Mailbagsukidoji:
The Steady Leak
may not be so steady these days, but your letters have been, so I must
share them and answer them so that the wheels keep turning on this
crazy little bitch. Feel free to ask whatever about whomever or
whatever, and I’ll do my best to answer it. Letters in here might be
positive, negative, or indifferent and I’ll try to maintain a balance.
Please keep sending them in (SEND A LETTER), as it’s you who fuels this column. With that said, here we go….
Feelin’ Green.
Bob writes:
Thanks for the screening in
The Island. It was pretty damn
good. One of the things that kind of bothers me is the lack of mention of CHUD
at these screenings. The radio guys may say something about their station, but
rarely (like once or twice of all the screening I have been to) is CHUD even
mentioned. If you ever need help with that, or decide to start giving out passes
at the theater, I am willing to help. I enjoy what you guys do and would like to
help get the word out there.
By the way, greatly anticipating the
continuation of Top 100 Bastards.
Nick’s Reply: The bastards continued today, so I’m glad you’re excited about them. In retrospect it was probably a bad idea to do them on Friday as our readership dwindles around 1pm Central time as people get ready for weekends of stupor and sadness. As for the screening thing, I might one day look to reps in some towns but they weren’t handled too well my first try so I figure the people who give a damn about the site and get their passes from us appreciate it. That said, Greenville is typically a light town when it comes to screenings and I always have a few left over. We need shills in South Carolina!
Huh?
Lil and Bill writes:
So, do you think your movie will offend anyone?
Nick’s Reply: What movie? Meg? Big Dick’s? The Kenny Baker thing I put up on the site? Frankly, I don’t care. The people who get offended are people who look for reasons to get offended and they can go punch the stool out of a bison for all I care. Folks, please specify what you’re referring to in your emails or like Lil and Bill you will be two people without direction, living poorly off the land and relying on each other for warmth in a time of infinite coldness.
Konga Line.
Leonora writes:
Hello – great site; did anyone cover King Kong at
Comic Con? It was the most amazing thing of the whole event! Just
wondering…thanks
Nick’s Reply: We did, but were often doing (and by "we" I mean mostly Russ and Devin as Dave and I had our thumbs in our ass) press and stuff and weren’t on the floor. I’ve heard great things about the footage, though. KK vs. 2-3 T-Rex’s? I can get behind that.
Impatient Dan.
Ron writes:
WHAT the heck is going on? The
three articles a day aren’t giving me my full day’s supply!
Come on Dude Nick! Help a lover
out!
Nick’s Reply: We’ve more than made up for it. Click here and be astounded by the quantity and quality of the coverage. Also, remember this… other sites do some of this stuff but who makes it as attractive as us? Color. Pictures. Formatting. Grammar. God, we freaking rule. Anyways, I guess we are often so hardcore with the updates that a slight lull (we were all on the road) feels like a betrayal. We’ll try to prohibit it from happening again.
I SAW IT!
Moise writes:
This understandably makes you mad, and I agree with you 100% on that. A person is entitled to not like a movie, but at least give reasons *why* you didn’t like it.
Having said that, I would like to point out that you wrote a very similar review (that made me mad) of Saw ( http://chud.com/reviews/329 ). While you didn’t say that it sucked, your review (or lack thereof) implied that the movie wasn’t even worth discussing. I happened to like Saw so it would have been nice to hear why you didn’t like it.
On a brighter note, I’m very happy to hear that you will continue to write the Leak. It is one of my favorite parts of the site.
Nick’s Reply: The Saw review, lest you didn’t catch it, was a joke. Devin and Dave had already given it in-depth reviews and after seeing it (James be damned, I felt Wan after seeing it) felt it’d be fun to do a mini-microscope. That’s the exception and was done as a goof and not as a lazy dismissal of a film without backing it up with cold hard facts. Speaking of cold and hard… Disneydick.
Scripty McScript.
Carlton writes:What book would you recommend to help me write a screenplay?
Nick’s Reply: NONE. Well, there’s a good one called How Not to Write a Screenplay, but I forbid using a book by someone like Syd Field in lieu of grabbing a handful of scripts you adore and learning from the work done by better (and actually successful) writers. Software takes care of the formatting but the more and more I learn the more and more I realize that most of the "how to" books are worse than a stiletto to the hips.
Child Abuse.
Becky writes:
Thanks for the Leak. I don’t always have time to read everything on the site, but I never miss a Leak and it makes my day anytime one pops up.
Also wanted to say thanks for turning me on to Lee Child. I’ve now read four of the Jack Reacher books and really enjoy them. They remind me of when I first started reading Tom Clancy, back before he went way downhill. Because of Liev Schreiber’s excellent John Clark I’d love to see him give Reacher a go.
Thanks for the site. Really loving it.
Nick’s Reply: Right on. It’s my pleasure on all counts. Now that they’re reprinting the Richard Stark novels again I’d suggest you read them when you’re done with Child. You’ll see where a lot of his inspiration came from. Those are the templates for hardasses.
Ronhat.
Hank writes:
it. Take your fucking hat off unless you’re in a hideout planning a heist. If
you’re going bald, get over it. I understand the whole thing about them not
saying anything as soon as you came in, but I’m from the "hats are ridiculous to
begin with unless it’s raining" school. Is it for blocking sun? There’s none in
the restaurant, is there? You have pointed out, repeatedly, that you’re not a
fashion or label whore, so why have it on the whole time? I see, maybe you
forgot you had it on (because no one said anything), but what if you invite
someone over to your house and they wear a hat all through dinner? You’d
consider them a jackass. Not saying your house is that place, I wouldn’t insult
you like that. In short, walk INDOORS, take your hat off. Not to hard to
remember.
Nick’s Reply: Going bald? I wear a hat on a ballfield to avoid the sun and with some clothes because it’s part of the lil’ ensemble. Like today. I’ve got a Dodgers hat on because it goes well with the gray shirt and jeans. Honestly, I didn’t even know I was wearing a hat until the asshole at the restaurant mentioned it. That said, if it takes 45 minutes to enforce a policy, you need to just back off and realize you missed one. You can’t be 45 minutes into a whore and then remember you are against the idea of prostitution. In this case, we both dropped the ball but I stand by my complaint. As for RON, thanks for sticking it out. Afte rone more week of Blood & Guts (thank God), we’re going off into a new direction that isn’t going to be about jokes but rather telling a story. Hope you like The Dark Him.
Fools on Boards.
Caroline writes:
the Worlds. And I couldn’t agree more. I always hate going into a theatre and
walking out, hearing the people who diss the movie I just watched. I like to
think I know movies, so I tend to disregard what that person is saying. Because
I know that they aren’t making an educated answer. So I pretty much think their
retarded and not the movie. There’s definitely a difference between someone who
knows about movies and one who just goes because they have nothing better to do
with their time.
So I go into a forum that I often frequent to give WOTW
a rave review. Totally expecting some positive feedback. When I check back, a
guy I totally respect gives me this response:
Yes I saw this movie and
no, it sucks ASS!!!
You need to read my blog from a couple days ago where I
tor it apart.
In a nutshell, Spielberg took a sci-fi classic and totally
fucked it up.
Where was the war?
In every battle scene, instead of
explosions and soldiers creamed, we see Tom either dry-humping his son or trying
to console that annoying Dakota Fanny-Ass.
For ninety minutes, we watch Tom
Cruise run around with people dying around him, but he always has a clear path?
Hmmmm… Coincidence?
The original protagonist was a credible scientist but
Tom plays a scumbag dock worker with a temultuous (sp?) relationship with his
ex-wife and kids.
How the hell can an audience feel sorry for this band of
idiots? Those kids were effing worthless.
The Tim Robbins cameo was a
complete waste of time. Any first-year acting student could have spewed out that
shitty paranoid dialogue, and the scene with the probe was not nearly as intense
as the original flick.
And this one had superior FX? Maybe so, but they
weren’t used correctly.
Let me tell you something about Steven Speilberg.
His last great movie was Private Ryan? Preposterous!
That movie was no
different from every other dime-a-dozen war picture. And what was it with the
moving cameras during the battle scene? To make us seasick? No, the last great
Speilberg flick was Jurassic park, and he had a big dry spell before that movie.
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Speilberg is known for Indiana Jones, JAWS and
Close Encounters. Everything else was directed by a shell of a filmmaker that
shouldn’t be allowed to remake a classic like WOTW. James Cameron should have
tackled it.
Fuck Speilberg, fuck Tom Cruise, fuck Dakota Fucking Fanny-Pack
and fuck War of the Worlds with an H.G. Wells dildo!!!
This same
person also frequents the Meg forums at IMDb, so I thought he would agree with
me since we both like the books, etc. Anyway, it’s just amazing the things
people say when they might not be as "educated" in movies.
Nick’s Reply: IMDB’s boards are loaded with dumb people. All the really large sites attract them. Look at IGN’s boards sometime. Speaking of IGN, I’m going to be making an appearance over there as a guest DVD reviewer from time to time over the coming months. Kind of like old times in a way.
Commentary.
Eric writes:
Technical and director commentaries are great, but one of my favourites is Pitt,
Norton and Fincher on the Fight Club DVD. There is some shop talk on there, but
its mostly just a general chat about the film which I think makes it such a
great listen (and watch, I suppose). Just save the idea for MEG, its too good to
let die.
Nick’s Reply: I’ll do plenty of commentaries in my lifespan, I’m not worried about it. It just sucks that some legal department made the decision for me on this one. Piss on that.
SPAM OF THE DAY!
Nuay writes:
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