Your One-Stop Harrassment Shop (SEND A LETTER)
Mitch to the right.

James:

Is it
common practice for CHUD members to send private messages to other members,
harrassing them at their home email address?

My
7-year-old son opened our email this evening and got a profanity-laced email
from a CHUD member, who apparently doesn’t care for my political
affliation.

If that’s
the way CHUD is going to operate, then please delete my account.

Nick: It’s not typical, no but it’s indicative of the web and not just us. People are rude and insensitive and if it isn’t one place that gets you it’s another. That said, there’s something odd about someone letting a seven year old kid into their private mailbox. One suggestion would be for him to have his own little email but not access to yours. A mean letter from a CHUD reader is small potatoes compared to the viruses and scams and porn he could be subjecting himself to. As for the site, it has nothing to do with us or how we operate. It wasn’t anyone from the site who bothered you.

Cleveland Steamer. (SEND A LETTER)Mitch to the right.

Mario:

It
may or may not be
New York shown in the
background of those ‘Spider Man
3’
posters, but a lot of the shots in the movie were filmed in
Cleveland.

Nick: Ok.

Gimme My Shit! (SEND A LETTER)Mitch to the right.

Lee:

I won the contest for the Baywatch dvds and was
wondering it they was mailed out? I haven’t got them yet, if you didn’t guess
that by me asking about them. If they were, when was they?

Nick: Eileen? Devin? Pamela?

Fountain Response. (SEND A LETTER)

Mitch to the right.Michael:

WOW! Just saw it today and was blown away by it. AS a screenwriter I saw
the magnificence of the film as a whole. I told my wife and 2 friens this movie
will be nominated for many Academy Awards. They laughed it off. They just
didn’t get it. I am a believer in the transcendental nature of our souls. We
are all travelers in space and time, our bodies the vessels that take us
through the trip. The soul however is timeless. Our Higher Selves are right
next to us, somewhere above and directly behind all of the time. Almost like
our lives are first person video games that are dangerous because we can really
die if we make a mistake. Art is God reaching out to Us…in all forms.
Religion is Man’s mess of trying to make sense of messages God has been
sending to Us from the beginning of time. Typical H’wood flicks are geared so
that a 6 year old child can follow it. No wonder people are getting dumber and
dumber, movies getting worse and worse. I would cut the tongue out of anyone
who calls Dukes of Hazard a "film." That crap was a movie. The
Fountain is a film!!! High art.

Nick: As a screenwriter I read your mail. Sorry, I had to. Everyone’s a screenwriter. Just ask ’em. The Fountain is a really special film and on the most recent podcast (which should be up today), I had trouble isolating my top few films of the year. This is most definitely one of them but I’m really anxious to see how this is the third and fifth time. I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be one of the movies I revisit time and time again when I need to be reminded about how it can still be done really, REALLY right. I know Warner Bros. and Darren would have liked for more money to have been ponied up for this but I have no doubts this will be a very rewarding and long-term good move for the studio.

Hating On Fanboys. (SEND A LETTER)Mitch to the right.

Ben:

In light of your recent article

(http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=8008),
I’m starting to feel www.chud.com has
developed a serious anti-geek streak. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the
influx of fanboy-loathing has appeared to be on the increase, complete with
venomous puns and insinuating innuendos. This steady buildup of nerd-hate
seemed to begin around the time Devin posted his article about excessive
browncoat-ism being responsible for SERENITY’s failure at the box office. Did
you guys receive a number of vicious e-mails following Devin’s article that
accelerated the collective hatred of the CHUD staff?

Please understand that it wasn’t your article
specifically that urged me to type out this message. It’s the general
belligerence that CHUD has taken on in recent months. I’d just like to
understand where a lot of this nastiness is coming from.

Nick: In our defense (at least mine), we’ve never embraced the ‘Geek Chic’ or whatever it’s called. That’s another site you’re thinking of. We’re united in a love of the genres associated with "geekdom" and read comics and buy toys and play video games but I’d like to think we do it from a perspective where we don’t just blindly gyrate in swoon to things and have little religious epiphanies when we see a katana slice through a leather-clad villain or when Wolvie’s claws pop out. or his cock. Devin is an angry, greasy guy. It’s who he is. Don’t take the bait, that’s all. I’ve grown a little tired of fanboys simply because after you have been around long enough and sat through so many revolutions of the same thing being rebooted with the next crowd, it gets old. It makes me really appreciate the readers who perservere. Don’t read too much into it.

Watchmen Buzz. (SEND A LETTER)Mitch to the right.

Simon:

Through your producing associates – Have you heard positive
buzz through Zack Snyder’s adapting of Watchmen?

Nick:
I have and it sounds like things are moving along pretty well. I’m still really sad about Paul Greengrass not doing it but I love Dawn of the Dead and although the 300 footage I’ve seen doesn’t turn my crank too much I know Lloyd Levin wouldn’t let that property get screwed. He’s been very jazzed about the progress, but there’s one term I’ve learned through the past few years to cling to and it’s to be "guardedly optimistic" about nearly everything. Be such and you should be pleasantly surprised from time to time.

Whoa. (SEND A LETTER)Mitch to the right.

Marketing Services:

Just wanted to let you know we have a TimesTalks Podcast
hosted by Lynn Hirschberg on How We Are Entertained: Editor at Large we
thought you might enjoy it. As you might know, TimesTalks is a series of
events hosted by The New York Times, where we gather some of the most
brilliant and interesting minds to be interviewed before a live audience by a New
York Times correspondent. How We Are Entertained: Editor at Large;
is about NY Times Publisher Lynn Hirschberg sitting down with Bob and
Harvey Weinstein; award-winning movie producers. You can download the free Podcast at our TimesTalks
Podcast page:

http://nytimes.whsites.net/talk/podcasts.html.

Enjoy our How We Are Entertained: Editor at Large
Podcast!

Nick: If you guys are so fucking great, where’s Devin’s invite?

A Mountain for Fountain. (SEND A LETTER)

Mitch to the right.Shailia:

I read your review
for the movie "The Fountain" recently and I just have to say, I agree
with you wholeheartedly. I feel the movie will be an inspiration to people for years to come. I have felt the cold sting of uppity critics saying "There is no point to
this movie" and it hits me straight to the heart. I consider myself a connoisseur of under appreciated films, and I do believe
that every person should at least see it once. Reading your article gave me hope for the movie’s future, seeing someone else
agree with what I have felt ever since that movie, touched me deeply. I just hope that those who do enjoy it as much as I did, will come together to
form a sizable fan base, therefore ensuring it’s place in time and in our
hearts. I thank you so much for reading this and I hope other Fountain fans will read
your review and be as happy as I was to hear this positive critique.

Nick: I think it’s better to be a fan of great films as opposed to underappreciated ones. On the web you tend to see people who spiral into madness over stuff that people ignored or was misunderstood but not embracign the great stuff everyone knows about. There’s a certain appeal of finding "The Sleeper" but there’s no reason we have to wait for the eventual appreciation. I’m glad you loved the movie, but I feel it’s a failure on our part when we don’t infect enough people the first time around.

Thor Will Return. (SEND A LETTER)Mitch to the right.

Tom:

Any chance we’ll see another Thor’s Comic Column sometime
soon? I love most of your site’s content, but have a special place for the
comic reviews. Seems like it’s been a while…

Nick: A week from Sunday Thor will return. We apologize for the delay, some of it was avoidable and much was not. I’ll have Sean Fahey himself in town the week after that and I’ll make sure a hearty pre-Christmas installment hits the site.

Discuss the Leak Letters here.