for critics and you’ll be overwhelmed. But, there are a few
places where I go to consistently for their take on a movie
I’m interested in. One was Slate.com when David Edelstein
wrote for them and another is Salon.com where Stephanie
Zacherek writes. I don’t always agree with their
conclusions or the way they reviewed the movie, but I almost
always feel better informed, and oddly literate, after
reading them. Slate.com used to run a Movie Club where
various critics, both print and online, would discuss the
year’s movies, that was usually a worthwhile read.

One last thing, there is someone on the website
televisionwithoutpity.com that I would read if he ever moved
onto film criticism, that would be Jacob. Don’t know
anything more than that and he recaps/reviews the shows Dr.
Who, Battlestar Gallactica, the movie Serenity (the site
briefly recapped Firefly), and *cough* American Idol. He
gets a little excessive at times, but can write a more
coherent, incisive, and enlightening recap/critique than
anything I’ve ever attempted.

Nick’s Reply: We’re thinking about moving onto film criticism here at CHUD.com too. Thanks for enjoying THE INTERVIEW and for pimping a reviewer we don’t have.

(SEND A LETTER)

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Meg.

Mitch to the right.Justin writes:

Hi Nick. How are you? I’m a big fan of Steve Alten. I own and have read all seven of his books. I also read his latest post on the Internet Movie Database Message Boards for the Meg Movie. Was the movie pushed back to 2008? Just want to know. Write back soon.

Nick’s Reply: The goal is 2008, yes. A lot of stuff is out of our control but everyone would prefer to do that, provided we can get an early enough start to make sure that the budget is kept under control, the water shooting is as little a nightmare as possible, and to accommodate the busy schedule of the Megwe’ve cast. People are doing the footwork now, the people behind the scenes. I’ll update folks when there’s something to update. That said, the IMDB message board are not exactly the place to go for cutting edge truths, aside from Steve’s posts and mine of course.

(SEND A LETTER)

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SPAM OF THE DAY!

Mitch to the left!

Derek Jeter writes:

Oзнакомиться c достoинствами и нeдоcтатками кaждoй из cистем нaлогообложения. Пoмoчь каждoму учaстнику cделaть пpавильный выбоp, исxoдя из экoномичeских и нaлогoвых послeдствий пpимeнeния упpoщeнной cиcтeмы нaлогoбложения.

Mr. Grunt and Point’s Reply: I ran this through a translator and apparently the gist is that some Soviet captain has turned on his Caterpillar drive and is trying to defect and go to New York, where he can hang with… Derek Jeter?